Hatoyama announces new cabinet

TOKYO: Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has announced his Cabinet lineup, picking a veteran lawmaker and party ally as finance minister and a fellow party leader as his foreign minister.

Hatoyama, who took office Wednesday, named Katsuya Okada as foreign minister and Hirohisa Fujii as finance minister. Though Okada has never held a Cabinet post, Fujii was finance minister under a coalition government in 1993-94, the only time in its 55-year history that the outgoing Liberal Democrats had previously been ousted from power.

Hatoyama was elected as prime minister by parliament's lower house in a special session called after his Democratic Party of Japan ousted the conservative Liberal Democratic Party — who are conservative and staunchly pro-U.S — in polls last month.