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Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan confirmed his cabinet's announcement that he is resigning from the country's top leadership position, which he held for only 15 months. Kan's popularity declined after his management of the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear crisis. The country was already struggling to recover from a decade of economic decline when the disasters struck, and the threat of another global recession has not helped matters. Kan is the sixth prime minister in Japan to step down in the past five years, the latest sign that the country's political system is floundering.