Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday named new lawmaker Satsuki Katayama as parliamentary secretary to the trade minister among his appointments of 22 senior vice ministers and 26 parliamentary secretaries.
The appointment of the 46-year-old Katayama, a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, follows the only other appointment of a newcomer -- Kuniko Inoguchi, 53, a former ambassador to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament and a professor at Sophia University, who was given the post of state minister in charge of gender equality.
The female lawmakers are two of the so-called Koizumi children, who were picked by the prime minister to run in the Sept. 11 general election to help him press ahead with his reform drive.