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New premier Aso takes charge of Japan

AP, AFP, Tokyo
Japan’s new Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged yesterday to fight to renew a domestically unpopular naval mission providing support in the Indian Ocean to the US-led “war on terror."
Aso took charge as Japan’s new prime minister lining up his cabinet with like-minded conservatives to help his mission to revive the economy and win upcoming elections
The divided parliament voted along party lines to install the flamboyant former foreign minister, who was expected to fly a day later to New York for the UN General Assembly.
Aso bowed four times and shook hands with fellow lawmakers after the more powerful lower house approved him.
"I truly feel the heavy’ responsibility of being prime minister," Aso told a news conference as he announced his cabinet.
To make Japan a bright and strong nation -- that is my mission," he said
Aso told his first news conference as premier that helping the war on terror was not for the sake of Afghanistan or the United States or Pakistan.
"This is the responsibility of Japan as a member of the international community which is balding terror." he said
The mission provides fuel and other logistical support to US-led forces operating in Afghanistan.
Japan's opposition, which controls the upper house of parliament. forced a temporary halt last year to the operation, arguing the officially pacifist country’ should not take part in "American wars."
The naval mission is set to expire in January. It could become even more controversial as Aso is widely expected to call early elections in the next two months.
Outgoing prime minister Yasuo Fukuda agreed to end a separate military mission flying goods and personnel into Iraq as another showdown loomed with the opposition.
Japan was forced to renounce the right to wage war after its defeat in World War II.
'The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) picked Aso on Monday as its new leader by an overwhelming majority, placing its trust in a crowd-pleasing - though gaffe-prone - campaigner.
Analysts expect him to call a general election as early as late October in a bid to hold off gains by the rising opposition, which has
pounded away at the LDP's traditional strongholds in the countryside.
"The final battle has begun. The autumn of elections -- the autumn to change the government -- is coming," said opposition chief Ichiro Ozawa, whose bloc controls one house of parliament.
The LDP has been in power for all but 10 months since 1955, but Aso wall be its fourth prime minister in the past two years as the party struggles over a raft of scandals and, more recently, a faltering economy.
Aso said his first priority Would be to pump simulative spending into the economy, the world's second largest but teetering on the brink of recession, clashing with LDP free-market reformists who in recent years have pushed to tame a ballooning public debt.
Aso tapped as his finance minis? ter Shoichi Nakagawa who, eql)Or ing the incoming premier, said he would make "full use of all sorts of policies" to invigorate the economy.
"This is the lineup aimed at avoiding any political scandals ahead of the imminent general elections." said Shujiro Kato, professor of politics at Toyo University.
"Nobody reported to be appointed as minister is a fresh face."
The foreign ministry went to Hirofumi Nakasone, the son of one of Japan's best-known premiers, Yasuhiro Nakasone, who led Japan in the 1980s and was a close ally in US president Ronald Reagan's anticommunist campaign.
Also, in a bid to ensure party unity, Aso kept in place Fiscal and Economic Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano, who had challenged him for the top job arguing that Aso's economic policies were irresponsible.
Another rival, Shigeru Ishiba, was made farm minister, a position that has frequently been hit by scandal. Ishiba survived resignation calls as he managed crises as Fukuda'sdefence minister.
Aso promises a return both at home and abroad to some of the ,XT) o re. tl am boyant ways o f- Ko tzu m i. who would regale summits by singing Flvis Presley songs, after a two-year gap of drier leaders.
Known for his love of comic books, as foreign minister Aso entertained summits by doing a Humphrey Bogart impersonation and dancing in the costume of a samurai.