Latest news for 21 October 2025

JAPAN

New prime minister.

The parliament (Diet) has just formally appointed Sanae Takaichi as Japan’s first female prime minister. (Japan Today)

Comment: Japan’s markets have cheered her ascent, hitting new records today (Tuesday). It reflects not just her low-rate and high-growth preferences, but also relief after her Komeito coalition partner bailed, raising fears of more gridlock. She ended up getting over the line with new conservative partners, the Japan Innovation Party.

CHINA

Let’s get this Party started.

The top leaders of China’s ruling Communist Party are gathered in Beijing for this week’s high-level ‘plenum’ that’ll map out China’s next five-year plan. (AP)

Comment: This latest plenum will likely again emphasise continuity and stability, not just because of volatility abroad, but also tricky times at home. We’re talking both economically (growth just dipped) and politically (Xi just purged another nine top military officers including He Weidong, China’s second-top officer after Xi himself).

UKRAINE

No chance.

President Trump has now suggested he doesn’t think Ukraine can win Putin’s war, though added “anything is possible”. His remarks come amid reports the US president again wants Kyiv to cede land for Putin to stop. Meanwhile, European leaders (including Ukraine’s Zelensky) have issued a joint statement backing an immediate freeze of battle lines for peace talks to get underway. (EuroNews)

Comment: Trump’s next summit with Putin in Hungary might now be on hold, amid breaking reports the foreign minister-level planning dialogue has made little progress. If true, it’s unsurprising: Putin’s words and actions still point to a man who doesn’t want peace — the moment he stops attacking, he accepts strategic defeat (pariah status, a million casualties, and a broken economy, all for a failed invasion).

KOSOVO

Building bridges?

Kosovo’s Western backers have criticised its plans to build two bridges in the country’s north, arguing it’s stoking tensions with a local Serb population that’s long resisted integration efforts pushed by Kosovo’s ethnic-Albanian majority. (Bloomberg $)

Comment: If you’re wondering why Western capitals are weighing in here, it’s partly because there are still ~5,000 NATO troops on the ground, a quarter century after the two communities fought a war. The odd and uneasy equilibrium in Kosovo’s north, where both Kosovo and Serbia exercise a kind of overlapping sovereignty, has been wobbling since at least 2021, reviving fears of conflict.

SOLOMON ISLANDS

Need me one of those.

The government is mulling the creation of a national defence force, which would make it just the ~fourth Pacific Island nation to get a military. (Asia Pacific Report)

Comment: It’s a tricky topic in the Solomons, where police were disarmed after a violent ethnic conflict in the early 2000s. And it’ll be a tricky topic for the broader region, given the idea first emerged after the then-leader returned from a visit to China, not long after signing his country’s infamous China security pact in 2022.

MADAGASCAR

Swear it.

Michael Randrianirina, the colonel who led last week’s ousting of the president after weeks of protests, has now been sworn in as Madagascar’s new leader. (Al Jazeera)

Comment: Shortly after we explored last week’s juicy developments, the African Union (the AU) went on to suspend Madagascar’s membership until constitutional order is restored. The AU has long had a strict anti-coup policy, but has wrestled internally with whether and how to apply it to these kinds of ‘popular coups’.

BRAZIL

New drill.

State-owned oil company Petrobras just got regulatory consent for a new drilling project off the mouth of the Amazon after years of negotiations, and weeks out from Brazil’s 2025 COP climate summit. President Lula’s critics are dismissing his argument that oil revenues will help fund Brazil’s energy transition. (Guardian)