AsiaNews: Japan's new prime minister is finance minister Yoshihiko Noda

The  majority Democratic Party of Japan has selected Yoshihiko Noda, currently finance minister, to replace Naoto Kan as its leader. This ensures that Noda will be selected prime minister of the country by the full Diet shortly. Kan resigned as PM recently after seeing his approval ratings battered by an ineffective response to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the nuclear crisis that resulted. Noda is Japan's sixth prime minister since 2006. Best wishes to Prime Minister Noda who faces a deeply dissatisfied nation reluctant to extend him a honeymoon:

The first comments from political and financial experts in the Land of the Rising Sun are marked by scepticism. A recent editorial in the Tokyo Shimbun says that the Kan administration had led the nation "into a sort of dead end", but with his resignation and the formation of a new government, "hopes, frankly, are no greater".

Incoming Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda