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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has dissolved parliament in advance of a snap election scheduled for February 8, Aljazeera reported. 

The speaker of Japan’s parliament on Friday read out a letter, officially dissolving the lower house as lawmakers shouted the traditional rallying cry of “banzai”.

The dissolution of the 465-member lower house now paves the way for a 12-day election campaign, which officially begins on Tuesday, according to Aljazeera. 

Women’s representation in Nepal’s national parliament has remained largely unchanged since the formation of the interim legislature in 2007, despite a constitutional requirement that political parties ensure at least 33 percent female representation.

While the quota has prevented a decline in women’s participation, it has failed to generate meaningful growth. The primary reason lies in the scope of the law, which mandates the quota only under the Proportional Representation (PR) system, not under the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral category.

As a result, political parties continue to nominate overwhelmingly male candidates in FPTP races, where no legal obligation exists to promote gender balance.

Data from the March 5 House of Representatives (HoR) candidacy nominations highlight this imbalance. Of the 3,486 candidates registered nationwide, 3,089 are men, 396 are women, and one candidate identifies as “other.” Women account for just over 11 percent of total candidates.

Both traditional and newly formed political parties display a similar pattern of male dominance. Under the FPTP category, there is little distinction between established parties and newer political forces in terms of women’s participation.

Among major parties, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) nominated 16 women candidates, while the Nepali Congress (NC) fielded 11, the CPN-UML 12, and the Nepali Communist Party 11. These figures indicate minimal variation among leading parties. The trend mirrors past elections. In the 2022 HoR election, 2,291 men and only 235 women were registered as candidates. In the dissolved House of Representatives, women held 91 of the 275 seats, while men occupied 184.

Experts say the composition of the incoming parliament is unlikely to differ significantly from the previous legislature. Historically, women’s candidacy under the FPTP system has remained below 11 percent across four major elections: the two Constituent Assembly elections in 2008 and 2013, and the House of Representatives elections in 2017 and 2022.

In the 2022 elections, the Rastriya Swatantra Party recorded the highest proportion of women candidates among major parties at 9.2 percent. The Nepali Congress nominated 5.8 percent women candidates in 2017 and 5.5 percent in 2022. Meanwhile, the CPN-UML increased its share of women candidates from 4.9 percent in 2017 to 7.8 percent in 2022. Analysts argue that without extending the 33 percent quota to the FPTP system, Nepal’s progress toward gender-balanced political representation will remain limited, despite constitutional commitments to inclusion.

The country has recorded 5,966 incidents of disaster across the country so far since April 14, 2025.

A total of 424 people lost their lives and 1,643 people sustained injuries in such incidents. 

According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, 38 people went missing and 11,535 families were affected in such incidents.

The highest incident of fire took place during the period, added authority. 

A total of  2,692 fire incidents occurred where 75 people lost their lives while 442 people were injured and 2,996 families were affected. 

Similarly, the country recorded 577 incidents of landslides where 71 people were killed, five are still missing and 80 were injured. 

A total of 316 incidents of flood took place during the period while 427 of heavy rainfall, 352 of lightning, 580 of snakebite, 186 of forest fire, 290 of wind, 422 of animal attack.

Likewise, 105 cases of high-altitude were recorded so far since April 14, 2025 as well as five of avalanche, seven of earthquake, two of boat collapse, added the Authority.   

According to the Authority, incidents of fire are on rise in recent periods.

Russia said it will hold security talks with the U.S. and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on Friday, but warned after a late-night meeting between President Vladimir Putin and three U.S. envoys that a durable peace would not be possible unless territorial issues were resolved, Reuters reported. 

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the talks, which began shortly before midnight and lasted some four hours, had been "substantive, constructive and very frank".

He said Russian Admiral Igor Kostyukov would head Moscow's team at the three-way security talks, and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev would meet separately on economic issues with Steve Witkoff, the envoy of President Donald Trump, according to Reuters.