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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will welcome his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday — the Russian’s first visit to Washington since a controversial 2017 meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, the State Department announced.The brief statement about the meeting, to be held at the State Department, said Pompeo and Lavrov would “discuss a broad range of regional and bilateral issues.”On Friday, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the meeting was being “prepared” for Tuesday.The situations in war-wracked Syria and Ukraine are likely to top the agenda. The Washington meeting will come on the heels of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy over the conflict in Ukraine’s east in Paris on Monday.Iran and North Korea are also of mutual concern in Washington and Moscow.Pompeo and Lavrov met in September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.But Lavrov has not been on an official visit to the U.S. capital since his encounter with Trump in the Oval Office in May 2017, which was followed by allegations that the U.S. leader divulged classified intelligence in the meeting.Photographs of the meeting showed Lavrov, Trump and subsequently sacked Russian envoy to Washington Sergei Kislyak sharing a laugh.U.S. intelligence concluded that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election with an eye to swinging it in Trump’s favor, but U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller found there was not enough evidence to prove that Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russian government in those efforts.The report did not conclude that Trump had committed a crime, but it also did not fully exonerate him.”If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller’s long-awaited report said.”Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.” 
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Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday welcomed a Lebanese-born Swiss real estate mogul who purchased Nazi memorabilia at a German auction and is donating the items to Israel.Rivlin called Abdallah Chatila’s gesture an “act of grace.”Chatila, a Lebanese Christian who has lived in Switzerland for decades, paid some 600,000 euros ($660,000) for the items at the Munich auction last month, intending to destroy them after reading of Jewish groups’ objections to the sale. Shortly before the auction, however, he decided it would be better to donate them to a Jewish organization. Among the items he bought were Adolf Hitler’s top hat, a silver-plated edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and a typewriter used by the dictator’s secretary.The items are to be donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.Chatila said he initially bought the items for personal reasons.“He is the personification of evil — evil for everyone, not evil for the Jews, evil for the Christians, evil for humanity,” he said. “And that’s why it was important for me to buy those artifacts.”But Chatila decided that he “had no right to decide” what to do with these artifacts, so he reached out to Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal, a nonprofit fundraising body that assists Israeli and Jewish causes. It then decided to pass the items on to Yad Vashem because of its existing collection of Nazi artifacts.“Usually Yad Vashem doesn’t support trade. We do not believe in trade of artifacts that come from the Nazi party or other parts,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem. “We like that it should be in the hands of museums or public collectors and not in private hands.”At a press conference at Keren Hayesod’s Jerusalem office, Chatila said his donation has been criticized by some in his homeland. Israel and Lebanon have never signed a peace agreement, and relations remain hostile.“I got a few messages saying that I was a traitor, saying that I helped the enemy. And also some messages of people warning me not to go back to Lebanon,” he said. “It’s easy for me as I don’t go to Lebanon. I don’t have a problem with it.”But Chatila said his parents still travel to Lebanon, making the backlash difficult for his family. Still, he said the donation was “the right thing to do.”Rivlin thanked Chatila for his act and donation “of great importance at this time” when Holocaust denial and neo-Nazism are on the rise. He also noted that the artifacts would help preserve the Holocaust legacy for future generations who will not be able to meet or hear from the dwindling population of aging survivors.“What you did was seemingly so simple, but this act of grace shows the whole world how to fight the glorification of hatred and incitement against other people. It was a truly human act,” Rivlin said.The items are still at the German auction house, and it was not immediately known when they would be transferred to Yad Vashem.
 
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Thousands of people gathered in the center of Kyiv on Sunday to send a message to Ukraine’s president, who meets his Russian counterpart on Monday, that Ukrainians will not accept a peace deal at the cost of the country’s independence and sovereignty.”We are here because we are not satisfied with the peace at any costs … the peace at the costs of capitulation,” Inna Sovsun, a lawmaker of opposition Golos (Voice) party, told the rally.President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin are meeting in Paris alongside the French and German leaders in a renewed effort to end a conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed forces in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014. Zelenskiy, who won a landslide election victory in April promising to bring peace, said this week that his first face-to-face meeting with the Russian president would give Kyiv a chance to resolve the more than five-year-old war in the Donbas region.But many Ukrainians are concerned over a possible compromise with Russia, which they see as an aggressor seeking to restore the Kremlin’s influence over the former Soviet republic and ruin Ukraine’s aspiration to closer European ties.The Ukrainian government wants to agree with Moscow on a sustainable cease-fire in Donbas, the exchange of all prisoners, and a timeline for the withdrawal of all illegal armed forces from regions under the control of Russia-backed separatists.The leaders’ meeting was arranged after Ukraine and separatists withdrew their military forces from three settlements in Donbas – implementing agreements reached between Russian, Ukrainian and separatist negotiators in September.Kyiv also promised to grant a special status to territory controlled by the rebels and to hold elections there.These plans, seen as a sign of Kyiv’s capitulation, sparked protests in the Ukrainian capital.According to an opinion poll of Ukrainians conducted by a think-tank Democratic Initiative and Kyiv’s International Institute of the Sociology on Nov 4-19, 53.2% of respondents are against a special status for Donbass and 62.7% do not accept an amnesty for those who fight against the Ukrainian army.”We are here so that the voice from Kyiv can be heard in Paris. Friends, we cannot make any concessions to Putin until the last sliver of Ukrainian land is free,” ex-president Petro Poroshenko told Sunday’s rally.Relations between two countries collapsed following pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych’s escape to Russia and Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, which prompted Western sanctions on Russia.Historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych said many centuries and recent years of Ukrainian history showed Kyiv should not believe in Moscow’s good will.”Zelenskiy’s new team seems to be returning to this erroneous strategy, which consists in the fact that we can agree with Russia,” he told the rally. 
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Thousands of people holding hands formed a human chain in central Brussels on Sunday to draw public attention to the need for urgent, joint action against climate change.Some 2,400 people took part in the peaceful demonstration, police said, which encircled the Belgian federal parliament and the Royal Palace.The two-hour demonstration took place as policy-makers from around the world gather in Madrid for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”The main purpose is to ask for more climate ambition and for the federal government to tackle the climate crisis,” said Julie Van Houtryve, spokeswoman for one of the organizers, Climate Coalition in Belgium. “We need solidarity and cooperation between governments and politicians in Belgium.”Climate activists form a human chain in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 8, 2019. 
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France is ready to go to the World Trade Organization to challenge U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to put tariffs on champagne and other French goods in a row over a planned French tax on internet companies, the finance minister said on Sunday.”We are ready to take this to an international court, notably the WTO, because the national tax on digital companies touches U.S. companies in the same way as EU or French companies or Chinese. It is not discriminatory,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on France 3 television.
  
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French President Emmanuel Macron this week faces the first major test of his policy of directly engaging with Russia that has disturbed some European allies, as he hosts a summit seeking progress in ending the Ukraine conflict.Joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron will bring together Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky for their first face-to-face meeting at an afternoon summit at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday.The stakes are high: this will be the first such summit in three years and while diplomats caution against expecting a major breakthrough, a failure to agree concrete confidence-building steps would be seen as a major blow to hopes for peace and also Macron’s personal prestige.Macron, who is pressing ahead with the summit despite crippling public transport strikes at home over contested pension reforms, has invested hugely in efforts to end the conflict in the east of Ukraine that has claimed 13,000 lives since 2014.And he has also placed his bets on a risky strategy to deal directly with Putin, based on the assumption that one day Russia will understand it is in the national interest to see Europe as its long-term strategic partner.”It is an important test for Macron and for the Europeans,” said Michel Duclos, a former ambassador and senior fellow at the Institut Montaigne, a French think tank.”He is already very isolated. And if he obtains nothing on Ukraine he is going to be even more isolated,” he added.But he added the Kremlin was “astute enough” to understand that the summit had to be declared a success and Putin was gladdened by Macron’s overtures as he “sees in that a chance to divide the Europeans”.’Threat but also a partner’Macron has adopted an increasingly assertive presence on the international stage in recent months, at a time when Germany is a less imposing diplomatic player as Merkel prepares to leave office.His thoughts were summed up in an explosive interview with The Economist last month, when he declared NATO was brain dead and said Europe needed to have a strategic dialogue with Russia.Examining Russia’s long-term strategic options under Putin, Macron said in the interview that Russia could not prosper in isolation, would not want to be a “vassal” of China and would eventually have to opt for “a partnership project with Europe”.Macron notably described ex-KGB agent Putin as a “child of Saint Petersburg”, the former Russian capital built by Peter the Great as a window onto the West.His comments disturbed newer EU members that want a tough line against their former master Russia like the Baltic States and, in particular, Poland. And they added to a raft of growing tensions between France and Germany.But after a summit of NATO leaders in England earlier this month, Macron was unrepentant and categorical about his strategy of cultivating Russia.”Who is NATO’s enemy? Russia is no longer an enemy. It remains a threat but is also a partner on some subjects. Our enemy today is international terrorism and in particular Islamist terrorism,” he said.’Being a nuisance no strategy’A French diplomatic source argued Russia could not forever pin its strategy on being a “power of disturbance” with policies like its military intervention in Syria to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power or its alliance with NATO member Turkey which has rattled the West.”If having a capacity to be a nuisance is your only lever it is not a lasting and viable strategy,” said the source, adding there was also a “profound Russian concern about being locked into a rivalry with China”.Konstantin Kalachev, director of the Moscow-based Political Expert Group, warned “it would be naive to think Emmanuel Macron can exercise any kind of influence on Vladimir Putin with the aim of bringing Russia closer to the EU.”There is only one person who can influence President Putin. And that is President Putin himself.”In a glimmer of hope for Macron he added: “Mr Putin has no interest that this (Ukrainian) conflict worsens. But he wants any solution to be drawn up according to his conditions”. 
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Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday he still plans to shift the American military’s focus to competing with China and Russia, even as security threats pile up in the Middle East.Esper outlined his strategic goals and priorities in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum, an annual gathering of government, defense industry and military officials.Esper, who became Pentagon chief in late July, said he is sticking to the national defense priorities set by his predecessor, Jim Mattis, who was sitting in his audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.Since Mattis resigned one year ago in protest of President Donald Trump’s push to withdraw from Syria, the Middle East has become even more volatile. At least 14,000 additional U.S. troops have been sent to the Persian Gulf area since May out of concern about Iranian actions.Syria itself has arguably become a more complex problem for Washington, with Turkish forces having moved into areas in the north where American forces had been partnering with Syrian Kurdish fighters against remnants of the Islamic State extremist group. Also, Iraq is facing civil protests and a violent crackdown by security forces.The deadly shooting at a Navy base at Pensacola, Florida, on Friday by a Saudi Air Force officer could complicate U.S.-Saudi military relations, although Esper said Friday that relations remain strong.Esper this week denied news reports that he was considering sending up to 14,000 more troops to the Middle East, but he acknowledged to reporters Friday that he is worried by instability in Iraq and Iran.In his speech Saturday, Esper made only a passing reference to Iran, citing Tehran’s “efforts to destabilize” the region.
He focused instead on shifting the U.S. military’s focus toward China and Russia — “today’s revisionist powers.” He accused Moscow and Beijing of seeking “veto power” over the economic and security decisions of smaller nations.On Friday, Esper said he realizes that it will be difficult to move resources out of the Middle East to increase the focus on China and Russia.He said he has been studying the force and resource requirements for every area of the globe to determine how to rebalance those resources.”My ambition is and remains to look at how do we pull resources — resources being troops and equipment and you name it” — from some regions and either return them to the United States or shift them to the Asia-Pacific region, he said Friday.”That remains my ambition, but I have to deal with the world I have, and so I gotta make sure at the same time I deter conflict — in this case in the Middle East,” he said. “I want to have sufficient forces there to make sure” the U.S. does not get into an armed conflict with Iran.
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The prospect of Russian interference in Britain’s election flared anew Saturday after the social media platform Reddit concluded that people from Russia had leaked confidential British government documents on Brexit trade talks just days before the general U.K. vote. Reddit said in a statement that it had banned 61 accounts suspected of violating policies against vote manipulation. It said the suspect accounts shared the same pattern of activity as a Russian interference operation dubbed Secondary Infektion that was uncovered earlier this year.  Reddit investigated the leak after the documents became public during the campaign for Thursday’s election, which will determine the country’s future relationship with the European Union. All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs. Reddit said it believed the documents were leaked as part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia. We were able to confirm that they did indeed show a pattern of coordination,'' Reddit said. The British government has not challenged the authenticity of the documents. FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson sits on a train in London, Dec. 6, 2019, on the campaign trail ahead of the general election on Dec. 12.Britain's main opposition party has argued the documents prove that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party is seeking a deal with the United States after Brexit that would drive up the cost of drugs and imperil the state-funded National Health Service. The issue has been a central election theme, largely because the country deeply cherishes the health service, which has suffered under years of austerity. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the 451 pages of documents, which covered six rounds of preliminary talks between U.S. and U.K. negotiators, proved that Johnson was planning to put the NHSup for sale” in trade talks. Johnson — who was not prime minister for most of the two-year period when the trade talks took place — has rejected Corbyn’s analysis. Britain is currently scheduled to leave the 28-nation EU on January 31. When asked about Reddit’s actions while on a campaign stop in Wales, Corbyn suggested the news was an advanced stage of rather belated conspiracy theories by the prime minister.'' ''When we released the documents, at no stage did the prime minister or anybody deny that those documents were real, deny the arguments that we put forward. And if there has been no discussion with the USA about access to our health markets, if all that is wrong, how come after a week they still haven't said that? he said. ‘Extremely serious’Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan told the BBC that the government was looking for and monitoring anything that might suggest interference in the British election.  From what was being put on that [Reddit] website, those who seem to know about these things say that it seems to have all the hallmarks of some form of interference,'' Morgan said.And if that is the case, that obviously is extremely serious.” The specter that Russia has meddled in Britain’s electoral process has been raised before. Critics are also questioning the British government’s failure to release a Parliament intelligence committee report on previous Russian interference in the country’s politics. They say it should have been made public before Thursday’s vote. The Times of London reported, without saying how it got the information, that the intelligence report concluded that Russian interference might have affected the 2016 referendum on Britain’s departure from the EU, though the impact was unquantifiable.'' The committee said British intelligence services failed to devote enough resources to countering the threat, and it highlighted the impact of articles posted by Russian news sites that were widely disseminated on social media, the newspaper reported. FILE - The leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, reacts as she speaks at a campaign event in London, Nov. 9, 2019.Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson expressed concern about the new Russian interference claims. All of us should be concerned if a foreign country is trying to interfere in our democracy,” she said. “And that is why it is so appalling that the prime minister is sitting on a report that was written weeks before the general election, that the Security Committee say should be published, into interference in U.K. democracy by foreign countries like Russia.” 
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France’s most serious nationwide work stoppage in decades frustrated weekend travelers Saturday as truckers blocked thoroughfares and vital transportation services continued to operate far below normal capacity.Concern that President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed pension overhaul would force millions of people to work longer or face less lucrative benefits triggered the union-led strike on Thursday, bringing much of the country to a halt.Truckers blocked roads Saturday in about 10 regions in France to protest a proposed tax hike on diesel fuel for commercial vehicles.Yellow vest protesters, who have taken to the streets on Saturdays over the past year to voice frustration over the high cost of living in France, sought to capitalize on the nationwide strike.Several hundred of them launched a new protest Saturday in Paris and they scuffled with police in the city’s Left Bank district.Travel in France remained problematic Saturday, with only one in 10 regional trains running and one out of six high-speed TGV trains operating.Air travel was returning closer to normal after authorities dropped travel restrictions.More than 800,000 people participated in the first day of demonstrations on Thursday.In response to what they see as an attack on hard-won worker rights, union leaders have promised to continue protesting unless Macron abandons the proposed pension overhaul, which officials admit would force employees to gradually work longer.Unions have also announced another strike on Tuesday (Dec. 10).Officials have given few details about the pension plan, but Macron’s office said Thursday that Prime Minister Edouard Philippe would unveil the framework next week after negotiations with unions.The strike is a test of the political prowess of Macron, a former investment banker who won the presidency on the promise to transform France.Macron wants to standardize and simplify the country’s retirement system comprised of 42 pension plans, maintaining it is not financially sustainable or fair.Many workers, particularly teachers, worry Macron’s reform will leave them with less retirement money.With workers living much longer and a large segment of working-age citizens unemployed, analyst Jean Peteaux of Sciences-Po Bordeaux University said France’s pension system is under significant financial pressure.Peteaux also said it is uncertain if the government’s method to address the issue will succeed. 
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Russian efforts to weaken the West through a relentless campaign of information warfare may be starting to pay off, cracking a key bastion of the U.S. line of defense: the military.While most Americans still see Moscow as a key U.S. adversary, new polling suggests that view is changing, most notably among the households of military members.The second annual Reagan National Defense Survey, completed in late October, found nearly half of armed services households questioned, 46%, said they viewed Russia as ally.Overall, the survey found 28% of Americans identified Russia as an ally, up from 19% the previous year.A sun ray illuminates St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square during a cold winter day in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 11, 2019.Generally, the pollsters found the positive views of Russia seemed to be “predominantly driven by Republicans who have responded to positive cues from [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump about Russia,” according to an executive summary accompanying the results.While a majority, 71% of all Americans and 53% of military households, still views Russia as an enemy, the spike in pro-Russian sentiment has defense officials concerned.“There is an effort, on the part of Russia, to flood the media with disinformation to sow doubt and confusion,” Defense Department spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Carla Gleason told VOA.“This is not only through discordant and inflammatory dialogue but through false narratives designed to illicit sympathetic views,” she said, adding, “we are actively working to expose and counter Russian disinformation whenever possible.”Reagan National Defense SurveyThe Reagan National Defense Survey, conducted on behalf of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, questioned just more than 1,000 adults between Oct. 24 and Oct. 30, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.Concern among U.S. officials runs deep, partly because other surveys have also found a growing willingness in the U.S. to view Russia positively.For example, Paul R. Pillar, Georgetown UniversityOthers fear Russia’s gains in public opinion are symptomatic of a bigger problem that the Kremlin has managed to exploit.“People’s beliefs and perceptions are shaped more by whatever the leaders of their own political tribe say than by ideology, history, or even their own self-interest,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA officer now with Georgetown University.He said, for now though, the gradual change in U.S. perceptions of Russia has had limited impact.“Many Republicans can slavishly follow Trump’s lead on most matters, including the rhetorical line on Russia, but still, say, support defense expenditures designed to maintain strength vis-a-vis Russia,” Pillar said, noting a variety of U.S. sanctions against Moscow are still in place.The U.S. national defense strategy, updated just two years ago, likewise lists Russia along with China, as the prime threats to the U.S.For the most part, the Reagan National Defense Survey found a majority of Americans are in agreement.“When we asked Americans which countries were tops on their list in terms of the threat that they posed to the United States the first was China [28%] and the second was Russia [25%],” said Ronald Reagan Institute Policy Director Rachel Hoff.She also said there was strong sentiment that the U.S. should not cede any ground on the global stage, to Russia or anyone else.“They want America to take the lead when it comes to international events rather than a less engaged posture where our country is reacting to global events,” Hoff told VOA, pointing to a 50% to 33% margin.At the same time, other polls have pointed to a lingering wariness on the part of a majority of Americans when it comes to Russia.A Gallup survey published in February of this year found only 24% of Americans had a positive view of Russia, down from a 44% favorable rating in February of 2013.
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Strikes disrupted weekend travel around France on Saturday as truckers blocked highways and most trains remained at a standstill because of worker anger at President Emmanuel Macron’s policies.Meanwhile, yellow vest protesters held their weekly demonstrations over economic injustice in Paris and other cities, under the close watch of police. The marchers appear to be emboldened by the biggest national protests in years Thursday that kicked off a mass movement against the government’s plan to redesign the national retirement system.As the strikes entered a third day Saturday, tourists and shoppers faced shuttered subway lines around Paris and near-empty train stations.Other groups are joining the fray, too.
Nationwide Strike Paralyzes France video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkNationwide Strike Paralyzes FranceTruckers striking over a fuel tax hike disrupted traffic on highways from Provence in the southeast to Normandy in the northwest. A similar fuel tax is what unleashed the yellow vest movement a year ago, and this convergence of grievances could pose a major new threat to Macron’s presidency.The travel chaos is not deterring the government so far, though. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe plainly told the French in a nationwide address Friday: “You’re going to have to work longer.”He will present details of the plan next week. The government says it won’t raise the official retirement age of 62 but the plan is expected to including financial conditions to encourage people to work longer. Philippe did offer one olive branch, saying the changes would be progressive so that they don’t become “brutal.”Macron says the reform, which will streamline a convoluted system of 42 special pension plans, will make the system more fair and financially sustainable.Unions, however, see the plan as a t hreat to hard-fought workers’ rights, and are digging in for what they hope is a protracted strike. They also plan new nationwide retirement protests Tuesday, despite the tear gas and rioting that marred the edges of the Paris march Thursday.In a society accustomed to strikes and workers rights, many people have supported the labor action, though that sentiment is likely to fade if the transport shutdown continues through next week.“I knew it was going to last … but I did not expect it to be that chaotic,” Ley Basaki, who lives in the Paris suburb of Villemomble and struggles to get to and from work in the capital, told The Associated Press on Saturday at the Gare de l’Est train station. “There is absolutely nothing here, nothing, nothing. There is no bus, nothing.”Many travelers are using technology and social networks to find ways around the strike — working from home, using ride-sharing apps and riding shared bikes or electric scooters.But some are using technology to support the strike: A group of activist gamers is raising money via a marathon session on game-streaming site Twitch. Their manifesto says: “In the face of powers-that-be who are hardening their line and economic insecurity that is intensifying in all layers of the population,” they are trying to “occupy other spaces for mobilization and invent other ways of joining the movement.”
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