Nobutaka Machimura, the leader of the biggest faction, who had served for a month as Mr Abe's foreign minister, becomes Mr Fukuda's chief cabinet secretary and in effect government gatekeeper.
Yet Mr Fukuda's survival hangs on people taking seriously his promise to face down pork-barrel interests.
Mr Fukuda's approval ratings are now even lower in some polls than the low point of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe.
At the time of the cabinet reshuffle, Yoshiro Mori, one of the LDP's grand old men, foisted Taro Aso onto Mr Fukuda as the party's new secretary-general.
The move from level three to level four on the WHO's six-level threat scale means the world body has determined the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission -- a major step toward a flu pandemic, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the agency's assistant director-general.
As host, Japan's prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, is determined to make the best of the contradictions.
Mr Fukuda will possibly not be around in a year's time, with Mr Brown's future only a little less assured.
Mr Aso, more hawkish than Mr Fukuda, is congenial and fairly popular, having worked the party's grass-roots organisations.
Late last month, Mr Fukuda called for a fresh diplomacy in Asia that built on his father's beliefs.
Still, Mr Fukuda has pulled off a Koizumi-like feat: with Mr Ozawa's help, he has positioned himself as a crusader against his own party's forces of reaction.
Researchers are still trying to determine how easily the virus is transmitted person to person and it's too early to predict whether there will be a mild or serious pandemic, said Fukuda.
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