Sipping a hazy beer in a dimly lit Shanghai pub, Liang Xiao found himself immersed in a sociology lecture that astounded him.

Beneath a projector screen, a Chinese PhD student at an elite American university was explaining how modern states were built to a crowd of more than 40 young urbanites who packed the tiny venue in China’s most cosmopolitan city.

Though the talk did not cover China specifically, Liang was struck by the frankness with which the academic laid out how state power works – including the use of brute force – something rarely discussed openly today in the country’s stifled political environment.

“I was completely stunned when he mentioned violence so bluntly,” said the 32-year-old, who was born and raised in China.

“In China, you just can’t talk about the nature of a country so openly.”

In recent months, “academic pubs” hosting free lectures by Chinese scholars from universities worldwide have sprung up in China’s major cities – such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou – offering a rare open space for free-flowing intellectual conversation in a country where the public sphere is shrinking as censorship tightens.

These alcohol-with-academics sessions delve into a range of topics in the humanities and social sciences. They include issues deemed politically sensitive and often censored online, such as feminism, but also more innocuous subjects like social anxiety and cats in ancient Chinese paintings.

Similar initiatives have been popular in the West for nearly three decades. In Britain, “Cafe Scientifique,” a laid-back science debate forum, kicked off in 1998 and “Pint of Science,” a three-day science festival, launched in May 2013. Both have since gone global.

Now, these brain-expanding happy-hour huddles are catching on in China as its urban, educated youth – emerging from three-year pandemic lockdowns and restrictions – are desperate to reconnect in person.

“Once you leave campus, it’s difficult to find social science talks elsewhere… That’s part of why we’re so eager to make it happen ourselves,” the Shanghai pub posted on its official social media account in late August, wrapping up its first series of pub lectures.

Unlike Western universities, which generally welcome the public, most Chinese campuses remain fenced off, keeping their academic resources exclusive to students, faculty and authorized personnel.

“The rise of academic pubs shows China’s youth are still hunting for places to talk and share ideas, even as the public sphere is shrinking,” said Lei Ya-wen, a sociology professor at Harvard University.

‘Place without authority’

Recent arts graduate Cinnamon Wu attended a talk on the evolution of Chinese-American literature in a Beijing bar just a 10-minute drive from China’s two top universities.

The session, which focused on how Chinese-American immigrants found their place in a strange, sometimes hostile land, elicited a wide-ranging discussion. But Wu, using his English nickname for privacy reasons, was surprised when some participants criticized the apparent influence of political correctness in American popular culture. He didn’t expect attendees of such intellectual events to hold what he saw as conservative views.

While Chinese cyberspace is filled with critiques of political correctness and “wokeness” in American culture, Wu had never heard such opinions voiced so openly in a physical public setting, including on campus.

“It’s actually tough for us to air any political views in class – unless they’re extremely mainstream and unshakable,” Wu said.

“But in the pub, a place without authority… People are more likely to speak their mind.”

The belief that “teachers are always right” is instilled in Chinese students from a young age, he added. Even in college, where critical thinking should be encouraged, he said, he feels “teachers remain unchallengeable authorities.”

University teachers in China, tasked by Beijing with “educating for the Communist Party,” rarely encourage political discussion as they have to steer clear of any controversies that might cross political “red lines.”

Despite finding some views unsettling in the open discussion, Wu still said the academic pub was “worth a visit.”

“It’s refreshing to see people huddled offline in a casual setting, discussing literature and society… It makes me feel like we ordinary folks can also engage in public conversations.”

Elephant in the room?

As the academic pub and bar trend gains momentum, concerns are bubbling up on Chinese social media about the future of this nascent public sphere for intellectuals in the heavily censored country, especially following a string of cultural crackdowns.

Last year, China’s stand-up comedy scene came to a brief halt with shows canceled nationwide after a comedian’s army-themed joke was deemed a “severe insult” to the military, leading authorities to slap a hefty fine on the entertainment firm representing him. Earlier this year, an artist was detained over sculptures he created over a decade ago that featured political critiques.

Nationalist voices online have also grown into a powerful unofficial force policing speech across Chinese social media. They’ve gone after bloggers, journalists, celebrity chefs and even a Nobel laureate, trying to hold people accountable for any remarks or behaviors they see as slighting China.

The trend has extended into university classrooms, with students – in a sign that political loyalty often trumps cultural reverence for educators – reporting their teachers for expressing any view not aligned with party orthodoxy.

Liang, who deemed the state-building talk “bold,” said he loves these academic pub sessions but suspects they will eventually face restriction.

“In a country with such strict governance, it’s common for people to self-censor, scrutinizing their own words – and those of others – from the government’s perspective,” said Lei, the Harvard professor.

“These events are safe for now as they are not organized gatherings by nature,” noted Kang Siqin, an assistant professor from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

Kang, who mainly studies state capacity, gave the first lecture in the Shanghai pub talk series, introducing social science research methods themed around “socializing over drinks.”

“But in China’s context, any kind of gathering can be perceived as presenting challenges to public security,” Kang added.

As for the future of the pub lecture trend, Kang said it “all depends on if anyone wants to target them.”

Israel’s war conduct in Gaza “is consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” including mass civilian casualties and using starvation as a weapon, according to a new United Nations Special Committee report released Thursday.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the UN committee said in a press release.

“The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” the committee said.

The UN committee added that Israeli officials have publicly supported policies to destroy “vital water, sanitation and food systems” in Gaza as well as prevent access to fuel.

Israel earlier this year rejected what it called the “grossly distorted” accusation of genocide leveled against it by South Africa, arguing in the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) that its war was fought in self-defense and that it was targeting Hamas rather than Palestinians, following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel.

The UN Special Committee is composed of three UN member states, including Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka.

The UN report comes after the US-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report detailing Israel’s forced mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza in a deliberate and systematic campaign that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity.

In a response to the HRW report on Thursday, the Israeli military said it is “committed to international law and operates accordingly,” and that it issues evacuation orders to protect civilians from combat.

Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza after weeks of intense Israeli military operations in recent weeks have told described a chronic lack of food and people dying of hunger, as aid agencies warn that the area is on the brink of famine.

But after a US deadline for Israel to improve getting humanitarian aid into Gaza expired this week, the Biden administration assessed that Israel is not blocking aid and so is not violating US law governing foreign military assistance. The State Department said that while changes were needed, progress had been made, so there would be no disruption to US arms supplies.

But the US view is a stark contrast with the bleak picture on the ground, where much of the aid that reaches Gaza is not being distributed.

The accounts of desperate civilians echo the World Health Organization’s warning last Friday of “a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip.”

Warning: This story contains descriptions of self-harm that some readers might find distressing

Iranian activist Kianoosh Sanjari, who died by suicide this week in protest at political imprisonments by the regime, was buried Friday in the capital Tehran.

Sanjari took his own life Wednesday at the age of 42, jumping off a building in downtown Tehran, according to other activists and state media, after threatening to kill himself if four activists detained by the Islamic Republic were not released.

“I will end my life in protest against the dictatorship of (Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah) Khamenei and his partners,” Sanjari had written earlier Wednesday on X, demanding the release of Fatemeh Sepehari, Nasreen Shakrami, Toomaj Salehi and Arsham Rezaei by 7 p.m local time that day.

“No one should be imprisoned for expressing their opinions. Protest is the right of every Iranian citizen,” he wrote in a separate post on Wednesday.

At around 7.20 p.m. local time, Sanjari posted a photo from atop a high structure, with the caption: “7 PM, Hafez Bridge, Charsou.” Charsou Bazaar is a commercial building in downtown Tehran.

“My life will end after this tweet… I wish that one day Iranians wake up and overcome slavery.”

‘Kianoosh is lost’

Hossein Ronaghi, an Iranian human rights activist, confirmed Sanjari’s death Thursday and urged people to attend his funeral Friday.

“It is time to act… as Iranians, we should attend his burial with enthusiasm and respect, to honor this noble and tortured individual,” Ronaghi wrote on X.

The activist warned authorities against disrupting the burial through heightened security. “No one has the right to disrupt the burial, create a security atmosphere, or show any disrespect to this ceremony,” he wrote.

“I swear by Kianoosh’s blood, if any disturbance is caused by security forces or any obstacles are put in the way of people’s presence, I will make you regret it,” Ronaghi said.

Abdollah Momeni, another Iranian activist, said that when he saw Sanjar’s post, he rushed to meet him, only to find “a white sheet thrown” over his body by Hafez Bridge.

“Unfortunately, Kianoosh is lost,” Momeni wrote on X Wednesday.

On Thursday, the state news agency ISNA reported that a judicial case had been opened by the prosecutor’s office in Tehran regarding Sanjari’s suicide. ISNA, citing the Tehran prosecutor’s office, suggested that Sanjari had a history of mental health issues, for which they said he had been hospitalized and given prescription medication.

Repeated detentions

A vocal critic of the Iranian regime, Sanjari was arrested several times between 1999 and 2007, when he was finally released with a bail bond of over $100,000, Amnesty International said. He was accused of “acting against state security” and “propaganda against the system,” according to the human rights organization. Sanjari spent time in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, which is known for its long record of human rights abuses.

He left Iran shortly after his release but returned in 2016, when he was arrested again and sentenced to 11 years in prison, according to the IranWire activist outlet. In 2021, he left for the US but later returned to Iran, IranWire said.

Between 2009 and 2013, Sanjari worked for the Persian Service of the US government-funded broadcaster Voice of America in Washington, DC.

VOA’s Persian Service said on Thursday it “expressed shock and grief at the suicide of a former colleague, Kianoosh Sanjari, who jumped to his death from a building in Tehran on Wednesday in protest against Iran’s authoritarian rulers.”

The proposal, which Johnson outlined to Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri – who is close to Hezbollah – is the first to be submitted by the US and Israel since a temporary ceasefire was negotiated in late September. Those efforts were upended when Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a major bombing attack in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Lebanese government is “optimistic” that Hezbollah will agree to the terms of the agreement, and authorities expect to submit an official response to the latest proposal next Monday, the first official said. “Diplomatic efforts are on fire now,” the source said.

The proposal aims to achieve a 60-day cessation of hostilities and is being portrayed as the basis of a lasting ceasefire, according to the official, adding that terms lie within the parameters of UN Resolution 1701 which ended the Lebanon-Israel war of 2006. The resolution stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces.

“The points mainly focus on the mechanism of implementation and on the role of the Lebanese Armed Forces in implementing 1701in the south of the Litani River,” the official said, adding that it also deals with smuggling routes through the country’s international borders.

Protesters stormed the parliament of the Russian-backed breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia on Friday and opposition politicians demanded the resignation of the self-styled president over an unpopular investment agreement with Moscow.

Protesters used a truck to smash through the metal gates surrounding the parliament in the capital Sukhumi. Video from the scene then showed people climbing through windows after prying off metal bars and chanting in the corridors.

Eshsou Kakalia, an opposition leader and former deputy prosecutor general, said the parliament building was under the control of the protesters.

“We will now seek the resignation of the current president of Abkhazia,” he was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying. Protesters also broke into the presidential administration offices located in the same building as the parliament.

Emergency services said at least eight people were taken to hospital.

The presidential administration said in a statement that authorities were preparing to withdraw the investment agreement with Russia that some Abkhaz fear will price them out of the property market.

Russia recognised Abkhazia and another breakaway region, South Ossetia, as independent states in 2008 after Russian troops repelled a Georgian attempt to retake South Ossetia in a five-day war.

Most of the world recognises Abkhazia as part of Georgia, from which it broke away during wars in the early 1990s, but Russian money has poured into the lush sub-tropical territory where Soviet-era spa resorts cling to the Black Sea coast.

Russian money

Abkhazian lawmakers had been set to vote on Friday on the ratification of an investment agreement signed in October in Moscow by Russian Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov and his Abkhazian counterpart, Kristina Ozgan.

Abkhazian opposition leaders say the agreement with Moscow, which would allow for investment projects by Russian legal entities, would price locals out of the property market by allowing far more Russian money to flow in.

The opposition said in a statement that the protesters’ actions were not against Russian-Abkhazian relations.

“Abkhazian society had only one demand: to protect the interests of our citizens and our business, but neither the president nor the parliament have heard the voice of the people until today”, Interfax cited the statement as saying.

Earlier this week Abkhazia’s self-styled president, Aslan Bzhania, held an emergency security council meeting after protesters blocked a key highway and rallied in central Sukhumi to demand the release of four activists.

The activists, who were subsequently freed, had been detained for opposing the passage of a law regulating the construction industry which references the Russian-Abkhazian agreement.

In 2014, demonstrators stormed the presidential headquarters, forcing then-leader Alexander Ankvab to flee. He later resigned over accusations of corruption and misrule.

Opposition leader Raul Khadzhimba, elected following the unrest in 2014, was himself forced to step down in 2020 after street protests over disputed election results.

At least 10 people died and others were injured in a blaze at a nursing home near Zaragoza, Spain, before firefighters managed to extinguish the flames, local authorities said Friday.

The alarm was raised early Friday morning in Villafranca de Ebro, about 28 kilometers (18 miles) from the northeastern city.

Two people remained in critical condition, officials said. At least 10 people died in a blaze at a nursing home in Zaragoza, Spain, before firefighters managed to extinguish it, local authorities reported on Friday.

The cause of the fire was not yet known, local media reported.

Local media said 82 people had been living in the nursing home, which focused on treating people with dementia and mental health issues.

Volga Ramírez, mayor of Villafranca de Ebro, told reporters outside the center on Friday morning that intense smoke from the blaze was likely responsible for the deaths.

“It is due to smoke inhalation,” Ramírez said, “not because they were burned.”

Jorge Azcón, head of the regional government of Aragon, which includes Villafranca de Ebro, confirmed the deaths and said on X, formerly Twitter, that all government events in the region were cancelled for the day.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also expressed his shock.

The fire took place just weeks after after flash floods in the Spanish region of Valencia killed more than 200 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The floods were the worst natural disaster in Spain’s recent history.

As US President-elect Donald Trump continues to make heads turn with nominations for key roles in his incoming administration, Russians are trying to understand the appointments and what impacts they might have for Moscow.

Russian state TV has spent the last few days using their slickly produced talk shows to tell the Russian people what they should make of the incoming administration – in particular what it might mean for Russians and the war in Ukraine.

Evgeny Popov, a well-known face on Russian state TV and Duma representative used his show, co-hosted with his wife, to tear into Mike Waltz, Donald Trump’s pick for his national security adviser.

Waltz has previously expressed reservations about continued congressional support for Ukraine, and is a proponent of a peace plan for Ukraine – but has not ruled out applying pressure on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin to force him to the table. Waltz also described Russia as “a gas station with nukes” in an interview with NPR on November 4.

Popov was quick to point out the potential threat to Moscow, “(Waltz) at the Republican convention proposed deploying more American drones in the Black Sea and bragged about how Trump threatened to bomb, as he put it, ‘Putin’s Kremlin.’ That is what’s called the Russophobic Dream Team or the American dream team.”

But across the studio floor, Olga Skabeeva, Popov’s wife, was a little more welcoming of the pick of former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Gabbard had been “clear on the reason for Russia’s special operation in Ukraine,” Skabeeva said, praising Gabbard’s criticism of US support for Kyiv.

Elena, who was walking with her daughter, said of Musk: “Everything he’s done is very interesting, and the fact that he has such ideas is also, in principle, good for development in general.”

The tech tycoon’s status as a super-rich maverick who purchased X, formerly Twitter, and who wants to put civilians into space, means he’s more familiar to Russians than nominees for other prominent posts.

Asked about how they viewed the incoming administration and future relations between old adversaries, people were a little more divided.

Vladimir Kostyukevich, however, said that Trump makes a good impression as a politician, citing his age and apparent energy – a barb perhaps at outgoing President Joe Biden.

Elena said, “I don’t know how Donald Trump can resolve this. But I would really like this to be resolved as soon as possible and resolved in the most peaceful way possible, through negotiations, and not through the actions that are happening now.”

Tatiyana meanwhile hoped for peace and spoke warmly of Ukraine, a reminder of the bonds that tie the two nations together.

“It’s a good question. Ukraine is our brotherly nation. It has always been so. And despite the fact that relations are so complicated now, we still love Ukraine as before, they are our brothers, our relatives,” she said.

And Kostyukevich hoped for even more. “I don’t know if Trump will stick to his line. But I hope, that there will be a good agreement between Russia and Ukraine. And in general, to stop all this madness that’s happening in the world, well, in Israel, Palestine and Ukraine-Russia,” he said.

Anger, fear and anxiety are still simmering in Amsterdam.

Last week, Israeli soccer fans were attacked in the streets, Palestinian flags ripped off walls and antisemitic slurs yelled during riots.

While the Dutch capital now feels calm, residents and legislators fear that tensions still haven’t peaked.

“And I don’t even think, I’m sorry to say, that we have reached our boiling point, because the root causes of the tensions going on have not been addressed.”

Khan said the biggest underlying issue for his constituents is the Dutch government’s complicity in funneling weapons and money to Israel’s war in Gaza. The Netherlands’ Muslim community is roughly 1 million people strong, and many have been vocal in their support of Palestinians.

“Next to that, we have a far-right government, which is hell-bent on blaming societal problems on minorities, especially Muslims,” Khan added.

But the timeline of how tensions ignited in Amsterdam is different depending on which community you ask.

Some residents argue the spark was just last week, when Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans pulled down Palestinian flags, vandalized taxis and paraded through the streets yelling racist slogans, including “f**k the Arabs,” and celebrating Israeli military attacks in Gaza.

What followed were violent attacks on the Israeli fans, with several people injured and five receiving hospital treatment. The city’s mayor said last week that rioters moved in small groups in “hit-and-run” antisemitic attacks, searching the city and targeting Maccabi supporters.

On Monday, a tram in west Amsterdam was set ablaze and police officers were pelted with stones. In video circulating on social media, the small group of rioters can be heard yelling an antisemitic slur. Police said Tuesday they had arrested 68 people across the city in total in relation to the riots, including 10 Israelis.

Other Amsterdam residents say a fire has been kindling in the city for 15 to 20 years, with the rise of the far-right, and an increase in antisemitism and xenophobia throughout Europe.

“I feel some people are underplaying antisemitism by not mentioning it even or saying that because of the Maccabi hooligans that the violence was justified, or that the violence was only directed at the Maccabi hooligans,” Garmy said. He added that fear is palpable among Jewish residents here, especially after last Thursday when social media posts emerged where people discussed a “hunt on Jews,” according to a report from Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema.

Constituents and friends have told Garmy that they’re now afraid to wear a Star of David or kippah in public, and some have changed their names on taxi and ride-sharing apps to avoid being identifiably Jewish.

“But saying that, I do feel that there are leaders, for instance, the Israeli prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) who is overplaying it for his own internal politics, and also the far-right leader here, Geert Wilders, is also overplaying it,” the city councilor added.

Mayor Halsema and other local authorities have also received criticism from Muslim and pro-Palestinian communities for failing to highlight the racist and threatening actions of Maccabi supporters in the immediate aftermath of the violence, and giving what they see as a skewed version of events.

Last November, a month after the Israel-Gaza war began, far-right populist Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) won the most seats in Dutch parliament – a shock for many people given Wilders’ anti-Islam, anti-immigration and anti-European Union manifesto.

On Wednesday, Wilders requested a lawmakers’ debate on the violence against Maccabi fans, and his party floated the idea of revoking Dutch citizenship for certain people involved in the attacks.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on Israelis, Netanyahu urged Dutch authorities to act firmly, and even said he would organize evacuation flights. Senior Israeli officials said the violence recalled “pogrom” attacks of previous centuries on European Jews. But in Amsterdam, many local Jewish officials as well as the mayor have urged against using that description.

“What certain politicians are doing on the right wing, what Netanyahu and Israeli politicians are doing… is only throwing oil on the fire,” Stranders said, adding that certain people in the Jewish community using charged rhetoric has also increased fear. “You’re only frightening your own community.”

There are about 40,000 Jewish people in the Netherlands – far fewer than before World War II – and it’s not a singular community. There are secular Jews, orthodox Jews, Israeli Jews, those from the wider diaspora and others. Stranders said a key focus now is getting people within this disparate group to agree to dial down the tension.

As far as antisemitism goes, some comes from the far-right, he said, but antisemitism from the far-left and Muslim communities can’t be ignored either.

“What you see is when the critique that people have on policy of Israel and how they conduct their war – sometimes that critique is addressed to Jewish people and even in a hostile way,” he said. Stranders noted that the pro-Palestinian movement sometimes has a “blind eye” for how that makes the Jewish community feel, in a city where Jewish life has constantly been under threat, and where synagogues and schools historically required security protection.

“Maybe first it started as criticizing Israel, but then it becomes antisemitism,” he said.

At a pro-Palestinian protest on Wednesday, which went ahead in Amsterdam’s Dam Square despite the police banning demonstrations in the area, some of the chants were distinctly anti-war. “Stop the bombing,” protesters in the primarily young, left-wing crowd yelled, as officers eventually forcibly cleared them from the square and moved them to a park where protest was permitted.

“I’m here because of the bombing of the children and the women in Gaza,” said Said Alawi, an older man standing off to the side before police asked people to disperse.

Alawi lives in Amsterdam but grew up in Morocco. “I’m asking to free these people, to free Palestine, that is all.”

But other chants, like “f**k Israel,” were distinctly more hostile.

Faith leaders in the Muslim community are working alongside police and city hall officials to encourage de-escalation and even speak to youth at protests.

A local Imam and the leader of Moroccan mosques in the Noord-Holland region, Abdelaziz Chandoudi, is holding a dialogue with taxi drivers in Amsterdam on Friday to try to ease tensions. He is also using his sermons this week to urge fathers to speak to their sons and other youth, calling for peace and compassion.

Mohammed Rasool in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered his country to quickly start mass producing self-detonating explosive drones, calling their development an “essential requirement,” after overseeing a test of the deadly aerial weapon, state media reported Friday.

Images published by North Korean state media show Kim and various officials at the launch site. Images show a car and a tank being destroyed by what appears to be unmanned aerial vehicles, which have been heavily blurred by the news agency.

State media reported that drones “of various types precisely hit the targets” as part of the test. They can be “used within different striking ranges” and are designed “to precisely attack any enemy targets on the ground and in the sea,” it said.

Kim said the use of such drones in military activities is being expanded around the world and authorities are recognizing that “drones are achieving clear successes in big and small conflicts,” state media reported.

Such self-detonating drones, also sometimes referred to as suicide drones, have been widely used to great effect on the battlefield in Russia’s war in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

Comparatively cheap to produce and usually deployed in swarms making their numbers difficult to shoot down, drones such as the Iranian-made Shahed 136 have transformed modern combat, providing an asymmetric advantage when deployed against technically superior adversaries.

Kim “underscored the need to build a serial production system as early as possible and go into full-scale mass production,” state media reported, adding that “such objective change urgently calls for updating many parts of military theory.”

The order comes as concern in the West grows over North Korea’s military cooperation with Russia.

The US State Department said Tuesday that 10,000 North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia and “have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces” in Kursk region, where Ukraine’s three-month military incursion into Russian territory has stalled.

The North Korean troops dispatched to Russia are deemed to have not had suitable training for drone warfare, according to a South Korea’s Defense Intellectual Agency evaluation shared by lawmakers briefed on the issue.

South Korea’s defense minister last month expressed concern that Pyongyang is “very likely to ask” Moscow for advanced technology related to nuclear weapons in exchange for deploying troops to Ukraine.

Thursday’s drone test came after North Korea on Tuesday ratified a mutual defense treaty with Russia in which the two countries pledged to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other is attacked.

The move cements the two countries’ deepening alignment in the face of their international isolation over Russia’s war in Ukraine and Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.

The defense pact was signed in June by Kim and Vladimir Putin during a rare state visit by the Russian leader to Pyongyang.

Kim previously oversaw the test of self-detonating drones in August, where he stressed the need to equip the North Korean army with them “as early as possible.”

In October, North Korea threatened “retaliation” after accusing South Korea of flying propaganda-filled drones over Pyongyang. Seoul did not confirm or deny the accusations after North Korea’s state-run KCNA published images of what it claimed was a drone, as well as leaflets that said, “a comparison of the food you can buy,” and “North Korea’s economic situation falling into hell.”

In 2022, North Korea sent five drones into South Korea, four of which flew around Ganghwa island and another that flew over capital Seoul’s northern airspace.

Tokyo (AP) — Japanese Princess Yuriko, the wife of wartime Emperor Hirohito’s brother and the oldest member of the imperial family, has died after her health deteriorated recently, palace officials said. She was 101.

Yuriko died Friday at a Tokyo hospital, the Imperial Household Agency said. It did not announce the cause of death, but Japanese media said she died of pneumonia.

Born in 1923 as an aristocrat, Yuriko married at age 18 to Prince Mikasa, the younger brother of Hirohito and the uncle of current Emperor Naruhito, months before the start of World War II.

She has recounted living in a shelter with her husband and their baby daughter after their residence was burned down in the US fire bombings of Tokyo in the final months of the war in 1945.

Yuriko raised five children and supported Mikasa’s research into ancient Near Eastern history, while also serving her official duties and taking part in philanthropic activities. She outlived her husband and all three sons.

Her death reduces Japan’s rapidly dwindling imperial family to 16 people, including four men, as the country faces the dilemma of how to maintain the royal family while conservatives in the governing party insist on retaining male-only succession.

The 1947 Imperial House Law, which largely preserves conservative prewar family values, allows only males to take the throne and forces female royal family members who marry commoners to lose their royal status.

The youngest male member of the imperial family, Prince Hisahito — the nephew of Emperor Naruhito — is currently the last heir apparent, posing a major problem for a system that doesn’t allow empresses. The government is debating how to keep succession stable without relying on women.

Yuriko had lived a healthy life as a centenarian before suffering a stroke and pneumonia in March. She enjoyed exercise in the morning while watching a daily fitness program on television, the Imperial Household Agency says. She also continued to read multiple newspapers and magazines and enjoyed watching news and baseball on TV. On sunny days, she sat in the palace garden or was wheeled in her wheelchair.

Yuriko was hospitalized after her stroke and had been in and out of intensive care since then. Her overall condition deteriorated over the past week, the Imperial Household Agency said.