Japanese PM announces new cabinet

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reshuffled his Cabinet on Monday, replacing five ministers out of 18, in a move to win support from the opposition parties for his tax raise bill. Monday's reshuffle in the second one since the Noda took office last September. The first reshuffle was in January. The personnel change, which didn't involve key economic ministers, comes after Noda failed to secure backing for the tax bill from influential ruling party member Ichiro Ozawa. Because Ozawa heads the largest faction within the Democratic Party of Japan, without his support, Noda will have no choice but to turn to the opposition Liberal Democratic Party. Noda replaced five of his 18 ministers, including the defense and transport ministers. The LDP had been demanding their resignations as a precondition for moving ahead with talks on the bill to double the sales tax to 10% by 2015. Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka and Transport Minister Takeshi Maeda, who were both censured in April by the opposition-dominated upper house of parliament, were replaced by Satoshi Morimoto, a 71- year-old professor at Takushoku University, and Yuichiro Hata, the Democratic Party of Japan's Diet affairs chief in the upper house, respectively.