According to NHK, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has made the decision to step down in order to prevent a rift within the LDP, which is currently in power.
Ishiba, who previously denied plans to step down in the wake of a historic defeat suffered in the LDP-led coalition in the July election, said he wanted to ensure that the tariff agreement with the US was properly implemented.
Ishiba has seen electoral losses leave his party with a majority in the more powerful lower house after taking office in October.
The coalition’s policy objectives have been made more difficult by the defeats.
The prime minister has been urged to step down by mostly right-wingers in his party, who have since urged him to accept responsibility for the results of the July election.
Ishiba and a former prime minister met with him on Saturday night, according to reports, to persuade him to resign.
The Japanese government confirmed that Ishiba would hold a press conference later on Sunday, the day before the LDP was scheduled to cast a decision regarding whether to hold an early leadership election. The prime minister’s office has not yet responded to reports of his resignation.
The developments come just days after US President Donald Trump officially announced an earlier agreement in July by lowering the tariffs on imported Japanese cars from 27.5% to 15% in an executive order issued on Thursday.
A 15% levy will be levied against the majority of Japanese exports to the US under its terms.
Business tycoon and veteran politician Anutin Charnvirakul has taken office as prime minister of Thailand, after an endorsement from the king paved the way for his tenure as the nation’s newest leader following months of political turmoil.
“His majesty the king has endorsed Mr Anutin Charnvirakul to be prime minister from now onwards”, Arpath Sukhanunth, secretary-general of Thailand’s lower house of parliament, declared on Sunday, reading aloud a royal command in a ceremony at Anutin’s Bhumjaithai Party headquarters in Bangkok.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Images posted on social media by Thai news agencies showed Anutin bowing before an image of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, before greeting his family, including his father, a former interior minister.
In remarks after accepting his election, Anutin was quoted by Bangkok Post as saying it was a “limitless blessing and honour” for him and his family.
Anutin also promised to perform his prime minister position “at his best with honesty and righteousness for the benefit of Thai people and the stability of Thailand”, Bangkok Post reported.
Anutin, 58, becomes the kingdom’s third leader in two years, but has taken power with backing from the more dominant and progressive People’s Party on condition that he dissolves parliament within four months to hold elections.
A survey conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration and published on Sunday showed that 59.24 percent of voters want the parliament dissolved as soon as possible, while 27 percent said it should be dissolved in four months.
The same survey also showed that almost 60 percent of the respondents said they support amendments in the country’s constitution.
On Friday, Anutin ousted the populist Shinawatra clan’s Pheu Thai party, which has monopolised the top office since the 2023 elections but saw its dynasty heiress, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, sacked as prime minister by court order last month.
He quickly announced on Saturday the appointment of a veteran economist, an energy executive and a longtime diplomat in key positions in finance, energy and foreign affairs, saying he wants to bring confidence back to the government.
Anutin previously served as deputy prime minister, interior minister and health minister, but is perhaps most famous for delivering on a promise to decriminalise cannabis in 2022.
the mother who searched for her missing son for 32 years.
A mother searched for her son for 32 years after his 1988 kidnapping. She never gave up, and she traveled the country by handing out more than 100,000 flyers. She wasn’t alone in this nightmare, she didn’t realize.
Every year, 200 000 children disappear in China, a number that is linked to the 1970s, the one-child policy, and a dangerous child trafficking industry. What are China’s children learning?
At least three people have been killed, 18 wounded, and dozens of buildings set on fire in Kyiv, including the seat of the government, following a Russian drone and missile attack in Ukraine‘s capital, according to officials and local news reports.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko was initially quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that the attack early on Sunday killed an infant and a young woman, and sparked fires at several high-rise buildings in the city’s west and east.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s city administration, later confirmed the body of a one-year-old child was dug out of the rubble by rescuers.
Medics were called to the leafy Darnytskyi district to the east of the Dnipro River, where a four-storey apartment building caught fire from the debris of drones destroyed in the overnight attack, Klitschko added.
Drone debris also caused fires atop a 16-storey and two nine-storey buildings in the Sviatoshynskyi district in Kyiv’s west, he said.
Witnesses told Reuters they heard a series of explosions shaking the city, which sounded like air defence units in operation.
The Ukrainian news website Kyiv Independent also reported that an elderly woman died in a shelter in the city’s Darnytskyi district following the attack, although the cause of her death was not immediately clear.
The state emergency service confirmed at least one death in Kyiv and 18 injuries.
The attacks, which also knocked out power in the city, left smoke rising from the roof of Ukraine’s cabinet, housing the offices of its ministers.
“For the first time, the government building was damaged by an enemy attack, including the roof and upper floors,” said Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. “We will restore the buildings, but lost lives cannot be returned.”
“The world must respond to this destruction not only with words, but with actions. There is a need to strengthen sanctions pressure, primarily against Russian oil and gas,” she said.
Russia ramps up attacks on Ukraine
Russian attacks on Ukraine have increased in recent days, even as United States President Donald Trump stepped up diplomacy to end the three-and-a-half-year war, although those efforts have not yet been successful.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 805 drones and 13 missiles at Ukraine overnight.
A police officer stands near the site of an apartment building damaged during a Russian drone attack early on September 7, 2025 [Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Tkachenko, the head of the military administration of the capital, said on Telegram that Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets”.
Moscow did not immediately issue any comment on the attacks.
Both sides deny targeting civilians, but thousands have died in the war Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Early on Sunday, most of Ukraine was under air raid alerts after Ukrainian air force warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks.
Tens of explosions shook the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, cutting power to parts of it, Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi said on Telegram.
Russian strikes on Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, in the same region, targeted transport and urban infrastructure, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration, said on Telegram, but with no injuries reported.
In the southern city of Odesa, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were damaged, with fires breaking out in several apartment blocks, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
Earlier, a separate Russian attack in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region killed one person and wounded several others, regional military Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram.
A Russian drone attack on Saturday evening in Zaporizhia in the southeast also wounded at least 15 people, four of whom were hospitalised, said Ivan Fedorov, the head of the military administration in the region, which is partially occupied by Russia.
Kyiv says it caused ‘comprehensive fire damage’ to Russian pipeline
Meanwhile, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi, said it attacked the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia’s Bryansk region.
Brovdi posted on Telegram that “comprehensive fire damage” was inflicted on the pipeline.
The transit pipeline supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
In the main event of UFC Fight Night in France, Nassourdine Imavov defeated Caio Borralho to claim his title as a potential challenger to Khamzat Chimaev’s title.
Imavov won his fifth straight UFC fight by falling in front of his home crowd at Accor Arena in Paris: 50-45, 49-46, 49-46.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Imavov (20-4 MMA), who controlled the distance for the duration of the fight, did not allow Borralho (17-2 MMA), who entered the match with an impressive 62% of his victories by KO/TKO or submission, despite the fact that he had controlled the distance for the duration of the match.
Imanov, who claimed the No. 2 ranking in the UFC middleweight division, was angry that Borralho didn’t go as planned.
He had one message for Chimaev (15-0 MMA), despite not obtaining a stoppage victory.
Imavov declared, “I am next,” as the audience erupted after the match. Borralho remained unbeaten for ten years. I simply won him over with style. To compete for the UFC middleweight title, I must be the one to follow.
Borralho, who is No 7 overall, lost for the first time in the UFC. He acknowledged Imavov as one of his most difficult opponents in the entire career after the fight.
Borralho thanked Nassourdine for the respect. “Thank you so much, Nassourdine,” he said, “I believe he was the better man today.” As I had anticipated, he moved very quickly. He performed very well in the contest. I really struggled with [my strategy]. For both the fans and the UFC, I wanted to make this fight entertaining. You can see why I tried to strike with one of the best strikers in history: “a great war.”
At 2:56 of the second round, lightweight Benoit Saint Denis won the co-headline fight by securing a rear-naked choke over Mauricio Ruffy.
Saint Denis (15-3 MMA) won over the hometown crowd, becoming the first fighter to submit Ruffy (12-2 MMA) in his career.
A seven-fight winning streak that started in November 2019 was broken by Ruffy’s defeat at Saint Denis.
The No. 2 seeded Imavov requested that his next fight be his title defense against Khamzat Chimaev [Per Haljestam/Imagn Images via Reuters]
