JAPAN: Qualified Triumph

Blinking in the glare of TV lights and mopping his face with a large handkerchief. Ichiro Hatoyama sat confidently in the Diet last week, waiting to be elected Japan's new Premier and watching the members drop their votes in a black-lacquered box. All the conservative parties had agreed to support Hatoyama. and his only opponent was Mosaburo Suzuki, onetime ricksha boy who has become leader of the Diet's left-wing Socialists. The vote for Ichiro Hatoyama: 254-160. Climbing into his wheelchair, Hatoyama rolled around the chamber on a triumphal tour, brandishing a glass of...

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