A woman pushes a stroller by a Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo
Give Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), points for speed. Within hours of the DPJ's historic general-election victory on Aug. 30, Hatoyama was conferencing by phone with the leaders of South Korea and Australia, meeting with journalists and otherwise behaving as Japan's next Prime Minister which he certainly will become in just a few weeks. "We have finally reached the starting line," Hatoyama told reporters on Aug. 31, leaving little doubt that he was eager to get on with governing.
