Japanese politics enter a new era

Top Story: Yukio Hatoyama formally took power as Japan's Prime Minister today, ending the country's decades as a virtual one-party state under the Liberal Democratic Party. Hatoyama was elected overwhelmingly in a special session of parliament.

Prime Minister Hatoyama is promising sweeping changes to Japan's moribund state bureaucracy. "I want to create the kind of politics in which politicians take the lead without relying on bureaucrats," he said.

As his Democratic Party has never held power and many of its members are serving their first terms in parliament, Hatoyama has a limited pool from which to choose his cabinet. Hatoyama has gone with two relatively untested party insiders, Katsuyo Okada and Toshimi Kitazawa, as foreign and defense ministers, respectively. But he has opted for experience in his finance minister Hirohisa Fujii, a veteran lawmaker, former finance ministry bureaucrat, and LDP defector.

Taking charge: Libyan diplomat Ali Treki took over the year-long presidency of the U.N. General Assembly.