New Japanese PM elected

Long-time opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama was elected prime minister of Japan today, promising to reinvigorate the world’s second-largest economy and shake up government with his left-of-centre party.

Parliament convened in a special session to formally select Hatoyama as the new leader after prime minister Taro Aso and his cabinet resigned earlier in the day, ending more than 50 years of nearly unbroken rule by the conservative and staunchly pro-US Liberal Democratic Party.