According to local media reports, Sanae Takaichi will become the first woman prime minister of Japan after the main opposition and the ruling party form a coalition government.
According to a report from Japan’s Kyodo news agency on Sunday, Sanae Takaichi, the leader of the traditionally conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and Hirofumi Yoshimura, the leader of the smaller, right-leaning Japan Innovation Party (JIP), Ishin, are scheduled to sign a deal on their alliance on Monday.
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Takaichi led the ruling LDP earlier this month, but her resumption of her governing coalition stifled her bid to become Japan’s first female premier.
The LDP has been collaborating since then to put her best chance of winning back in the top job.
The LDP has given Takaichi the task of bringing the coalition together, while the JIP will hold a legislative plenary meeting on Sunday and a board meeting the following day, according to Kyodo.
Takaichi and Yoshimura were “likely to sign a coalition agreement,” according to the top Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Japan.
After the LDP’s junior partner, the Komeito party, left the ruling coalition after 26 years, leading to a political crisis in the nation, reports of a new coalition emerge.
The LDP and JIP’s agreement, which could be finalized on Tuesday, could pave the way for Takaichi’s election as premier, but the parties are still two votes away from passing a majority.
However, Takaichi would only need more MPs’ votes than the other candidate in the event that the vote would turn to a second-round runoff.
The United States President Donald Trump’s announcement to form a coalition comes just days before his anticipated arrival in Japan.
Following a week of ferocious and deadly clashes along their disputed border, Qatar and Turkiye reached an agreement to an immediate ceasefire.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have ratified the ceasefire, according to Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs, and mechanisms have been set up to ensure lasting peace and stability between the two nations.
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According to Doha, the two nations agreed to hold follow-up meetings in the coming days “to ensure the sustainability of the ceasefire and verify its implementation in a reliable and sustainable manner.”
In the worst kind of conflict between the two South Asian neighbors since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in 2021, both sides announced earlier that they were holding peace talks in Doha on Saturday as they sought a solution.
Statement | Doha, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Reach a Mutual Ceasefire during a Round of Negotiations. twitter.com/fPXvn6GaU6
According to a spokesman for the Afghan government, Zabihullah Mujahid, “as promised, negotiations with the Pakistani side will take place today in Doha,” adding that Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob, the country’s defense minister, had arrived in the capital.
Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the country’s defense minister, had discussions with Afghan Taliban leaders, according to a statement from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Foreign Office stated that the talks will concentrate on taking immediate steps to stop Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and restore stability along the Afghan-Pak border.
After Islamabad demanded that Kabul rein in rebels who had increased cross-border attacks in Pakistan, Islamabad claimed that the fighters were operating from safe havens in Afghanistan, the one-time allies and Pakistani air strikes along their disputed 2, 600km (1, 600-mile) frontier, which were sparked by Islamabad’s demand that Kabul halt the fighters.
The Taliban accuses the Pakistani military of spreading false information about Afghanistan and sheltering ISIL (ISIS)-linked fighters, who have harmed the country’s stability and sovereignty, and denies providing shelter to armed groups fighting against Pakistan.
Kabul’s accusations have been refuted by Islamabad. In an effort to overthrow the government and replace it with a strict brand of Islamic governance, Pakistan has accused Kabul of allowing armed groups to live inside Afghanistan and waged years of war against it.
Security personnel reported that seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and 13 were hurt in a suicide attack on Friday near the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that Hamas would turn over the remains of two more Israeli captives who had passed away in Gaza, as the Palestinian group claimed that Israel is still violating the ceasefire and disobeying its obligations to peace mediators.
The Israeli government’s office stated in a post on the X social media platform early on Sunday that “Israel has received, via the Red Cross, the bodies of two hostages” and that they had returned to Israeli security forces in Gaza.
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No names have been made public about the return of the remains, despite the prime minister’s office’s statement that the families of the Israeli prisoners have received updates on the situation.
The Israeli National Center of Forensic Medicine is where the two bodies are currently being transferred, according to the office, and “formal notification will be sent to the families once the identification process is complete.”
The prime minister’s office added that “the effort to return our hostages is ongoing and won’t end until the last hostage is returned.”
In response to the handover, Hamas has now fulfilled one of the 28 captives’ demands set by Israel in the two-year ceasefire agreement, which was signed late on Saturday.
Within 72 hours of the signing of the agreement, Hamas was supposed to release all of the Israeli prisoners, including the living and the dead. Israel was ordered to release some 2, 000 prisoners and 360 bodies of deceased Palestinians in exchange.
The recovery of the bodies of dead captives has been hampered by Hamas’ claim that the Palestinian territory’s widespread devastation and the Israeli military’s continued occupation of some areas of Gaza have caused.
Hani Mahmoud, a journalist for Al Jazeera from Gaza City, reported that the Palestinian authorities lack the necessary tools to search for the bodies of the captives beneath the rubble of the destroyed buildings.
“The recovery teams on the ground are facing extraordinary challenges,” says the author. To speed up the recovery and return of bodies, they don’t have any bulldozers, trucks, cranes, or other heavy equipment, according to Mahmoud.
Because Al Jazeera is prohibited from Israel and the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, who is reporting from Amman, Jordan, claimed Netanyahu’s government has known for “some time” that recovering captives’ bodies would be “an incredibly difficult and daunting task.”
However, Netanyahu has claimed that Hamas is failing to return all of the bodies and that all bodies must be returned right away, Salhut said.
She said, “Until that happens, Israel will honor more of the commitments of the ceasefire, like allowing for more humanitarian aid, talking about opening the Rafah border crossing,” and that is when.
Palestinian prisoners who have been released by Israel as part of a ceasefire and a captives-exchange agreement are transported by hospital staff to the morgue of Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Saturday [Omar al-Qattaa/AFP]
Hamas and Israel have exchanged accusations of violating the US-mediated ceasefire for days.
Hamas criticized Israel’s refusal to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt as “a blatant violation” of the agreement and accused the Netanyahu government of “fabricating flimsy pretexts” for failing to fulfill its commitments to the peace deal on Saturday.
In an attack east of Gaza City on Friday, Israeli forces attacked 11 members of a single family, including seven children.
The main entryway into and out of Gaza’s Rafah crossing, which is the main gateway for people there, will reopen on Monday, according to the Egyptian Embassy’s announcement from earlier on Saturday.
Netanyahu, however, stated that the border crossing would remain closed pending Hamas’ request to turn over all of the Israeli prisoners’ bodies.
Despite the ceasefire agreement, humanitarian aid continues to flow slowly into Gaza.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, announced on Saturday that it had received enough humanitarian food to provide three months of food for Gaza. However, trucks carrying the vital cargo are stranded in Jordanian and Egyptian warehouses and are unable to enter Gaza.
On Sunday, October 19, 2025, how things are going:
Fighting
One village in the Dnipropetrovsk region and two in the northeastern Kharkiv, which are closer to the Russian border, had already been taken by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, announced on X that work has already been done to repair the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant’s damaged power lines. Authorities had warned that the plant’s safety was threatened by a four-week power outage that required power to keep reactors cool in order to prevent a dangerous meltdown.
diplomacy and politics
After meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC on Friday, Ukrainians expressed disappointment that the United States might not provide them with long-range Tomahawk missiles, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Regional security
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled opposition leader in Belarus, pleaded with Trump on Saturday to intensify efforts to promote democracy there, arguing that a free Belarus was in the interests of Washington.
The Serb-majority organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina has appointed Ana Trisic Babic as its interim leader, marking the first official acknowledgment that Milorad Dodik has resigned from office after being barred from state politics by a state court.
Babic’s appointment was confirmed on Saturday by the Republika Srpska parliament, which stated that she would remain in office until November 23’s early presidential elections.
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Additionally, Dodik’s separatist laws, which challenged the authority of a foreign envoy and Bosnia’s constitutional court, were overturned by the legislature.
Dodik, a pro-Russian nationalist who has pushed for Serbian independence, refused to step down from office despite being banned politically. He has continued to seek presidential approval while challenging the court’s decision.
He publicly praised the US Department of the Treasury’s decision to remove four Dodik allies from its list of sanctions on Friday as part of his campaign to have them removed.
Dodik’s actions are currently being investigated by the United States, the UK, and several European governments for allegedly violating the 1992–1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.
Separatist actions
Following an appeals court ruling that placed him in jail for a year and made him unfit for a six-year term in political office, Bosnia’s electoral authorities in August removed him from office.
A rule that mandates the removal of any elected official serving more than six months in prison was applied by the Central Electoral Commission.
Dodik was found guilty in Sarajevo in February after the international envoy, Christian Schmidt, who oversees the Dayton accords’ implementation, refused to follow the judgments of the court.
Dodik later refrained from supporting the ruling, saying that he would continue to be in power as long as the Bosnian-Serb parliament, which his allies control, was supported. The Republika Srpska government characterized the decision as “unconstitutional and politically motivated.”
Dodik continues to enjoy strong support from regional allies, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. He has repeatedly threatened to break up Bosnia, causing fear in Bosniak communities and stifling previous US administrations.
The US-brokered Dayton Accords, which put an end to a devastating war that claimed about 100, 000 lives, continue to govern Bosnia. Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation have each shared national institutions, including the presidency, military, judiciary, and taxation system, as a result of the agreement.
As part of the “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration, education, and security, crowds gathered in the US capital on Saturday. Shihab Rattansi of Al Jazeera is on the scene.
