Japan's first female prime minister Sanae Takaichi is predicted to win in the snap elections, while in Thailand a party calling for liberal change is challenging for power again. We report live from Bangkok and Tokyo. Also in the programme: a Russian soldier who fought in Ukraine, fled to Kazakhstan and now faces possible deportation back to Russia tells us why he deserted; Jeff Bezos’s hatchet man at the Washington Post steps down after sacking three hundred journalists; and sixty years after the Monkees were formed to rival the Beatles, we hear from the last surviving member, Micky Dolenz.