Japan and Australia signed a Joint Strategic Financing Memorandum of Cooperation in Tokyo on October 2, 2026, between Japan’s finance, foreign affairs and economy ministries and Australia’s finance and foreign affairs departments. The memorandum, which is not legally binding and runs until either side gives six months’ notice, sets up coordinated responses by the two countries’ strategic financing agencies, among them the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, JICA, JOGMEC and NEXI on the Japanese side and Export Finance Australia, ARENA and the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation on the Australian side, in pursuit of shared economic security interests. An inaugural Strategic Investment Networking Forum was held the same day, and the finance ministers’ dialogue that followed on October 5 welcomed the signing. The document reached this site through the primary source orphan lane, a month after signature, and is recorded here with its actual date.
Gadi Eisenkot is scheduled to formally receive the mandate to form Israel’s government at a ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem at 5 p.m. local time on Sunday, following President Isaac Herzog’s announcement on Saturday, which this site covered in full on Saturday. The ceremony starts his 28 day period, extendable by up to 14 days, to assemble a coalition in a Knesset where his bloc holds 48 seats and Benjamin Netanyahu’s holds 53 of the 120. The ceremony had not yet taken place when this roundup was written.
Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 10 and 11, for talks aimed at ending the war, the first such meeting since Russia’s overnight strike on Kyiv’s power grid on November 6 to 7. The talks were reported by the Associated Press and The Guardian in the coverage of that strike, which this site updated on Sunday morning with Kyiv’s partial restoration of water and heating.
Europe will be represented at the Abu Dhabi talks and France will take part, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told RTL radio on Sunday, saying France would be there to ensure Europe’s voice is heard. The talks had previously been framed as a trilateral meeting of officials from Ukraine, Russia and the United States, and the names of the European participants have not been made public. US, European, Ukrainian and NATO officials met in Brussels on Thursday to prepare, and Jared Kushner, who joined that meeting by video link, said Washington would consult closely with European partners on the sidelines in Abu Dhabi and, if progress is made, aim to move toward a broader format with their direct participation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that advances have been made on what the postwar security architecture for Ukraine and Europe could look like, the question he said has come up repeatedly throughout the Russia Ukraine talks, but that nothing has been finalised and that progress might be made in Abu Dhabi. Rubio spoke to reporters before departing Florida for Paris, where he attends the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, and his remarks follow President Trump’s prediction on Thursday of a “very big” deal with Moscow involving not only Ukraine but “all of Europe”. No details of any proposed security arrangement have been made public.
Colombia has defended its vote against ending the United States embargo on Cuba on grounds of coherence, Clarin reported, in Spanish. The item is single sourced to Clarin in this run’s pool and is carried here as a position statement by the Colombian government, without restating any figures from the report.