Taro Aso was elected Japan's new prime minister on September 231. Aso faced his first political crisis just days into the job when his transport minister, Nariaki Nakayama, resigned on September 28. The resignation came weeks before the government faces the prospect of defeat in an early general election. Nakayama was forced to resign following criticism against his tirades against tens of thousands of teachers and other campaigners in one of the country's longest-running civic protests. Ignoring the more than a century of discrimination against Japan's indigenous people, he had also described the country as "ethnically homogeneous." Nakayama charged that Nikkyoso, a left-leaning union representing 320,000 teachers, was a "cancer" that should be "destroyed" for its opposition to the teaching of patriotism in state schools2.

In other developments, Japan signed a deal on September 22 to buy some of the Czech Republic's unused carbon credits3.

• 1. “Japan ruling party leader elected prime minister,” Associated Press Writer, September 24, 2008, at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_politics&printe...
• 2. “Japan's new PM faces crisis within days of taking office,” The Guardian, September 29, 2008, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/29/japan
• 3. “Japan to buy Czech carbon credits: ministry,” Associated Foreign Press, September 23, 2008, at http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ifvxq_eIFozOTKVezIAo1HkFxG-w