Yoshihiko Noda 野田 佳彦
Prime Minister of Japan
Incumbent
Assumed office 2 September 2011
Monarch	Akihito
Deputy	Katsuya Okada
Preceded by	Naoto Kan
Minister of Finance
In office 8 June 2010 – 2 September 2011
Prime Minister	Naoto Kan
Preceded by	Naoto Kan
Succeeded by	Jun Azumi
Senior Vice Minister of Finance
In office 16 September 2009 – 8 June 2010 Served alongside: Naoki Minezaki
Prime Minister	Yukio Hatoyama
Preceded by	Wataru Takeshita Masatoshi Ishida
Succeeded by	Motohisa Ikeda Naoki Minezaki
Personal details
Born	(1957-05-20) 20 May 1957 (age 55) Funabashi, Chiba, Japan
Political party	Democratic Party (1998–present)
Other political affiliations	Japan New Party (1992–1994)
Spouse(s)	Hitomi Noda (1992-present)
Alma mater	Waseda University
Website	Official website

This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana.

Yoshihiko Noda (野田 佳彦, Noda Yoshihiko^?, born 20 May 1957) is the current Prime Minister of Japan, a member of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and a member of the House of Representatives (lower house) in the Diet (national legislature). He was named to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan as a result of a runoff vote against Banri Kaieda in his party,^[1] and was formally appointed by the Emperor on 2 September 2011.

Early life[link]

Noda was born in Funabashi, Chiba, as a son of a member of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.^[2] Unlike many prominent Japanese politicians, Noda has no family connections to Nagatachō. His parents were too poor to pay for a wedding reception.^[3][4]

Noda graduated from Chiba Prefectural Funabashi Senior High School in 1975. Then, Noda graduated from Waseda University School of Political Sciences and Economics in 1980 and was later accepted into the prestigious Matsushita Institute, an institution founded by Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita that grooms future civic leaders of Japan. While attending the Matsushita Institute, Noda read household gas meters as a part-time job in his native Chiba Prefecture, partially in order to get to know his future constituents better in preparation for a run for office.^[5] He was elected to the assembly of Chiba Prefecture for the first time in 1987 at the age of 29.^[6]

Diet career[link]

Noda with Singapore Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

In 1993, he was elected to the Diet for first time representing Chiba's Lower House District #4 as a member of the now-defunct Japan New Party. He later joined the DPJ and served as its Diet affairs chief as well as head of the party's public relations office. Noda acted as senior vice finance minister when the DPJ won control of the Diet in September 2009.^[6]

In June 2010, Noda was appointed as Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was also the previous Minister of Finance. Noda is known as a reformist and has led a DPJ intraparty group critical of ex-DPJ Secretary General Ichirō Ozawa.^[6]

Upon assuming the post of finance minister, Noda, a fiscal conservative, expressed his determination to slash Japan's deficit and rein in gross public debt. In January 2011, for the first time in six years, Noda's finance ministry intervened in the foreign exchange market and spent 2.13 trillion yen to purchase dollars in order to rein in the yen’s spiraling appreciation.^[7]

Noda is said to have close relations with the United States, and has said that "China's rapid military buildup pose a serious regional risk, and stressed the importance of the US-Japan security alliance."^[8]

After Kan's resignation in August 2011, Noda stood as a candidate in the party election to replace him.^[9][10] He won the runoff vote against Banri Kaieda in the leadership election, meaning he would almost certainly become the next prime minister and inherit the challenge of rebuilding from the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.^[1][11] During the party caucus making the leadership decision, Noda made a 15-minute speech in which he summarized his political career by comparing himself to dojo loach, a kind of bottom-feeding fish. Paraphrasing a poem by Mitsuo Aida, he said, "I'll never be a goldfish in a scarlet robe, but like a loach in muddy waters. I'll work hard for the people, to move politics forward."^[5] Subsequently, he has been widely^{[citation needed]} dubbed "Prime Minister Loach" in the Japanese media, and his cabinet is called the "Loach Cabinet".^[12]

Position on war responsibility[link]

In October 2005, Noda criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for his position on Japanese class A war criminals as "war criminals". However, Noda supported Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine.^[13] On 15 August 2011—the anniversary of the year for the Surrender of Japan in World War II, he said that Japan's class A war criminals convicted by the Allies were not legally war criminals under his view.^[14] Since becoming prime minister he has stated that his position on this issue will follow the standard set by previous administrations, and that he does not wish to alter Japan's close relationship with China and Korea.^[15]

Prime Minister[link]

In his first speech as Prime Minister on 2 September, Noda confirmed that the Japanese government will continue to phase out nuclear power, by not building new nuclear power plants nor extending the life spans of outdated ones; however, nuclear power plants which are currently sitting idle in the wake of the Fukushima disaster will be restarted in order to help Japan's immediate demands for energy.^[16]

Since becoming Prime Minister, Noda's most important initiative has been the inclusion of Japan in planning the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, which he announced on 11 November.^[17] This has proved controversial and is widely discussed in Japanese society. Otherwise, he has engaged himself in assisting Japan's economic recovery from the Tohoku earthquake.

Personal life[link]

Noda is married to his wife Hitomi since 1992 and has 2 sons^[18].

Noda is a fan of martial arts and professional wrestling. He has a black belt in judo.^[5]

References[link]

• "政治家情報 〜野田 佳彦〜" (in Japanese). JANJAN. http://www.senkyo.janjan.jp/diet/profile/0000/00000098.html. Retrieved 2007-10-10. 

External links[link]

	Japan portal
	Biography portal
	Politics portal

Wikinews has related news: Yoshihiko Noda appointed Prime Minister of Japan

• Official website in Japanese

v t e Prime Ministers of Japan (List) H. Itō Kuroda Sanjō Yamagata Matsukata H. Itō Kuroda Matsukata H. Itō Ōkuma Yamagata H. Itō Saionji Katsura Saionji Katsura Saionji Katsura Yamamoto Ōkuma Terauchi Hara Uchida Takahashi To. Katō Uchida Yamamoto Kiyoura Ta. Katō Wakatsuki G. Tanaka Hamaguchi Shidehara Hamaguchi Wakatsuki Inukai Takahashi Saitō Okada Gotō Okada Hirota Hayashi Konoe Hiranuma N. Abe Yonai Konoe Tōjō Koiso K. Suzuki Higashikuni Shidehara Yoshida Katayama Ashida Yoshida I. Hatoyama Ishibashi Kishi Ikeda Satō K. Tanaka Miki T. Fukuda Ōhira M. Itō Z. Suzuki Nakasone Takeshita Uno Kaifu Miyazawa Hosokawa Hata Murayama Hashimoto Obuchi Aoki Mori Koizumi S. Abe Y. Fukuda Aso Y. Hatoyama Kan Noda Italics denote acting Prime Ministers

Tsering Dorjee Bawa is a Tibetan stage and film actor, singer, dancer and musician.

He was born in Toe Bawa in the Ngari Prefecture in western Tibet. At the age of 16, he began studying the arts at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala, India, graduating in 1994 with an advanced degree in Tibetan secular dance, music and opera. In 1999 he starred in the French Nepali film directed by Eric Valli, Himalaya - l'enfance d'un chef, in which he starred alongside Lhakpa Tsamchoe. He obtained his Master's degree of the Tibetan performing arts in 2000.

He currently resides in the Bay Area, California where he teaches Tibetan music and acting in between theatrical performances.

In 2008 he celebrated the Losar festival with a performance in Toronto, Canada with Passang Lhamo. Later, he performed the play Tibet, A Year After at Oakland, California to celebrate the 73rd birthday of His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama.

Amongst his well known songs are Mani Do Bum.

Filmography[link]

• Himalaya - l'enfance d'un chef (1999) .... Rabkie
• We're No Monks (2004) .... Pasanag

External links[link]

• Tibetan actor biography
• Tsering Dorjee at the Internet Movie Database
• A singing performance on YouTube

This article about an Asian actor is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This Tibet-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e