Yoshiro Mori assumed office as Prime Minister and formed his Cabinet. He was designated Prime Minister by both Houses of the Diet in the afternoon. That night at the Imperial Palace he was appointed Prime Minister and the appointment of the Ministers of State of the Mori Cabinet was attested. Prime Minister Mori is Japan's eighty-fifth Prime Minister (the fifty-fifth person) since Hirobumi Ito in 1885, and the twenty-sixth postwar Prime Minister. In an announcement Prime Minister Mori expressed his determination, as the person responsible for the administration of state affairs, to strive toward effecting a"rebirth of Japan" and to confront Japan's trying situations and live up to the people's trust.