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Russia, US sign
civilian nuclear pact
May 7, 2008
MOSCOW, May
6: Russia and the United States signed a nuclear pact on Tuesday
allowing the world?s two biggest atomic powers to boost their uranium
trade and work on new ways to prevent the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
The civilian deal will open up the booming US nuclear market and Russia?s
vast uranium fields to firms from both countries by removing Cold War
restrictions that prevented bilateral trade potentially worth billions
of dollars.
US ambassador to Russia, William Burns, signed the deal with the head of
Russia?s state nuclear corporation, Sergei Kiriyenko, on the last full
day of Vladimir Putin?s presidency.
The United States and Russia were once nuclear rivals ? we are today
nuclear partners,? said Burns.
At the 2006 Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg, President George Bush
and Putin ordered ministers to reach a deal but it has faced opposition
from some U.S. congressmen because of Russia?s nuclear cooperation with
Iran. A 123 agreement, so-called because it falls under section 123 of
the US Atomic Energy Act, is required before countries can cooperate on
nuclear materials.
It is critical to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, which
the United States and Russia have discussed for more than a year as a
way to expand peaceful nuclear energy development and mitigate
proliferation risks.
What this agreement allows us to do is to implement some very creative
ideas that both Russia and the United States have put forward to deal
with the growing challenge of proliferation of nuclear weapons,? Burns
said.
He said the deal would allow Washington and Moscow to move forward on
proposals for international nuclear fuel centres, which would sell
developing countries access to nuclear energy but remove the need for
their own enrichment programmes.
Russia and the United States control the largest arsenals of nuclear
weapons in the world and both have ambitious plans to build hundreds of
new reactors for power production.
Some US politicians have said nuclear cooperation with Russia should be
shunned because Russia is helping Iran build an atomic power station,
but the Bush administration is keen to have the pact approved this year.
Once the agreement is signed Bush will have to send it to Congress, which
has 90 days to act. If Congress does nothing, the agreement goes into
effect. If lawmakers want to block it, they must pass a resolution of
disapproval. Russia?s parliament, controlled by Putin?s party, must also
ratify the treaty.
Russia, one of the world?s biggest sellers of enrichment services, has
been trying to break into the nuclear markets of the United States and
European Union.
The signing of this agreement opens a gigantic field of opportunities for
the economic cooperation in the large and growing businesses linked to
the civilian use of nuclear energy,? Kiriyenko said after the signing.
Tuesday?s agreement simplifies life for companies in both countries and
allows them to strike deals on trade in nuclear materials directly among
themselves. Putin has reformed Russia?s nuclear sector to boost
competition and open it up to atomic firms such as Japan?s Toshiba Corp,
which owns US-based Westinghouse Electric.
Reuters
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US-Iran showdown
in Gulf
May 7, 2008
THE risks of an accidental showdown between the
US Navy and Iran in the Gulf have only increased now that the Pentagon
has deployed a second aircraft carrier battle group to the region and
replaced Admiral Fallon with General Petraeus as the new commander of
CENTCOM.
Defence Secretary Gates pointedly termed the deployment a "reminder" for
the Iranian regime, a reference to the vicious, undeclared US naval
attack in the Gulf that forced Ayatollah Khomeini, in his own words, to
swallow "the poisoned chalice" and accept a negotiated ceasefire with
Baathist Iraq in 1988.
Both the US and Iranian military high command acknowledge the primacy of
naval power in the event of war in the Gulf. The American fleet protects
the tanker sea-lanes of the Gulf, through which almost half of the
world's oil tanker traffic passes. Last week's incident only highlighted
the new rules of engagement sanctioned by the Pentagon against Iranian
vessels.
Every day, 16 million barrels of oil laden in the bowels of VLCC tankers
navigate the narrow two-mile wide outbound shipping lane of the Straits
of Hormuz, the world's most sensitive energy chokepoint. Iran has
stationed Chinese Silkworm missile batteries in the islands and coastal
towns near the straits. It also has enough submarines, fighter bombers,
a flotilla of speedboats, frigates and guided missile cruisers and
martyrdom obsessed Basij militiaman to close down the Straits of Hormuz,
possibly by sinking a couple of oil supertankers in it.
A blockade of the Straits of Hormuz is, of course, the quintessential
Armageddon scenario for the international crude oil market. However,
even the merest hint of a shooting war in the Gulf, could have a
catastrophic impact on shipping and insurance rates.
Gate's "reminder" referred to Operation Praying Mantis, the bloodiest air
sea battle waged by the US Navy against Khomeini's oil platforms and
frigates since World War II. Pentagon strategists concluded that "shock
and awe" in the Gulf was successful because it forced Khomeini to sue
for peace, a lesson it reapplied with a vengeance in the opening moments
of Desert Storm.
However, not even the Star Wars technological infrastructure of the
Pentagon can prevent an undersea mine explosion or a suicide bomb
attack. The naval units of the Pasdaran, who did not hesitate to attack
US warships despite suicidal odds in 1988, use "swarming" as a strategic
doctrine. This means Iranian speedboats buzz US naval vessels at high
speeds, as happened last week. The US Navy has learnt the naval lessons
of the Al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole and the French tanker Limburg
all too well.
If Iran "swarms" US Navy warships or merchant marine ships, the risk of a
tragic miscalculation soars, as happened when the USS Vincennes shot
down a civilian Iran Air Airbus headed from Bandar Abbas to Dubai after
its IFF misidentified it as a hostile warplane while it was being
"swarmed" by Pasdaran gunboats. Iran's anti- ship capabilities are also
perfectly capable of lethal damage to US naval warships and, in the
event of war, the Pasdaran missile units will do their best to target
the American aircraft carriers in the Gulf.
As the Imperial Japanese Navy proved in the Pacific war, suicide attacks
on the high seas can exact a painful toll. The fate of the HMS
Sheffield, sunk by an Argentine Exocet missile, in the Falkland war,
should restrain the most belligerent Pentagon naval strategists.
It is not unnatural that paranoia suffuses Iran's theocratic regime in its
international relations. With an annual defence budget of only $5
billion, one hundredth the military expenditure of the Pentagon, Iran is
surrounded by a constellation of states which host US bases or are sworn
allies of Washington. These include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the
Gulf monarchies, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Egypt and Azerbaijan. Iran's sole
Arab ally, Baathist Syria, has been ostracised in the Arab diplomatic
order, expelled from Lebanon, forced to engage in secret negotiations
with Israel via Turkish diplomatic intermediaries for the return of the
Golan Heights, under Zionist occupation since the June 1967 Six Day War.
Hezbollah's missile deterrent against an Israeli assault has been
neutralised with the deployment of 13500 UNIFIL troops in South Lebanon,
including contingents of French, Spanish and Italian combat troops.
There is increasing evidence that the CIA has financed sabotage attacks
by Iran's ethnic Baluchi, Ahwazi, Kurdish and Arab minorities against
the Persian regime's provincial bastions of power.
The Bush White House, to use the laudable but anachronistic metaphor of
former Iranian president Khatami, is definitely not engaged in "a
dialogue of civilisations" with the Khomeini — Ahmadinejad regime. With
the sort of pathological Great Satan-Axis of Evil mutual demonology, it
is significant that Iran and the US have not had diplomatic relations
ever since the Shah lost his Peacock Throne nearly three decades ago. In
such a toxic geo-political climate, the risks of miscalculation
escalate.
It is ominous that the US has raised the decibel count in its attempt to
blame Iran for the death toll on its troops in Iraq, now that Al Qaeda
has been largely vanquished in the so-called Sunni triangle. The
Pentagon and White House media briefers allege that Iran's spymasters
have trained Iraqi Shia proxies to smuggle improvised roadside bombs and
rocket attack on Baghdad's Green Zone, training conducted in secret
camps of the Al Quds Force of the Pasdaran.
The Pasdaran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards, are the power base of President
Ahmadinijad, the shock troops of the Ayatollah regime, the only foreign
military organisation in the world to be branded as terrorists by the
Bush White House. Iran has, in essence, engaged in a proxy war with the
United States using surrogates, exactly as it did in the 1980's when
Hezbollah suicide bombers massacred 241 Marines at their West Beirut
barracks, destroyed the US Embassy and kidnapped several high profile US
hostages, including the CIA station chief in Lebanon.
General Petraeus, Admiral Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs), Secretary
Gates, and Ambassador Crocker have all testified that Iran trained and
armed the Shia militias who attacked the Iraqi government troops in
Basra. Senior Pentagon aides and agency spooks have hinted to the media
that an air assault on Iran, launched from US naval ships in the Gulf,
will include Pasdaran weapons caches, safe houses, training camps and
combat bases. The US dossier that detailed a North Korean-built nuclear
reactor in Syria was aimed at Iran. As in 1988, the risk of a naval
showdown in the Gulf is all too real.
Matein Khalid is a Dubai-based investment banker and commentator
Worldnews
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Medvedev
replaces Putin today
May 7, 2008
Dmitry Medvedev will take the reins of Russian
presidency from Vladimir Putin today with promises to fight corruption
and inflation in partnership with a predecessor in the post of prime
minister.
As Medvedev takes the oath of office before 2,500 Kremlin guests, Putin
will become the first post-Soviet president to serve out his term.
Medvedev, a 42-year-old St. Petersburg lawyer, will assume control of the
world's largest country in its 10th year of energy-fueled economic
growth.
The constitution requires government ministers to resign immediately after
the inauguration, clearing the way for Medvedev to confirm Putin's
choices for a new cabinet.
The State Duma, or lower house of parliament, meets tomorrow to endorse
Putin's nomination to his new post.
Medvedev served as first deputy prime minister under Putin since 2005 and
has yet to give up the post of chairman of OAO Gazprom SA, Russia's
natural-gas export monopoly.
Putin has been president for two four-year terms, after succeeding
Russia's first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, who resigned on
Dec. 31, 1999.
The United Russia party, which Putin created, has little in the way of
ideology beyond backing Putin and making sure the country remains a
global power.
Russia, the world's biggest energy exporter, has benefited from record oil
and gas prices, with the economy growing at an average 7 percent a year
in the past decade.
That growth has pushed up wages, the ruble and inflation, making Russia
less competitive.
Medvedev has vowed to curb inflation, without detailing how.
On corruption, Medvedev has said Russia's problem pervades government on
"an enormous scale".
Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International last year said
businesspeople and analysts perceive Russia as being among the most
corrupt countries of 180 it studied, with a ranking of 143.
In November 2006, Deputy Prosecutor-General Alexander Buksman estimated
that corrupt Russian officials take about $240 billion in bribes a year.
The 40-minute inauguration ceremony will start about 11:40 a.m.
with Putin reviewing the Presidential Guard in the Kremlin's Cathedral
Square.
Before Medvedev takes the oath, a military escort will bring the Russian
flag and the presidential flag, as well as a copy of the constitution
and the presidential seal, to the podium in the Great Kremlin Palace,
where the inauguration will take place.
Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov will be at the podium when Medvedev is sworn
in, as will Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house, the Federation
Council.
Valery Zorkin, chairman of Russia's Constitutional Court, will administer
the oath of office after Putin makes a short speech and hands the
presidential seal to Medvedev.
The ceremony will close with Medvedev reviewing the guard in his first act
as Russia's third president.
IRNA
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Magnitude of human tragedy in Myanmar
May 7, 2008
The Myanmar government put its tally of deaths
since Cyclone Nargis struck early Saturday at 22,500 and said 41,000
people were missing.
Such early estimates often prove inaccurate, and the wide path of this
cyclone, which destroyed homes across the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and
into Yangon, the nation's main city, left a large area of destruction,
complicating rescue efforts and damage assessments for days or weeks to
come.
While Myanmar, formerly Burma, has so far accepted only a trickle of aid,
the country's information minister, Kyaw Hsan, said Tuesday that the
country would be seeking assistance "from at home and abroad."
Maung Maung Swe, minister for relief and resettlement, said the
cyclone's deadliest aspect was the surge of water it forced inland from
the Andaman Sea.
"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," he
said, in the first official description of the destruction.
"The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the
houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee."
IRNA
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North
Carolina gives Obama a victory
May 7, 2008
Democratic contender Barack Obama won the North
Carolina Democratic primary, ending a big-state losing streak going back
more than a month.
In Indiana, Hillary Rodham Clinton led in early returns, but most news
organizations did not immediately project a winner there.
Obama congratulated Clinton on what he called her apparent victory in
Indiana -- even though CBS was alone among major news organizations in
calling that state's primary at that point.
But he went on to tell the crowd of about 3,000 that "tonight we stand
less than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination for
president of the United States."
He described the North Carolina win as a victory "in a big state, in a
swing state, in a state where we will compete to win if I am the
Democratic nominee for president of the United States."
IRNA
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With Medvedev, Russia looks like it's back
May 7, 2008
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN of Russia moves out of
the president's office today and into the prime minister's job. Even
Russians wonder how much authority and power Putin will yield to Dmitry
Medvedev, the successor he appointed. Medvedev, who is 12 years younger
than Putin, has served as his subordinate since Putin appointed him as
his assistant in the St. Petersburg governor's office in the early
1990s. This is not a father and son relationship, but there is no doubt
as to who follows in whose footsteps.
Close as they have been, the two men are different and come from quite
different backgrounds. Putin not only comes out of the ranks as a former
lieutenant colonel in the KGB, but his grandfather and to some extent
his father were also closely involved in KGB-type activities. This is
reflected in Putin's vocabulary, which is often colored with criminal
argot that by its crudeness can sometimes be embarrassing for a world
leader.
Medvedev comes from what many Russians would consider as the
intelligentsia. His father was a physics professor at the Leningrad
Technical Institute and his mother was a high school teacher of Russian
language and literature. Initially at least, Medvedev will need Putin,
if for no other reason than to protect his flank from being undermined
by some of the siloviki (law and order types) who have been brought to
Moscow and into the Kremlin by Putin. They think of themselves as the
rightful heirs who should have been selected to take over Putin's office
and resent Medvedev's selection.
While Putin used these siloviki to push out and replace most of the
original oligarchs (including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of
the YUKOS Oil Co. who is now serving an eight-year prison term in
Siberia), they now have settled in and taken over many of the companies
that were privatized in the 1990s. So now these new oligarchs have not
only money but KGB and insider connections. This will make it difficult
for Medvedev to push them out and replace them with his own supporters
as Putin was able to do when the oligarchs only had money to protect
their holdings.
After a time however, Medvedev is almost sure to come to believe he should
be his own man: After all, he is the president and it is the president
who hires and fires the prime minister. And like most sons who
ultimately decide their fathers lack the ability and the knowledge to
deal with the new times, by his second term, if not sooner, Medvedev
will probably conclude that he no longer needs the older man's guidance.
More than that, although both men are trained as lawyers, they espouse
different values. Putin came into office calling for the "dictatorship
of the law" with the emphasis on dictatorship. For Putin, "the collapse
of the Soviet Union" was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the
20th century." In Medvedev's view, "freedom is better than non-freedom"
and the law should prevail over unrestrained executive power.
Medvedev has also criticized the practice that allows Kremlin and state
officials to hold positions on state company and corporation boards. He
wants more independent directors. Given that Medvedev himself served
both as chairman of the board of Gazprom and variously as chief of the
Kremlin administration and first deputy prime minister, it is not as if
he followed his own recommendations.
The expectation is that Medvedev will shortly yield his post as Gazprom's
board chairman to Viktor Zubkov, outgoing prime minister. Still,
Medvedev's retention of the post until the last minute suggests how
lucrative such an appointment can be and how he will probably continue
to treat Gazprom as an instrument of the state. In that sense there will
not be much change from the way Putin also used Gazprom as a "national
champion" on behalf of official Russian government interests. As long as
energy prices remain high, this presents continuing opportunities for
Russia to regain some, if not all of the superpower status it lost after
the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it also presents new challenges
for the west and the United States.
It may be premature to say "Russia is back" but Putin has certainly moved
it in that direction and either with or without Putin's help - unless
Medvedev stumbles badly -he will use Gazprom and the country's petroleum
companies much as Putin did to advance Russian national interests. That
may be good for Russia, but not necessarily for the rest of us.
Boston
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Pentagon
Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11
May 7, 2008
WASHINGTON - Three weeks after the 9/11 terror
attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an
official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein
regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria
and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document
quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas
Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions
Feith’s account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking
the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was
supported explicitly by the country’s top military leaders.
Feith’s book, ‘War and Decision’, released last month, provides excerpts
of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W. Bush on Sep. 30, 2001
calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin
Laden’s al Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing ‘new regimes’ in
a series of states by ‘aiding local peoples to rid themselves of
terrorists and to free themselves of regimes that support terrorism.’
In quoting from that document, Feith deletes the names of all of the
states to be targeted except Afghanistan, inserting the phrase ’some
other states’ in brackets. In a facsimile of a page from a related
Pentagon ‘campaign plan’ document, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein
regimes are listed as ’state regimes’ against which ‘plans and
operations’ might be mounted, but the names of four other states are
blacked out ‘for security reasons’.
Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded the NATO bombing campaign in the Kosovo
War, recalls in his 2003 book ‘Winning Modern Wars’ being told by a
friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that
Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take
down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.
Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon. Feith reveals that
Rumsfeld’s paper called for getting ‘Syria out of Lebanon’ as a major
goal of U.S. policy.
When this writer asked Feith after a recent public appearance which
countries’ names were deleted from the documents, he cited security
reasons for the deletion. But when he was asked which of the six regimes
on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, ‘All
of them.’
Rumsfeld’s paper was given to the White House only two weeks after Bush
had approved a U.S. military operation in Afghanistan directed against
bin Laden and the Taliban regime. Despite that decision, Rumsfeld’s
proposal called explicitly for postponing indefinitely U.S. airstrikes
and the use of ground forces in support of the anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance in order to try to catch bin Laden.
Instead the Rumsfeld paper argued that the U.S. should target states which
had supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It urged
that the United States ‘[c]apitalize on our strong suit, which is not
finding a few hundred terrorists in caves in Afghanistan, but in the
vastness of our military and humanitarian resources, which can
strengthen the opposition forces in terrorist-supporting states.’
Feith describes the policy outlined in the paper as consisting of
‘military action against some of the state sponsors and pressure — short
of war — against others’.
The Rumsfeld plan represented a Pentagon consensus that included the
uniformed military leadership, according to Feith’s account. He writes
that the process of drafting the paper involved consultations with the
outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton and
the incoming Chairman Gen. Richard Myers.
Myers helped revise the initial draft, Feith writes, and Gen. John P.
Abizaid, who was then director of the Joint Staff, enthusiastically
endorsed it in draft form. ‘This is an exceptionally important memo,’
wrote Abizaid, ‘which gives clear strategic vision.’ In a message quoted
by Feith, Abizaid recommended to Myers that ‘you support this approach’.
After the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Abizaid was promoted to
become chief of CENTCOM, with military responsibility for the entire
Middle East.
Neither Myers nor Abizaid, both of whom are now retired from the military,
responded to e-mails asking for their comments on Feith’s account of
their role in the process of producing the Rumsfeld strategy.
Rumsfeld’s aides had also drafted a second version of the paper, as
instructions to all military commanders in the development of ‘campaign
plans against terrorism’.
That instructions document was a joint effort by Feith’s office and by the
Strategic Plans and Policy directorate of Abizaid’s Joint Staff. It
followed the broad outlines of the paper for Bush, arguing that the
enemy was a ‘network’ that included states that support terrorism and
that the Defence Department should seek to ‘convince or compel’ those
states to cut their ties to terrorism.
The Pentagon guidance document called for military commanders to assist
other government agencies ‘as directed’ to ‘encourage populations
dominated by terrorist organizations or their supporters to overthrow
that domination’.
That language was adopted because the campaign planning document was
issued as ‘Strategic Guidance for the Defense Department’ on Oct. 3,
2001 — just three days after the Rumsfeld strategy paper had gone to the
president.
Bush had not approved the explicit aim of regime change in Iran, Syria and
four other countries proposed by Rumsfeld. Thus Rumsfeld adopted the
aggressive military plan targeting multiple regimes in the Middle East
for regime change even though it was not White House policy.
The Defence Department guidance document made it clear that U.S. military
aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to
terrorism. The document said that the Defence Department would also seek
to isolate and weaken those states and to ‘disrupt, damage or destroy’
their military capacities — not necessarily limited to WMD.
The document included as a ’strategic objective’ a requirement to ‘prevent
further attacks against the U.S. or U.S. interests’. That language,
which extended the principle of preemption far beyond the issue of WMD,
was so broad as to justify plans to use force against virtually any
state that was not a client of the United States.
The military leadership’s strong preference for focusing on states as
enemies rather than on the threat from al Qaeda after 9/11 continued a
pattern of behaviour going back to the Bill Clinton administration
(1993-2001).
After the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa by al Qaeda
operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael Sheehan
proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan
against bin Laden’s sponsor, the Taliban regime. However, senior U.S.
military leaders ‘refused to consider it’, according to a 2004 account
by Richard H. Shultz, Jr., a military specialist at Tufts University.
A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department
counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes
characterised more than once by colleagues as a ’small price to pay for
being a superpower’.
Inter Press Service
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President calls for expansion of cultural ties with Algeria
May 7, 2008
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday
that Iranian and Algerian nations enjoy profound cultural relations.
In a meeting with Algerian Minister of Culture, Khalida Toumi, he said the
two countries cultural cooperation has been established on a correct and
stable route.
He reiterated that the two countries people share identical cultural and
religious characteristics.
There is no restriction for further expansion of cultural ties between the
two countries, he said voicing Tehran's willingness to boost all-out
ties with its brotherly country, Algeria.
The Algerian minister, for her part, expressed interest of her country's
leaders in bolstering bilateral relations with the Islamic Republic of
Iran.
Referring to the existing cultural and religious commonalties between the
two nations, she said Algiers attaches special importance to its ties
with Tehran.
Ms Toumi, who has come to Iran to attend the Algerian Cultural Week, added
that holding cultural week would help further promote bilateral ties
between the two nations.
Referring to her visits to the two ancient Iranian cities of Isfahan and
Shiraz, she said during the trip she became familiar with the country's
achievements in different fields.
IRNA
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