Japan - Prime Minister Shuffles Cabinet - NYTimes.com The Japanese cabinet resigned en masse on Friday, in a routine step that allows Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to announce a new lineup later in the day. Such reshufflings are common in Japan when a leader wants to push a new policy initiative, and Mr. Noda apparently hopes to convince the opposition to join his push to raise the national sales tax. Mr. Noda, a fiscal conservative, has pledged to submit a bill to the next session of Parliament to raise the national sales tax, currently 5 percent, in an effort to rein in Japan's ballooning national debt, one of the largest among developed nations. It is unclear how many of his 17 ministers he will actually replace, but local news reports said he was expected to leave about a dozen in place.