U.S. commanders are preparing American troops to confront the Russian military threat in Eastern Europe, including reintroducing Cold War-era tactics, the NYT reports.
The training shift for the U.S. Army includes working in smaller operating groups that are harder to target, using camouflage to avoid surveillance drones and rocket attacks, repainting battle tanks from desert-tan to dark green to match the terrain, and launching military exercises to learn and prepare for Russian tactics. Last month, 25,000 American and allied forces practiced tactics, including nighttime aerial assaults, across Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria over 10 days.
North Korea will "under no circumstances" negotiate on its nuclear weapons and missile programs, according to a note that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho gave reporters on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila, per CNN. North Korean state media slammed as an "outrageous delusion" the efforts to sanction Pyongyang in the hopes of negotiating, WSJ reports, and vowed "thousands-fold" revenge against the U.S., per The Guardian.
In a significant step, China signed on to the new U.N. sanctions against North Korea. Ri said that was evidence the U.S. has sought to "internationalize" what is actually a dispute between the U.S. and North Korea.
In the 1950s, the communist state called on Chinese women to join the labor force, but as the retreating state plays a smaller role in enforcing female hiring, old gender stereotypes are returning. For educated and financially independent Chinese women, these biases present a unique challenge: fighting old traditions with newfound influence. "Modernity has come to China in many ways, and this is one of them," says Professor Frank Pieke at Leiden University.
The bottom line: Professor Jin Jiang, who studies gender in modern China, told Axios, "once [revolution] happens, it's really difficult to go back … before, women were liberated by the state … but now women have to liberate themselves."
