Prime Minister, Naoto Kan | featured news

As Mr. Kan confirmed his intention to resign, the race to pick Japan’s sixth leader in five years was up in the air on Friday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Saturday it will take decades to clean up and decommission the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after the world's worst atomic accident since Chernobyl.

Embattled Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan -- in danger of losing a no-confidence vote in parliament on Thursday -- will offer to resign later this year after dealing with a nuclear crisis and other urgent matters related to the massive March earthquake and tsunami, domestic media reported.

Japan's nuclear crisis is slowly stabilizing and the country must now focus on repairing the damage wrought by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the northeast coast a month ago, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told a news conference on Sunday he would resign following criticism for accepting political donations from a foreign national, the latest blow to unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan's troubled government.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has told his Japanese counterpart Naoto Kan that a disputed stretch of islands in the East China Sea belonged to China, state media said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan rejected China’s demand that Tokyo apologize for the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has a slight edge over powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa ahead of a party leadership vote next week, NHK public TV said on Friday, but with many party lawmakers undecided the outcome is too close to call.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Sunday that he will not resign, even as early results showed his Democratic Party heading for a major political setback in a midterm election.

Both the upper and lower houses of Japan's parliament elected Finance Minister Naoto Kan to be the nation's new prime minister Friday, following the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama from the post earlier this week.