Japan’s new prime minister

This video says about itself:

Peace protest, Hiroshima, Japan, March 2003, a few days prior to the start of the Iraq War.

By John Chan:

Japan’s ruling party to select new prime minister as economy slides into recession

20 September 2008

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is due to pick a replacement for outgoing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Monday. LDP secretary general and former foreign minister Taro Aso is the clear frontrunner in a field of five as the party desperately attempts to resurrect its political fortunes before likely early elections.

In office for just a year, Fukuda stepped down on September 1 after a cabinet reshuffle and the announcement of a stimulus package failed to lift his cabinet’s poll ratings. A Jiji poll published yesterday put the government’s approval rating at just 15.6 percent, down eight points from last month. Fukuda’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, suffered a similar fate after taking over from Junichiro Koizumi, who held onto office for five years. …

There are concerns in Japanese ruling circles that Aso’s hawkish foreign policy stance will lead to tensions with China and South Korea. He backed Koizumi’s public visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a notorious symbol of Japanese militarism, that provoked protests in Beijing and Seoul. As foreign minister under Koizumi and Abe, Aso was closely associated with their hard-line stance against North Korea and support for the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.