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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

 
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 28 May, 2006 10:08 am
Amigo wrote:
McTag wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
Amigo, your desperation increases with each post. You and your fellows habitually, repeatedly parrot the same cycle of mindless doggerel ....

...
In other words, the pot calling the kettle black.
I geuss I'll have to be happy with being the kettle but at least i'm not the pot.

I think it a case of the griddle (e.g., motmot, members of the "Ministry of Truth") calling the pot (e.g., ican) greasy.
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 28 May, 2006 10:38 pm
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 28 May, 2006 11:11 pm
More "progress" from Iraq:


Nine dead in Iraqi bus explosion
At least nine people have been killed in an explosion on or near a bus north-east of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police say.
There were conflicting reports as to where the explosion, which police said was caused by a bomb, took place.

News agencies quoted police as saying the blast happened in the region of Baquba and Khalis.

Iraqi insurgents have carried out almost daily attacks for months, aimed at civilians and security forces.


Story from BBC NEWS:
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McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 01:01 am
New topic touching on nationalism for you

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=75514&highlight=
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OCCOM BILL
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 02:05 am
Amigo wrote:
ican, you lost. Your running a race in circles that was over a long time ago. The only one that doesn't realize it is you.
Your penchant for exaggeration is likely the reason you've diluted yourself into thinking Ican is alone. That few will bother to respond is no indication there's a lack of opposition to your incessant anti-American rantings.

Amigo wrote:
You lost. You lose. America is Terrorizing civilian populations. Logic and reasoning is not on your side. Self-deception and denial are your new friends. That is what allows you to support terror.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1
Rolling Eyes We haven't lost, likely won't and don't support terror. Pity you seldom stop to consider that if we win; so does our former enemy "Iraq" and the rest of the world. Your delusions are likely the product of the diluted sources you choose to inform yourself with. Zoom out from the doom and gloom fragments you seem to think tell the WHOLE story, read both sides of the debate, and perhaps you'll see how your delusion accusations more closely describe you than then they do Ican. Idea
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McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 03:24 am
Bill, I've seen plenty of film from Iraq, now. More than enough. Children have been bombed, and seen their parents shot. I'm remembering when it was even the practice to bomb houses, streets and villages where Saddam was supposed to have been hiding that day. He never was, but they got bombed anyway.
These people are terrified. Terror has been brought to them. Plenty of innocent civilians have been killed, and the survivors are, well, terrified. The don't know when the next bomb strike will occur.The people who are doing this to them are....what?

By any definition, they are terrorists.
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OCCOM BILL
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 03:39 am
Terror does not equal terrorism.
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McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 03:53 am
OCCOM BILL wrote:
Terror does not equal terrorism.


How did Ican get that cheesy-hat picture?
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Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 04:06 am
Terror is not terrorism.


Yes. and good is bad and up is down and when we torture it's not really torture it's necessary, yes.

Meanwhile, we haven't smoked them out of their caves because we were elsewhere urging them to bring it on and they did.

Joe(Brilliant)Nation
0 Replies
 
xingu
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 04:41 am
In the meantime as we watch Iraq descend into total chaos Afghanistan is disintegrating. Thanks to our heavy handed treatment of the natives we are creating new terrorist in two countries now. Osama bin Laden has never had a better ally than George Bush.

Quote:
Riot erupts after Kabul traffic accident
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago

A deadly traffic accident involving U.S. troops sparked a riot in the Afghan capital on Monday, with U.S. and Afghan security forces firing on protesters, police and witnesses said. At least four people were killed.

Hundreds of protesters marched on palace of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai in the city center after the incident, shouting "Death to Karzai! Death to America!"

Gunfire was also heard near the U.S. Embassy. The staff was moved to a secure location within the heavily fortified compound, said Chris Harris, an embassy spokesman.

Rioters broke into shops and stole household items, and an AP reporter said he saw several demonstrators pull a foreign man from a vehicle and beat him. The man escaped and ran to a line of police, who fired shots over the heads of the demonstrators.

Afghan troops deployed around Kabul, and two tanks of NATO peacekeepers drove at high speed through the city center. Rioters smashed police guard boxes and set fire to police cars.

Witnesses said the incident began when a convoy of at least three U.S. Humvees came into the city from the outskirts and hit several civilian cars in rush-hour traffic jam.

"The American convoy hit all the vehicles which were in their way. They didn't care about the civilians at all," said Mohammad Wali, 21, a shopkeeper.

Three people were killed and 16 wounded in the crash, said Sher Shah Usafi, a Kabul police chief. U.S. forces then fired on the crowd, killing one person and wounding two, he said.

A commander with the city's traffic police who was at the scene said he also saw U.S. forces firing on protesters. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, confirmed U.S. troops were involved in the accident but said the military had "no indication that U.S. forces fired any shots." He said an investigation was continuing.

Associated Press TV footage showed hundreds of angry young men hurling rocks at what appeared to be three U.S. military trucks and three Humvees as they sped from the area after the crash, their windscreens cracked by the stones.

A center-mounted machine gun on one of the Humvees was seen firing into the air over the crowd as the vehicle sped away. The video footage also showed an Afghan man apparently hurt in the riots lying on the ground, being comforted by others around him.

An AP reporter at the scene said he saw about 10 Afghan police firing into a crowd of about 50 demonstrators, and that U.S. troops had already left the area. The protesters scattered when the firing erupted, but later regrouped.

Two helicopters belonging to a NATO-led peacekeeping force hovered over the area.

Phones in Kabul were only working sporadically. Repeated attempts to get through to the city's hospitals to get the latest casualty toll from the unrest were unsuccessful.

State television cut transmission of a live broadcast of parliament when one angry lawmaker interrupted the proceedings to protest the incident.

"I have seen the incident. ... I come from that area and I have to tell you," Taj Mohammed Mujahid shouted before the house speaker ruled him out of order and the screen went black.

Transmission resumed minutes later and parliamentary speaker Yunus Qanooni called for calm.

"We call on the people to be tolerant because there is the risk this could be exploited by our enemies," he said, referring to Taliban rebels who are waging a fierce insurgency in the country's southern and eastern regions.

He said the Cabinet was discussing the matter.

Afghans often complain about what they call the aggressive driving tactics of the U.S. military. Convoys often pass through crowded areas at high speeds and sometimes disregard road rules. The U.S. military says such tactics are necessary to protect the troops from attack.
___
Associated Press correspondents Amir Shah, Daniel Cooney and Edward Harris contributed to this report.
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xingu
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 06:39 am
Who controls the oil in Iraq? The govrnment or a Shiite faction called the Virtue(Fadhila) party?

Quote:
Shi'ite faction menaces Iraq's Basra oil exports
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, May 26 (Reuters) - Iraq's new government risks being held to ransom by a dissident Shi'ite faction using its local clout in Basra to hobble vital oil exports, Iraqi officials and senior political sources said on Friday.

They warned that the locally powerful Fadhila party was threatening to have members in the oil industry stage a go-slow to halt exports through the key southern oil port if it did not win the concessions it wanted from Baghdad.

"Fadhila is in control," a senior Shi'ite political source close to the party said.

Turf wars among Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Islamist parties have long made its second city a confusing battleground for rival militias, leaving the British forces nominally in charge of Basra hoping that the new government can finally impose order.

Instead, the small Fadhila, which controls the governor's office and parts of the local oil industry but which refused to join Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet, risks turning the tables on Baghdad by turning off its cash lifeline.

"He who owns Basra owns the oil reserves. It is the gateway to the Gulf," the Shi'ite political source said. "It's the richest city in the world. It has a strategic position so why would any one give it up?"

The power struggle over Basra's oil goes to the fractious heart of the United Iraqi Alliance, the bloc of Shi'ite Islamist parties that controls a near-majority in parliament and will shape Iraq's future for years, with or without U.S. occupation.

"The security problem in Basra, the corruption, the death squads, is all a power struggle between militias and mafia run by parts of the UIA," a senior Iraqi oil official said, warning that factions in Basra could shut down all Iraq's exports.

Maliki's Dawa party, the SCIRI group and followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr dominate the Alliance in Baghdad. Fadhila refused to join the government when Maliki took the Oil Ministry from it and handed it to an independent, Hussain al-Shahristani.

Shahristani in turn has vowed to centralise control of oil in Baghdad and crack down hard on corruption and oil smuggling, which officials say are endemic in the southern oilfields.

"KICKBACKS FOR EXPORTS"

The senior oil official said: "Fadhila are threatening that they want kickbacks. Unless they get kickbacks they could shut down exports. This is a very serious problem and crisis."

Oil exports produce virtually all Iraq's government revenue and, with sabotage halting exports from the northern fields, the Basra oil terminal is essentially Iraq's only source of income.

Politics in the city have been dominated by bitter disputes over authority and accusations of corruption and organised crime between the governor, Fadhila's Mohammed al-Waeli and its police chief as well as other Shi'ite factions and clerical figures.

But the political source said these issues masked a broader agenda that ultimately came down to control of oil.

"The real struggle is hidden beneath the politics," he said.

"There are local and international battles for Basra. Locally it is between Fadhila and other groups while regionally it is between Iran and other forces, like the British."

"This will affect the oil sector. The Alliance has chosen a person with no experience to be oil minister instead of someone from Fadhila. This has angered the party.

"Fadhila employees will do a minimum of work to satisfy domestic needs of 400,000 to 500,000 barrels a day. As for exports and boosting output, let the ministry deal with that."

Shipping agents said on Friday there was no disruption to oil loadings at Basra.

Basra province is not only vital for Iraq's oil exports but for its domestic fuel requirements, due to its refinery, and for food supply, containing its only port and rich farmland.

With beleaguered British troops trying to hold the ring in Basra, London has pressed Maliki to intervene, pointing out that the credibility of the Alliance-led government is at stake, and a high-level delegation is expected to visit Basra soon.
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BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 07:25 am
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blueflame1
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 08:24 am
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/4317/fatherson1td.jpg
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 10:37 am
blueflame, That's one of the best pictures of Bush Sr and Jr, especially the part about junior cutting benefits for our soldiers. I keep wondering why our soldiers continue to support their commander in chief that treats them like fodder.

We have over 18,000 wounded soldiers now, many without benefits or support after they return from Iraq. It's pretty damn shameful that neocons still support this tyrant.

It wasn't too long ago when the military was hounding our vets because they were overpaid by mistake - while they are having difficulty finding jobs or surviving with their injuries. They claim to have corrected this problem, but I doubt it.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 11:10 am
More "progress" in Afghanistan:

US crash sparks Afghanistan riot
At least seven people have been killed in the Afghan capital Kabul after a traffic accident involving a US military convoy sparked mass rioting.
Hundreds of anti-US protesters clashed with Afghan security forces for two hours, in one of the worst riots since the fall of the Taleban in late 2001.

The protesters moved on to attack buildings in the diplomatic quarter.

There are conflicting reports over whether the US troops in the military convoy fired into the crowd.


Police and armed forces moved in to restore law and order after hours of demonstrations and gunfire.

But there is an underlying nervousness that more anti-American demonstrations and violence will follow, the BBC's Alastair Leithead in Kabul says.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared on live television to urge people to "stand up against these agitators and not let them destroy our country again".

'Tragic accident'

The unrest began after a US military vehicle apparently lost control and smashed into at least 12 civilian cars during morning rush-hour in Kabul's northern suburbs.

Coalition spokesman Col Thomas Collins said a large cargo truck in the US convoy had suffered a mechanical failure, hitting the cars at a busy intersection.


People are very angry
Samad Shah
Resident


"This was a tragic accident and we deeply regret any deaths or injuries resulting from this incident," he said, adding that a full investigation was under way.

Hundreds of Afghans gathered after the accident, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Karzai".

They pelted the US military vehicles with stones before scattering when the shooting began.

Some eyewitnesses say the US troops shot at protesters, while others say it was the Afghan police who came to the aid of the under-siege convoy. Some say it was both.

The US military said there were "indications" that at least one of the vehicles in the convoy "fired warning shots over the crowd".

The military said at least one person was killed and six injured in the traffic accident, although local police put the figure at three dead and 16 injured.

The number of dead and wounded from the rioting is also confused, with some reports putting the death toll at up to 20 with more than 100 injured.

Buildings ransacked

The protesters then headed for the city centre, towards the presidential palace and parliament, setting fire to police cars and police checkpoints.


Bursts of heavy gunfire could also be heard close to the US embassy, whose staff were moved to a secure location.

At the height of the violence, a 16-member European Union delegation had to be rescued by British Royal Marines working under the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force.

Buildings were ransacked and set alight, including the compound of the aid organisation Care International.

A spokesman for the London-based charity said they were assessing the damage and "the implications for our work in the country" but did not believe Care had been specifically targeted "as we have good relations with the local community".

Air strikes

Separately, Afghan officials say fighter planes of the US-led coalition have attacked suspected Taleban fighters in the south of the country.

The deputy governor of Helmand province, Amir Mohammed Akhundzada, said he believed about 50 militants were killed in the attack.

"The Taleban were meeting in a mosque when the bombardment took place," Mr Akhundzada told Reuters news agency.

He said police had yet to reach the site to confirm any figures.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/5026350.stm
0 Replies
 
Amigo
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 12:11 pm
I wonder if we can find anything good going on in Iraq. There has to be at least one good story coming out of Iraq? And I don't mean Bush propaganda, I mean something real.
0 Replies
 
Amigo
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 12:22 pm
IRAQ: PRODI SAYS WITHDRAWAL WILL BE DECIDED WITH DUE CAUTION
(AGI) - Brussels, May 29 - The government will make its decision on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq with the due caution and in close collaboration with the Iraqi government, said Prime Minister Romano Prodi today in Brussels for his first visit to the European Commission. When asked by a journalist whether the withdrawal of troops from Iraq in this difficult situation is an error, the Prime Minister replied: "This must be discussed and decided upon by the government. The problem of Iraq has been shared with the entire coalition for the first months of the elections. Now we will have to implement it all with the due diligence, the due caution and with good relations with the Iraqi government." -
291305 MAG 06
COPYRIGHTS 2002-2006 AGI S.p.A.

Link
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cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 12:25 pm
Amigo, There are some good news coming out of Iraq, but it has nothing to do with the government. There are volunteers in Iraq trying to help people with food, shelter, and medical supplies, but they are fewer and fewer as the threat of getting killed increases almost daily. Those people are the real heroes.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 12:40 pm
I bet the people in this administration just doesn't give a shet:
Guantanamo hunger strike spreads
The number of detainees on hunger strike at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has grown and now involves 75 inmates, the US says.
Navy Cmdr Robert Durand said the new hunger strike was aimed at attracting media attention and may also be connected to a disturbance on 18 May.

Detainees started an on-off hunger strike last August to protest at their continued detention and conditions.

Rights groups have voiced concerns that the US has force-fed the strikers.

About 460 prisoners remain at Guantanamo, many of them captured in Afghanistan. Some have been held for nearly four years without charge.

The US military defines a hunger strike as missing nine consecutive meals and most of the 75 passed that mark on Sunday.


This new hunger strike is likely a co-ordinated, but short-term effort
Cmdr Durand


Most are refusing food but are drinking liquids.

Cmdr Durand said the hunger strike was not a new tactic at the detention centre and that most returned to full normal diets after media attention had passed.

He said the current protest may be designed to coincide with a series of hearings scheduled in June.

"This new hunger strike is likely a co-ordinated, but short-term, effort designed to coincide with the military commission hearings scheduled for the next several weeks as defence attorneys and media normally travel to Guantanamo to observe this process," Cmdr Durand said in a statement.

He said the gesture may also be related to an incident earlier this month when two detainees tried to commit suicide and several others clashed with guards.

Closure call

Seventy-six detainees began a hunger strike in August. Since then the number has at times grown and then dwindled to a handful.

Three men who have been protesting since August and one of the recent group are being enterally fed, that is via a tube through the nose and into the stomach, the military says.

Defence lawyers have said many detainees stopped their protest because the US military adopted more aggressive measures to force feed them.

In March, more than 250 medical experts signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike.

Earlier this month, the UN Committee against Torture called on the US to close Guantanamo and any other secret "war on terror" detention facilities abroad.

The Bush administration has denied allegations of abuse at Guantanamo, and the military says it provides safe, human care and custody of the detainees.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5027860.stm

Published: 2006/05/29 16:51:12 GMT
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Mon 29 May, 2006 12:46 pm
Since 2003, the Iraqi government has registered 5,000 private organizations, including charities, human rights groups, medical assistance agencies and literacy projects.

Officials estimate that 7,000 other groups are working unofficially. The efforts show that even as violence and sectarian hatred tears Iraq's mixed cities apart, a growing number of Iraqis are trying to bring them together.

"Iraqis were thirsty for such experiences," said Khadija Tuma, director of the office in the government that now works with the private aid groups. "It was as if they already had it inside themselves."

The charity groups offer bits of relief in a sea of poverty, which swept Iraq during the economic embargo of the 1990s, but has gotten worse with the pervasive lawlessness that followed the American invasion.

The burst of public spiritedness comes after long decades of muzzled community life under Saddam Hussein, when drab Soviet-style committees for youth, women and industrialists were the only community groups permitted.

Saddam stamped out what had been a vibrant public life. Since the founding of Islam in the seventh century, charity has had a special place in its societies. As far back as the 19th century, religious leaders, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, formed a network called Al Ashraf that was a link between people and the Ottoman-appointed governor of Baghdad. The Iraqi Chamber of Commerce dates to the 1930s, and volunteers plunged into Baghdad's poor areas to conduct literacy campaigns in the 1950s, around the time of the overthrow of the monarchy.

Today's groups have picked up that historical thread and offer hope in an increasingly poisonous sectarian landscape that Iraqis might still be able to hold their country together.

Saiedi is a pragmatic 35-year-old who has neither a husband nor a job. After the American invasion, she tried to find work at a cellphone company, one of the few kinds of private firms that pay well, but was told that they were not hiring women because the job required travel.

Boredom was part of her motivation: The risk of kidnapping has confined many women to their homes and she had long hours at home with nothing to do.

So, with a group of her close friends and two of her sisters, Saiedi formed a charity group, Bilad al-Rafidendo, or Orphan Relief. Once a month she picks her way around mounds of trash in Shuala in dainty sandals, taking blankets, slippers and towels to children there.

The members take donations from friends and co-workers, and even people who go through government offices where several of them work, and regularly give assistance to 520 children.

"There are families of children where fathers were killed in explosions," said Saiedi, wearing a colorful green hijab on a recent day. "Now the state is busy. If I don't care about them, who will?"

Wassan al-Sharifi, 28, an office assistant for a government official, said she joined the group because "I like the spirit of its members."

"In spite of this bad situation, they're willing to help people," she said.

One delivery early this month took Saiedi to the town of Abu Ghraib to the home of Dumoh Mizher, a 31-year-old Shiite widow, one of the women who runs a family of 15 children, left fatherless after Mizher's husband and two of his brothers were killed in Abu Ghraib in 2005, when Sunni Arab insurgents broke into their small shop and shot all three point blank.

Children spilled through the doorway of the spare, cinderblock house whose empty windows looked out onto a small pen with a goat. Framed photographs of the three dead men were set high on the wall, not far from portraits of Shiite saints.

"Who is who?" asked Saiedi, trying to calm the children down as they buzzed around her.

"Zaineb, where is Zaineb?" she asked, holding up a small pink dress wrapped in plastic.

Not all groups are a force for good. Tuma, the government official, estimated that nearly 10 percent of the registered groups were involved in guerrilla activities and other crime. One was funneling aid to fighters in the volatile town of Falluja, she said, and the government shut it down. Another was running a ring that sold children into slavery abroad.

Iraq's religion-based political parties also have a hand in supporting the charity groups. Khafaji, who founded Al Rahma Organization, her shelter for homeless women and children, in 2005, gets some of the financing from an office of Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric.

The need here is growing. The number of acutely malnourished children has more than doubled, to 9 percent in 2005 from 4 percent in 2002, according to a report compiled by Iraq's Planning Ministry and released this month.

Homelessness has spread since 2003, and accelerated with the rise of sectarian violence, with Iraqis even squatting in an old movie theater in central Baghdad, Khafaji said.

The Ministry of Migration estimates that 1.1 million Iraqis have been displaced since 2003.

Khafaji, a 49-year-old former shopping center manager, said she felt a personal connection to those who are homeless. In 1969, Saddam's regime executed her father and her family was forced from its property. She and her siblings were separated for their safety and their belongings were sold off.

"This made me feel homeless," she said, sitting in a large room in a worn building in central Baghdad that is home to about 20 women and children.

Khafaji even looks for jobs and husbands for the women. A shy 30-year-old who fled an unhappy home in Kut recently found work through the shelter, bringing tea to guests in a government ministry. Several others have married men in Sadr City.

A visit to the shelter offers a tour of some of the miseries of poverty here.

A man came to the gate a month ago, and tried to leave two children, a 1-year- old and an infant less than a month old. The shelter could not take them.

"So many victims," she said, raising her hands and opening her palms in a gesture of fatigue.

Ali Adeeb and Hosham Hussein contributed reporting for this article from Baghdad.
From: International Herald Tribune, France
© New York Times



This page can be found at: http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/nc/browse/countries/iraq/in-iraq-small-acts-1148464615/lang/en.html
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