In Japan, after a huge dispute around the U.S. military base on the southen land of Okinawa and money scandals, Mr. Naoto Kan has been elected from Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) as a new prime minister of Japan.

An interesting fact is that he graduated Tokyo Institute of Technology on 1970, not surprisingly which has little politicians in Japan. Unlike many prime ministors, he is not a "second generation," either. However, he is considered as one of the most experienced politicians in DPJ.

In the BBC news, he is seen as a strait-talker, especially for standing up to the bureaucracy. In 1990s, he exposed a scandal involving HIV-tainted blood products, which had infected the HIV with many people in Japan.

His speech emphasised the neccesity of the economic improvement and the governmnet's fincancial reformation, implying the raise of the consumption tax, or VAT. In this sense, he seems to be more realistic than his predecessor, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, as Mr. Kan has served the finance ministry from January. IMD, Swiss business institute, estimated that Japan has the worst dept in the developed countries, would take until 2084 to clear.

Only one soundness in finance may be the VAT rate of 5%, which is one of the lowest among these countries.

He is facing many issues for the first place, and a mid-term election is waiting for the new government.