Japanese Prince Born Ending Royal Heir Crisis

Japanese royalists were celebrating yesterday after Princess Kiko, the wife of the emperor's younger son, gave birth to a baby boy who will one day become the 128th emperor of Japan.

The rest of the country greeted the prince's arrival with relief that a boy had been born into the imperial family for the first time in more than 40 years, thereby averting a succession crisis that had threatened to bring one of the world's oldest monarchies to the brink of extinction.

The 2.55kg (5lb 10oz) baby and his mother were both said to be doing well following the delivery, by caesarean section, at a private hospital in Tokyo.

The baby's arrival is expected to put on hold talk of reforming Japan's succession law to allow females to inherit the chrysanthemum throne. The prince, who will be named in an ancient ceremony in a week's time, is the first male to be born into the imperial family since his father, Prince Akishino, in 1965.

Akishino, 40, has yet to speak publicly about the birth but was quoted as thanking his wife for "a job well done" as she emerged from the operating theatre. "I'm back," was her reported response.

"That's great," said the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, who withdrew plans to introduce a bill allowing the emperor's first child to ascend the throne, regardless of gender, days after Kiko's pregnancy was announced in February.

The prince's birth has boosted the cause of conservatives who believe that allowing females to ascend the throne would destroy a lineage that, according to royalists, can be traced back 2,600 years to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami.