i'm keiko kitagawa with the latest at this hour. >>> japan's prime minister naoto kan is leaving office barely a year after taking part. he's the fifth prime minister to quit in as many years. he spoke to the nation about a couple of hours ago. here's what he had to say. >> translator: earlier, as of today, i decided to step down as the ruling democratic party president and also as long as the new leader is elected, i'm going to step down as the prime minister. >> kan apologized for failing to prevent the nuclear crisis that followed the march 11th earthquake and tsunami. he said japan must reduce its reliance on nuclear power. >> translator: japan is a great, proud country, but we do have a lot of nuclear reactors, nuclear plants, in the land, and that is what we have experienced this time, and that is the incident in which i felt the powerlessness as a prime minister because we were not able to prevent losing many lives at the time of the earthquake and how to contain that aggravation of that nuclear accident that i was full of here every day, to be honest. as the nuclear disaster onc

i'm keiko kitagawa in tokyo. thank you very much for joining us.