Prime Minister Naoto Kan called Monday on the opposition camp to back his plans to launch a joint panel to discuss ways to restore the nation's battered finances, but he also came under fire.
The opposition camp grilled Kan over his involvement in the previous administration's flip-flops on relocating the U.S. Futenma air base and the money scandals that led to the resignations of Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister and Ichiro Ozawa as secretary general of the Democratic Party of Japan.
The DPJ-led coalition meanwhile faced harsh criticism for effectively deciding to let the Diet session end Wednesday as scheduled, after retracting its earlier proposal to extend it by one day.