Yukio Edano named as chief of Japan's new main opposition party

TOKYO - Yukio Edano, a 56-year-old veteran Japanese lawmaker who was the government's top spokesman at the time of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, was named Thursday as the leader of a new merged opposition party to be formed in the hope of mounting a united front against the ruling coalition.Edano, who currently heads the liberal-minded Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the biggest opposition party in the country, beat Kenta Izumi, 46, policy chief of the Democratic Party for the People, in the leadership election, in which 149 Diet members who are set to join the merged party …READ FULL ARTICLE