早期人類如何進化到吃澱粉 (1/2)

Recently The New York Times on-line reported the following:

How Early Humans Evolved to Eat Starch (1/2)

Two new studies found that ancient human ancestors carried a surprising diversity of genes for amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch.

By Carl Zimmer – The New York Times Science

Updated Oct. 18, 2024, 9:54 a.m. ET

As soon as you put starch in your mouth — whether in the form of a dumpling, a forkful of mashed potatoes or a saltine — you start breaking it down with an enzyme in your saliva.

That enzyme, known as amylase, was critically important for the evolution of our species as we adapted to a changing food supply. Two new studies revealed that our ancestors began carrying more amylase genes in two major waves: the first one several hundred thousand years ago, possibly as a result of humans starting to cook with fire, and the second after the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago.

“This combination of adapting to diverse environments and modifying our diets is a core tenet of what makes us human,” said Omer Gokcumen, a geneticist at the University at Buffalo who led one of the studies, which published on Thursday in Science.

As ancient societies developed different diets, the new research suggests, they evolved to have different numbers of amylase genes. Dr. Gokcumen speculated that people today who have fewer amylase genes may be more vulnerable to diseases like diabetes that are fueled by a starch-heavy modern diet. Down the line, the findings could point to potential amylase-based treatments for these diseases.

“This is obviously in the future, but I think our studies are really setting the stage for doing this,” Dr. Gokcumen said.

The first clues to the extraordinary history lurking in our mouths emerged in the 1960s, when scientists discovered that some people made extra amylase in their saliva. But only in the last few years has DNA-sequencing technology become accurate enough to decipher the amylase genes people carry in their cells.

“We’ve been looking at a shadow, and now we’re looking at the real thing,” said Peter Sudmant, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the second new study, which was published last month in Nature.

Both Dr. Sudmant and Dr. Gokcumen’s teams cataloged a wide range of amylase copies in people’s DNA. Some had a single amylase gene on each copy of chromosome 1, whereas most people had many more — in some cases, as many as 11 copies.

These larger numbers put humans in stark contrast to other species. Chimpanzees and other apes also make amylase in their saliva, but they carry only a single gene for the enzyme.

Dr. Gokcumen’s team found fossil evidence for how our early ancestors gained more amylase genes. The researchers looked at pieces of DNA retrieved from the bones of hunter-gatherers who lived 45,000 years ago. They estimated these early humans had around five copies of amylase genes. When they looked at Neanderthal fossils, they also found evidence for several copies.

Since the common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals lived over 600,000 years ago, it’s possible that extra amylase genes had already evolved by then, perhaps after those hominins had learned to control fire, Dr. Gokcumen said.

Before the advent of cooking, our ancestors could get little nutrition from raw tubers and other starch-rich plants. But the heat from fires could break down the tough fibers in the plants, making them more digestible.

“It’s night and day with cooking,” Dr. Gokcumen said.

As people depended more on starch in their diet, he hypothesized, natural selection might have favored those who made more amylase in their mouth. The extra enzymes may have also helped them absorb more nutrition.

In the Nature study, Dr. Sudmant also found evidence suggesting that amylase genes started duplicating in our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago. While it’s possible that fire spurred the evolution of extra amylase genes, Dr. Sudmant cautioned that the evidence for the hypothesis remains thin. “That’s purely speculation,” he said.

(to be continued)

Translation

早期人類如何進化到吃澱粉 (1/2)

兩項新研究發現，古人類祖先帶有澱粉酶（一種分解澱粉的酵素）基因的多樣性令人驚訝。

一旦你把澱粉放進嘴裡 - 無論是餃子、一小叉薯蓉還是一塊鹹味餅乾 - 你就會開始用唾液中的酵素將其分解。

這種酶被稱為澱粉酶，當我們適應不斷變化的食物供應時，它對於我們物種的進化至關重要。兩項新研究表明，我們的祖先在兩次主要浪潮中開始帶有更多的澱粉酶基因：第一次是幾十萬年前，可能是由於人類開始用火煮食的結果，第二次是在12,000 年前的農業革命之後。

University at Buffalo遺傳學家Omer Gokcumen領導了一項研究，該研究於週四發表在《科學》雜誌上，他說：「去適應不同環境與改變飲食的組合是我們人類的核心定律」。

新的研究表明，隨著古代社會發展出不同的飲食習慣，他們進化了不同數量的澱粉酶基因。Gokcumen博士推測，如今澱粉酶基因較少的人可能更容易罹患糖尿病等疾病，而這些疾病是由富含澱粉的現代飲食引發的。未來，這新發現可能為這些疾病提供基於澱粉酶的潛在治療方法。

Gokcumen博士說: 「這顯然是未來的事情，但我認為我們的研究確實為實現這一目標奠定了基礎」。

關於潛伏在我們口腔中的非凡歷史的第一個線索出現在 20 世紀 60 年代，當時科學家發現有些人的唾液中會產生額外的澱粉酶。但直到最近幾年，DNA 定序技術才變得足夠準確，能夠破解人們細胞中帶有的澱粉酶基因。

加州大學柏克萊分校遺傳學家 Peter Sudmant 表示：「我們一直在觀察一個影子，現在我們正在觀察其實體」。他領導了第二次新研究，該研究於上個月發表在《自然》雜誌上。

Sudmant 博士和 Gokcumen 博士的團隊都對大量人類 DNA 澱粉酶進行了分類。有些人每個 1 號染色體上都有一個澱粉酶基因，而大多數人的 1 號染色體上有更多 - 在某些情況下，多達 11 個。

這些較大的數字使人類與其他物種形成鮮明對比。黑猩猩和其他猿類也在唾液中產生澱粉酶，但它們只帶有一個酵素基因。

Gokcumen博士的團隊發現了化石證據，證明我們的早期祖先如何獲得更多的澱粉酶基因。研究人員研究了從 45,000 年前的狩獵採集者的骨頭中提取的 DNA 碎片。他們估計這些早期人類有大約五個澱粉酶基因。當他們觀察尼安德特人化石時，他們也發現了有幾個酶基因的證據。

Gokcumen博士說，由於現代人類和尼安德特人的共同祖先生活在60 萬多年前，因此額外的澱粉酶基因可能已經在那時進化出來，也許是在這些古人類學會掌控用火之後。

在熟食出現之前，我們的祖先從生的植物地下莖或根塊及其他富含澱粉的植物中所獲得的營養很少。但火所產生的熱量可以分解植物中堅韌的纖維，使它們更容易消化。

Gokcumen博士說:「我們日夜都在煮食」。

他推測，由於人們在飲食中更依賴澱粉，大自然淘汰過程可能有利於那些在口腔中產生更多澱粉酶的人。額外的酵素可能還幫助它們吸收更多的營養。

在《自然》雜誌的研究中，Sudmant博士也發現了證據，顯示澱粉酶基因在數十萬年前就開始在我們的祖先中複製。儘管用火有可能刺激了額外澱粉酶基因的演化，但Sudmant博士警告說，支持這一假設的證據仍然薄弱。他說: “這純粹是猜測” 。

（待續）

獨家-以色列笨重的傳呼機如何愚弄真主黨 (2/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

Exclusive-How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah (2/2)

Wed, October 16, 2024 at 6:39 p.m. GMT+8·8 min read

Reuters - By Maya Gebeily, James Pearson and David Gauthier-Villars

(continue)

THE WEAK LINK

From the outside, the pager’s power source looked like a standard lithium-ion battery pack used in thousands of consumer electronics goods.

And yet, the battery, labelled LI-BT783, had a problem: Like the pager, it did not exist on the market.

So Israel's agents created a backstory from scratch.

Hezbollah has serious procurement procedures to check what they buy, a former Israeli intelligence officer, who was not involved in the pager operation, told Reuters.

"You want to make sure that if they look, they find something," the former spy said, requesting not to be named. "Not finding anything is not good.”

Creating backstories, or “legends”, for undercover agents has long been a core skill of spy agencies. What made the pager plot unusual is that those skills appear to have been applied to ubiquitous consumer electronics products.

For the pagers, the agents deceived Hezbollah by selling the custom-created model, AR-924, under an existing, renowned Taiwanese brand, Gold Apollo.

Gold Apollo’s chairman, Hsu Ching-kuang, told reporters a day after the pager attack that he was approached about three years ago by a former employee, Teresa Wu, and her “big boss, called Tom” to discuss a licence agreement.

Hsu said he had scant information about Wu’s superior, but he granted them the right to design their own products and market them under the widely distributed Gold Apollo brand.

Reuters could not establish the identity of the manager, nor whether the person or Wu knowingly worked with Israeli intelligence.

The chairman said he was not impressed by the AR-924 when he saw it, but still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website, helping give it both visibility and credibility. There was no way to directly buy the AR-924 from his website.

Hsu said he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation to attack Hezbollah. He described his company as a victim of the plot.

Gold Apollo declined to provide further comment. Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered. She has not given a statement to the media since the attacks.

"I KNOW THIS PRODUCT"

In September 2023, webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com, a website that said it had a licence to distribute Gold Apollo products, as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source, according to a Reuters review of internet records and metadata.

The website gave an address in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK. No company by that name exists at the address or in Hong Kong Corporate records.

However, the website was listed by Wu, the Taiwanese businesswoman, on her Facebook page as well as in public incorporation records when she registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year.

A section of the apollosystemshk.com site devoted to the LI-BT783 put emphasis on the battery’s outstanding performance. Unlike the disposable batteries that powered older generation pagers, it boasted 85 days of autonomy and could be recharged via a USB cable, according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube.

In late 2023, two battery stores came online with the LI-BT783 listed in their catalogues, Reuters found. And in two online forums devoted to batteries, participants discussed the power source, despite its lack of commercial availability: "I know this product," a user with the handle Mikevog wrote in April 2023. "It’s got a great datasheet and a great performance."

Reuters could not establish the identity of Mikevog.

The website, the online stores, and the forum discussions bear the hallmark of a deception effort, the former Israeli intelligence officer and two Western security officers told Reuters. The websites have been scrubbed from the web since the pager bombs wreaked havoc in Lebanon, but archived and cached copies are still viewable.

Ruing the day they bought the pagers, Hezbollah leaders said they had launched internal investigations to understand how the security breach could happen and identify possible moles.

The group had shifted to pagers at the start of the year after realising that cellphone communications were compromised by Israeli eavesdropping, Reuters previously reported.

Hezbollah's investigations have helped uncover how Israeli agents used an aggressive sales tactic to make sure Hezbollah’s procurement manager chose the AR-924, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The salesperson who conveyed the offer made a very inexpensive proposition for the pagers, “and kept bringing the price down until he was pulled in,” the person said.

Lebanese authorities have condemned the attacks as a serious violation of Lebanon's sovereignty. On Sept. 19, in his last public speech before he was killed by Israel, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the device blasts could amount to a "declaration of war" and vowed to punish Israel.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since Oct. 8, 2023, when the militant group began launching rockets at Israeli military positions in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas.

In the wake of the device attacks, Israel has launched a full-on war on Hezbollah, including a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and airstrikes that have killed most of its top leadership.

Hezbollah's internal investigation into the pager attack, still underway, suffered a setback on Sept. 28: Eleven days after the devices exploded, the senior Hezbollah official tasked with leading the procurement probe, Nabil Kaouk, was himself killed by an Israeli airstrike.

Translation

獨家-以色列笨重的傳呼機如何愚弄真主黨 (2/2)

（繼續）

弱點

從外部看，傳呼機的電源看起來就像數千種消費性電子產品中使用的標準鋰離子電池組。

然而，標示為 LI-BT783 的電池存在一個問題：與傳呼機一樣，市場上它們是不存在的。

因此，以色列特工從零開始編造了一個背景故事。

一名未參與傳呼機行動的前以色列情報官員告訴路透社，真主黨有嚴格的採購程序來檢查他們購買了的物品。

這位要求匿名的前間諜說:「你要確保他們在尋找時能找到一些東西」;「什麼都沒找到就不好的」。

為臥底特工創造背景故事或「傳說」長期以來一直是間諜機構的核心技能。傳呼機陰謀的不同尋常之處在於，這些技能似乎已應用於無處不在的消費性電子產品。

對於傳呼機，特工透過銷售客定製型號 AR-924 來欺騙真主黨，該型號是屬於現有的著名台灣品牌 Gold Apollo。

Gold Apollo 的董事長Hsu Ching-kuang 在傳呼機襲擊事件發生的第二天告訴記者，大約三年前，一名前僱員 Teresa Wu 和她的 “叫亜Tom的大老闆” 找他討論一個牌照協議。

Hsu說，他對Wu的上司所知甚少，但他授予他們設計自己產品的權利，並以廣泛流通的 Gold Apollo 品牌進行銷售。

路透社無法確定該經理人的身份，也無法確定該人或Wu是否在知情的情況下與以色列情報機構合作。

董事長表示，當他看到 AR-924 時，並沒有留下深刻的印象，但仍在公司網站上添加了該產品的照片和描述，有助於提高該產品的知名度和可信度。沒有提供直接從他的網站購買AR-924的辦法。

Hsu說，他對傳呼機的殺傷力或更廣泛的攻擊真主黨的行動一無所知。他稱他的公司是該陰謀的受害者。

Gold Apollo 拒絕提供進一步評論。給Wu的電話和簡訊均無人接聽。自從襲擊事件發生以來，她尚未向媒體發表聲明。

“我知道這個產品”

據Reuters對網路記錄和元資料的檢視，2023 年 9 月，apollosystemshk.com 上添加了 顯示AR-924 及其電池的網頁和圖片，該網站稱其擁有分銷 Gold Apollo 產品以及堅固型傳呼機及其龐大電源的許可證。

該網站提供了一家名為 Apollo Systems HK 的公司在香港的地址。在該地址或香港公司名册中沒有這公司。

然而，台灣Wu姓女商人今年稍早在台北註冊了一家名為Apollo Systems 的公司時，在她的 Facebook 頁面以及公開公司註冊記錄中列出了該網站。

在apollosystemshk.com 網站上專門介紹 LI-BT783 的部分裡, 它強調了電池的出色性能。根據該網站和 YouTube 上一段 90 秒的宣傳短片，與為老一代傳呼機供電的一次性電池不同，它擁有 85 天的續航時間，並且可以通過 USB 線充電。

路透社發現，2023 年末，兩家電池線上商店，在目錄中列出了 LI-BT783。在兩個專門討論電池的線上論壇中，參與者討論了這種電源，儘管它缺乏商業上的買賣：「我知道這個產品」; 一位名為Mikevog 的用戶在2023 年4 月寫道。「它有很棒的數據表和出色的性能」。

路透社無法確定Mikevog的身份。

前以色列情報官員和兩名西方安全官員告訴路透社，該網站、線上商店和論壇討論帶有欺騙行為的特徵帶。自從傳呼機炸彈在黎巴嫩造成嚴重破壞以來，這些網站已從網路上刪除，但從存檔和快取副本仍可以查看到。

真主黨領導人後悔那天購買了傳呼機，他們表示已啟動內部調查，以了解安全漏洞如何發生並找出可能的內奸。

根據路透社先前報道，在意識到手機通訊受到以色列竊聽的影響後，該組織於今年年初轉向傳呼機。

一位知情人士表示，真主黨的調查幫助揭露了以色列特工如何使用進取的銷售策略來確保真主黨的採購經理選擇 AR-924。

該人士表示，傳送報價的推銷員為傳呼機提出了非常便宜的建議，「並不斷降低價格，直到他被拉進來」。

黎巴嫩當局譴責這起攻擊事件嚴重侵害黎巴嫩主權。 9月19日，真主黨領袖哈桑·納斯魯拉在他被殺前的最後一次公開演講表示，這次裝置爆炸可能相當於 “宣戰” ，並誓言要懲罰以色列。

自 2023 年 10 月 8 日以來，真主黨和以色列一直在交火，當時武裝組織開始向以色列軍事陣地發射火箭，以聲援巴勒斯坦盟友哈馬斯。

裝備襲擊事件發生後，以色列對真主黨發動了全面戰爭，包括對黎巴嫩南部的地面入侵以及導致其大部分高層領導死亡的空襲。

真主黨對傳呼機襲擊事件的內部調查仍在進行中，但在9 月28 日遭遇挫折：裝備爆炸11 天後，負責領導調查採購的真主黨高級官員Nabil Kaouk在以色列空襲中身亡。

              So, the batteries inside the weaponized pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year was part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles' heel. The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray. To overcome the weakness of this plot, that would be the absence of a plausible backstory for this bulky new product, the agents created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence. I think from the espionage point of view, it is a successful operation.

獨家 - 以色列笨重的傳呼機如何愚弄真主黨 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

Exclusive-How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah (1/2)

Wed, October 16, 2024 at 6:39 p.m. GMT+8·8 min read

By Maya Gebeily, James Pearson and David Gauthier-Villars

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles' heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel's Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.

A thin, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos.

The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source said.

This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a black plastic sleeve, and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a match box, the photos showed.

The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturised detonator, typically a metallic cylinder, the source and two bomb experts said. All three spoke on conditions of anonymity.

Without any metal components, the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives, it was not detected by X-ray.

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Nothing suspicious was reported.

The devices were likely set up to generate a spark within the battery pack, enough to light the detonating material, and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode, said the two bomb experts, to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb design.

Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35 gram weight, two battery experts said.

"There is a significant amount of unaccounted for mass," said Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University.

At some point, Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected, the Lebanese source said. However, the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns - the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the attack.

On Sept. 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message.

Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation, Reuters witnesses saw. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.

Two Western security sources said Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie attacks.

Reuters could not establish where the devices were manufactured. The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has authority over Mossad, did not respond to a request for comment.

Lebanon’s Information Ministry and a spokesperson for Hezbollah declined to comment for this article.

Israel has neither denied nor confirmed a role. The day after the attacks Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant praised Mossad's "very impressive" results in comments that were widely interpreted in Israel as a tacit acknowledgement of the agency's participation.

U.S. officials have said they were not informed of the operation in advance.

(to be continued)

Translation

獨家 - 以色列笨重的傳呼機如何愚弄真主黨 (1/2)

貝魯特（路透社） - 今年年初抵達黎巴嫩的武器化傳呼機內的電池是以色列消滅真主黨陰謀的一部份，它具有強大的欺騙性和致命弱點。

據一位對傳呼機有第一手了解的黎巴嫩消息人士透露，以及路透社看到的電池組拆解照片, 製造傳呼機的特工設計了一個電池，裡面隱藏著少量但威力強大的塑膠炸藥, 和X射線看不見的新型雷管。

路透社對網路檔案的審查顯示，為了克服陰謀弱點 - 這種龐大的新產品缺乏可信的背景故事 - 他們創建了虛假的在線商店、頁面和帖子，能欺騙真主黨的盡職調查。

傳呼機炸彈的隱密設計和電池精心構建的掩護故事（這兩者都是首次在此描述）揭示了長達數年的行動的執行情況，該以色列行動對由伊朗支持的黎巴嫩敵人進行了前所未有的打擊，並將中東推向地區戰爭。

根據黎巴嫩消息人士和照片，一塊薄薄的方形薄片被擠壓在兩個長方形電池之間，其中含有六克白色季戊四醇四硝酸酯（PETN）塑膠炸藥。

消息人士稱，照片中看不到電池之間的剩餘空間，它被一條充當雷管的高度易燃材料佔據。

照片顯示，這種三層三明治被插入黑色塑膠套中，並封裝在火柴盒大小的金屬外殼中。

消息人士和兩名炸彈專家表示，這次組裝很不尋常，因為它不依賴標準的小型雷管，通常是金屬圓筒。三人均要求匿名。

由於沒有任何金屬成分，用於引發爆炸的材料有一個優勢：與塑膠炸藥一樣，它無法被 X 射線檢測到。

兩名知情人士稱，真主黨在二月收到傳呼機後，檢查是否有爆炸物，並透過機場安全掃描儀檢查是否會觸發警報。沒有收到有可疑的報告。

兩名看過路透社展示傳呼機炸彈設計的炸彈專家表示，這些裝置可能會在電池組內產生火花，足以點燃起爆材料，並引發 PETN 片爆炸。

兩位電池專家表示，由於炸藥和包裝材料約佔體積的三分之一，因此電池組的電量僅為其 35 克重量的一小部分。

英國Newcastle大學鋰電池專家Paul Christensen表示：“這佔無法解釋的重量的一大部份。”

黎巴嫩消息人士稱，在某個時候，真主黨注意到電池的電量消耗速度比預期的要快。然而，這個問題似乎並沒有引起重大的安全問題 - 該組織在襲擊發生前幾個小時仍在向其成員提供傳呼機。

9月17日，貝魯特南郊和真主黨其他據點的數千台傳呼機同時爆炸，大多數情況下是在設備發出嘟嘟聲後爆炸，顯示有訊息傳入。

路透社目擊者看到，在被送往醫院的受害者中，許多人眼睛受傷、手指缺失或腹部出現大洞，這表明他們在爆炸時靠近這些裝置。總的來說，傳呼機攻擊, 以及接著在翌日啟動的武器化對講機爆炸共造成 39 人死亡、3,400 多人受傷。

兩名西方保安消息人士稱，以色列情報機構Mossad帶領這次用傳呼機及對講機來進行攻擊。

路透社無法確定這些裝置的生產地。對Mossad擁有掌控權的以色列總理內塔尼亞胡辦公室沒有回應置評請求。

黎巴嫩資訊部和真主黨發言人拒絕對本文發表評論。

以色列既沒有否認也沒有確認其角色。襲擊發生第二天，以色列國防部長加蘭特在評論中稱讚Mossad取得了「非常令人印象深刻」的成果，這些評論在以色列被廣泛解讀為默認該機構的參與。

美國官員表示，他們事先並未獲悉此行動。

（待續）

"At least 3,000 North Korean soldiers undergo training in Russia" - US presidential aide

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

“北朝鮮兵 少なくとも3000人がロシアで訓練”米大統領補佐官

2024年10月24日 8時57分

アメリカのホワイトハウスのカービー大統領補佐官は少なくとも3000人の北朝鮮の兵士がロシア東部にある複数の軍事施設で訓練を受けているという見方を明らかにしました。訓練を終えたあと、軍事侵攻が続くウクライナの前線に向かう可能性があるとして、関係国とともに動向を注視する考えを示しました。

アメリカのカービー大統領補佐官は23日の記者会見で「今月上旬から中旬までに北朝鮮の兵士少なくとも3000人がロシア東部に移動したとみている」と述べました。

兵士らは船で北朝鮮東部のウォンサン（元山）付近からロシア極東のウラジオストクに移動したあと、東部にある複数の軍事施設で訓練を受けているとみられ、その後、軍事侵攻が続くウクライナの前線に向かう可能性があると指摘しました。

カービー補佐官はこの動きはロシアが戦場で多くの犠牲者を出していることの表れだとしたうえで「北朝鮮とロシアの軍事協力は前例のないレベルにあり、ヨーロッパや、インド太平洋地域の安全保障にも影響する」として関係国とともに動向を注視する考えを示しました。

北朝鮮の兵士派遣をめぐっては、アメリカのオースティン国防長官も「深刻な問題だ」として危機感を示していました。

Translation

"At least 3,000 North Korean soldiers undergo training in Russia" - US presidential aide

White House National Security Advisor Kirby said he believed that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers were undergoing training at multiple military facilities in eastern Russia. After completing their training, they might head for the front line in Ukraine where military aggression was continuing, and he indicated the intention to closely monitor the situation together with related countries.

At a press conference on the 23rd, US National Security Advisor Kirby said, "We believe that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers had traveled to eastern Russia between the beginning and the middle of this month."

These soldiers were believed to have traveled by boat from near Wonsan in eastern North Korea to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, and were believed to have undergone training at multiple military facilities in the east, and then might head towards the front line in Ukraine, where military aggression was continuing.

Kirby said this move was a sign that Russia was suffering heavy casualties on the battlefield, and stated that "military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is at an unprecedented level, which has implications for the security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region," and that he planned to closely monitor developments together with related countries.

US Secretary of Defense Austin had also expressed concern about North Korea's deployment of troops, calling it a "serious issue."

So, the US believes that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers are undergoing training at multiple military facilities in eastern Russia and they may head for the front line in Ukraine soon. Apparently, the conflict in Ukraine is escalating and I am wondering what action South Korea will take in response to this military cooperation. I believe that there is no free lunch for Russia and wonder what North Korea will get from Russia in return. Could it be the technology in making missiles?