North Korean soldiers are making their way to Ukraine to fight alongside the Russian army, in a "grim reality" confirmed by South Korea's intelligence agency, said Edward Howell in The Spectator.

The move represents a "huge" escalation risk, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha warned over the weekend. While the troop numbers are small compared to the millions of people involved in the overall war effort, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that any third country wading into the conflict in his country would be "the first step to a world war".

What North Korean troops are involved?
Around 1,500 troops from North Korea's special forces have already been deployed to Russia en route to Ukraine, and that could eventually rise to 10,000, according to President Zelenskyy. It is not clear whether they will be involved in frontline fighting or in a support role, but any public display of their military insignia would signal that "Pyongyang is publicly invested in the war against Ukraine and in its alliance with Russia", said The Interpreter.

Why is North Korea doing this?
Russian forces have become increasingly reliant on millions of rounds of North Korean artillery shells and, in recent months, ballistic missiles, in a clear breach of UN Security Council resolutions. Moscow's "obstinacy towards continuing the war, coupled with North Korea's desire for financial and technological assistance (and for food), has allowed relations between the two pariah states to reach a whole new level", said Howell in The Spectator.

Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty last summer committing both countries to providing military assistance to each other if either were attacked. The current deployment of North Korean soldiers to fight in Ukraine "highlights just how far the partnership has escalated".

How worried should we be?
South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol has warned that Pyongyang's involvement in the Ukraine conflict would pose a "grave security threat" to the world.

The deployment of North Korean troops to Ukraine is a hugely symbolic moment in the "new, anti-Western coalition" being forged between Russia, North Korea, China and Iran, said Howell. Moscow will do "all it can to prolong its now-global war".

"I used to be in a boy band, that's why I'm so f***ed up." Those were said to be among Liam Payne's final words before he fell to his death from the third floor of a Buenos Aires hotel, at the age of 31.

The singer first entered into the spotlight when he auditioned for "The X Factor" when he was 14, before being catapulted to fame two years later when he returned to the show and became a member of One Direction. His sudden death last week "re-opens the debate about how we protect people who have achieved incredible fame at a young age", Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of the Commons Culture Select Committee, told the i news site.

'Immeasurable toll'
Death at an early age is "not an unusual thing" in the music industry, Bruce Springsteen told The Telegraph in an interview following Payne's death. Young music stars "don't have the inner facility or the inner self yet to be able to protect themselves from a lot of the things that come with success and fame", pushing many towards "drugs or alcohol", the veteran musician said.

"Plucked from obscurity as children" and "handed unrelenting global stardom on a plate, almost overnight", many teenage stars struggle to cope, said Nikki Peach in Grazia. Industry bosses "peddle" a dream of fame and fortune, but they don't warn of "the immeasurable toll" all of this can take.

'Age of barbarism'
"Will we one day look back on this era of teen pop stars" as "some unfathomable age of barbarism, and wonder what on earth we were thinking"? asked Martha Gill in The Observer. For producers to "shelter" these young singers "for a few more years before releasing them to the public" surely wouldn't be "such an incalculable loss to the culture". But if they won't, we need a "law protecting children under 18 from the kind of work that leads to massive global fame".

Payne's death has "made me all the more certain that we don't need any more child stars", wrote Nicole Vassell for Metro. His "tragic end" highlights the need to "rethink putting people in the spotlight before they've had the chance to grow up".

From cinnamon sticks to lemon zest, many people add their own twist to mulled wine recipes. "But, until now, most would agree that the wine in question is red," said Alice Fisher in The Observer. "Not this year, though."

Already found on drinks menus across Europe, mulled white wine is "by no means anything new", said Hannah Crosbie in The Guardian, "but it's certainly a curiosity for this year's festive high-street offering" in the UK.

Marks & Spencer is the first UK supermarket to launch a mulled white wine, inspired by the glühwein enjoyed at German and Austrian Christmas markets, as the chain seeks to tap into Brits' "changing taste in wine", said Fisher.

I don't know why retailers "persist" with these novel takes on seasonal staples, said Celia Walden in The Telegraph. I can just about cope with supermarkets trying to "flog" me "halloumi pigs in blankets", but when I heard about this latest Christmas hit "my vision went blotchy and my ears were filled with white noise". There should be "rules about these things, laws like those we use to protect historical buildings".

But M&S's mulled white wine is likely to "appeal to most people, even the ones who don't particularly like wine", said Crosbie. It tastes of "pear drops" and is "very sweet on the palate". And while this isn't a complex wine, at £6.50 a bottle does it need to be? "It's perfectly fit for purpose. Ask me again after my fourth glass."

A 10 year plan for the NHS? Here we go again 
Victoria Macdonald for Channel 4
"Ten-year plans for the NHS are popular with health secretaries," says Victoria Macdonald. And "here we are again" as Wes Streeting launches what he calls a "national conversation" about the future of the health service, the first part of a decade-long strategy. "In the meantime, there is winter looming and if it is a bad flu and Covid season, the pressures on the NHS will be the focus of attention." What the government has to acknowledge is that they need "short, medium and long-term plans".

Labour's fatal mistake would be to underestimate Farage
Kamal Ahmed for The Telegraph
Keir Starmer has "the same problem as Kamala Harris", writes Kamal Ahmed. "Disillusioned" voters "want an alternative to the present 'nothing works' mess", and that can mean "insurgents win". Like Harris with Donald Trump, Starmer is facing a "charismatic opponent who knows how to corral the disappointed and disengaged" – Nigel Farage. The Democrats and Labour both need a "set of policies and a story of change" that will appeal to "those who are not natural supporters".

If you cough, you're off
Pilita Clark for the Financial Times
With "flu season bearing down and Covid rates rising again", I'm "wondering why, years after the pandemic made us hyper-aware of workplace contagion, we can still be so useless at handling it", says Pilita Clark. The "default option for infected workers" should be "if you cough, you're off", because "coming in to work with spreadable germs" is not just "bad manners" but also "bad for productivity if it fells others".