This will be one hell of a ride for us all malaysians :(
God help us all ..
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From To Uban to Subang Jaya to Nottingham to London, and now back in Malaysia
This will be one hell of a ride for us all malaysians :(
God help us all ..
Sent via BlackBerry from Maxis
Last friday's unopposed election of mugabe in the presidential election run off is certainly the final nail in the coffin of the many zimbabweans who have died, struggling for a better future for zimbabwe. The leader for the movement for democrat change (mdc) morgan tsangirai (pronounced chang-gi-rai) whom, despite having a lead in the first round of election 2 months ago, refused to contest in the run off vote last friday, citing threats to the voters.
In harare now, voters of mdc and tsangirai in the last presidential election, are being tortured, hounded, some are raped, and a large number are being killed.one might asks how do these thugs of mugabe finds this voters , when surely the votes are suppose to be secret ballot? Apparently every area where the votes for mdc were high, its occupants are now subjected to daily torture and humiliation.
To put it simply, the situation is probably short of the civil war scenario that we must have all seen in that move, hotel rwanda. I watched that movie many times over and I could not but imagine the same thing to happen again. I might be proven wrong with what we re reading now about zimbabwe.
World over, this zimbabwean crisis are receiving front page material attention, that prime ministers and presidents are made to comment on it. Surely many were quick to condemn the situation.
But I am rather perturbed and annoyed that in malaysia this situation seemed to have missed public attention, what more the politicians. Of course, most malaysians would struggle to find where in the world is zimbabwe (somehwere in africa maybe?) , what more to care of the "political" situation there (although political here means people dying and slaughtered/raped/burned on a daily basis). Sure we malaysians have better issues to care about? (Minyak naik, hmm minyak naik, hmm sept 16th ..hmm) . Oh well, it must be my idealistic surreal side that makes me thing that we ought to do something about this zimbabwe crisis too (although my friend ask me why must we really care abt everything else out there, aren't malaysia enough already?)
At least, I think we as a country shud make it clear that we condemn the killings and the way things are in zimbabwe at the moment. Yes some may argue, look at myanmar, but I don't think being hypocritical here would make us lose any face, plus zimbabwe is no asean country and really, the people there are now being slaughtered (literaly) on a daily basis that certainly this is one level above of what we probably know of myanmar ( okay okay I ll correct myself, its burma not myanmar, and yes yangon not rangoon).
There are a few things we malaysia could do in order to 'help' the situation in zimbabwe:
First we should as malaysians , make public condemnation of the situation in zimbabwe. This can be done by our leaders through the mass media, and also by the people through writings/blogs. Even better, why don't u people who likes to demonstrate, make a public demonstration at the zimbabwe embassy in kl? And by u people I mean by the ones in red/blue, green , or even pemuda umno t shirts. Is it because there are no muslims in zimbabwe that we don't care?(Are u sure there are no muslims?) Is it because there are no budhist/hindus there that we don't care? Sometimes I do think that the mat saleh has a less prejudicial view of the world then us asians who are supposedly "multicultural and live in harmony". Oh by the way, the address for the embassy is :
Zimbabwe high commission in malaysia
124 jalan 9
Taman ampang utama
68000 Ampang
so apa lagi, pergi lah buat demo tuh!
Ok even if u don't like this demo demo thing, you can even write a letter stating your displeasure at what is happening in zimbabwe.
Remember, all it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing
(unless of course ure comfortable being the not so good people who enjoys reading this blog and swip swaping it with facebook and continue doing your work,hoping that guilt feeling will be gone by lunchtime)
Seconly, we malaysia should make a statement that if there is proof that there is genocide and killings in zimbabwe, the perpetrators must and will be judged by the world courts on genocide.
Finally, and certainly most effectively, we must freeze the assets of known culprits in zimbabwe who I think, must have at least some of their gazillion worth of personal assets, hidden somewhere in our country. As some of you in the inner circles are aware, robert mugabe and his clansmen are known to make visits to malaysia for holidays.they like malaysia because we don't know abt them and their 'hobbies' back home, plus the people who do not about them, don't care or already given big contracts in zimbabwe (read- blood money)
So certainly they would probably discover that keeping money in malaysia is probably not a bad idea after all.
On top of that, I am sure some of these hench men's of mugabe also send their children to study here in malaysia thanks to the openness of malaysia's capitalistic private education in accepting anybody with abundance of dollars and cents.
We should kindly inform them (the children/students) that what is happening in zimbabwe, is unacceptable.
No harm however, should be directed at the personnels of the staff and officers of the zimbabwe high commission in taman ampang as per address above.they , are protected by the geneva convention (whatever that is).
On a more different albeit constructive note..
Of course, we the islamist, should also do some solat hajat to pray that the innocent people in zimbabwe will be protected from the evils roaming the land.
why not? We have done solat hajat for a great many things including the various ones on palestine, so why is zimbabwe any different? Just because u have never heard of it? Or just because they are not muslims? Are u sure there are no muslims there? Even the most conventional estimate puts the number of muslims there at 120 000 muslims, what more a wopping 1.2 million estimated by others.
The point is, are they any different that they don't deserve our attention?
Go figure!
The western media calls the place, a living hell.I think it is about time that we malaysians, go above local issues, and resonates our distaste and anger towards what is happening in zimbabwe.
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"Perhaps you should go home, maybe your wife can tell you why you're not suppose have fun.obviously she s the bos
Nizam had been needling me all day about how I obey The Wife as if she is my boss.What he failed to understand was that although she might be the boss, she worked very hard to make it seem as if I am the boss,which in a way ultimately does make me the bos.I think that's how my driver Megat explained it to me"
Haha what a philosphy by kam.good stuff though :)
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"A wakil rakyat is offered a salary of rm6500, and an extra 'allowance' of rm7000.
They can ALSO make claims for travelling, attendance, a computer and for mobile phone and calls made
They are ALSO offered a house loan of rm 300 000 and a car loan of 100 000 with very low interest attached
And yes, they also get a free AP to buy a 4 wheel drive or less
The system also provides for a gratuity payment and a monthly pension upon retirement (as long as as they served for minimum of 3 years)"
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While we malaysians squabble on local politics, the world at large are jittering with a possible global recession looming at large
Will the global recession affect us all?
Or more importantly, will a decline of the us economy, our biggest trade partner over the last many years, hit us hard where it hurt most? (Read the tummy and pocket)
I remember a mckinsey s partner from china whom I met almost 3 4 months ago saying that the old saying that when "america sneezes, asia catches cold" , may not apply anymore. Why? Because we asians now have our very own protection in the form of the great vitamin "C".
Yes, u guessed it right. C for CHINA.
Notwithstanding the fact that he was talking way back 3 to 4 months ago when relatively the "atmosphere " of the situation was not that bad (and I stress atmosphere because really, apart from the increase in petrol inflation, we have yet to see a real economic crash), I do personally feel that we malaysians must now realise that a more macro economic challenge is up ahead. And we thought petrol price going up was bad..
Will china help us (asia/asean) deter a crashing domino effect from the already faltering us economy? Personaly I doubt it very much.
George wehfritz calls china the black hole of our financial universe, a vacuum of supposed financial opportunity gobbling as much liquidity unimaginable before.but will all this flush of funds stay amids the current change of status quo of global economy, and more importantly, is a heated china do well after all as our very own vitamin c?
I'm a believer of micro managing the economy. The national leaders have a strong duty in the cming troubled times to show strong leadership to steer our domestic economy, because no matter what happens to our neighbours, it is how we manage ours that will matter for our people.
By strong leadership I mean in the understanding of what it takes to re ignite the local economic activities and making sure the effects are trickling down.
Strong leadership also means that leaders do not blame it easy on the so called ' global situation '. Yes the global situation is bad, but hey, tough luck, you re the leader, solve the problem. No body pushed you for the job, not most of us at least.
Incompetencies in micromanaging the economy in the upcoming difficult times will almost certainly be considered a crime to the rakyat, not least of the fact that supposedly we would have learnt from our mistakes/successes in the 1998 crisis.
I do not believe that just because we have an ever increasing national reserves (gold, foreign currencies and trade surpluses) , that we would have a more resilient economy.
In times of recession, I think that it is not so much about how much money you have, but how much of those are spent wisely ( and wisely encapsulates the micro activity of making sure our ahmads, ah chong and arumugam gets a feel of them).
I understand recession as a stage when money "stops travelling", or maybe a bit more less than it used to. Less people gets to feel that one ringgit as it is not moving from one hand to another, hence creating less value, and another less numerical digit for that national statistic on the gdp.
Mahathir understood this very well.maybe a bit too obsessed with it sometimes.
I remember rather well that when we were in 1998, a lot of money was pumped into national projects, albeit at a much smaller scale.
Recently, a jkr director who is now working for a private construction company said to me that during those years, instead of starting work only when the project drawings are submitted and approved, it was the other way round.
" the instruction from the top was simple. Give the contractors the money and make sure work continues. When the bridge is built, hand in the drawings later"
This build first, money first, drawing et al coming in later is what I mean by mahathir's supposed obsession in the understanding that as long as we ensure that the ringgit's travelling path are not hindered with unnecessary bureaucracy, then maybe , just maybe we would be able to withstand global recession with crude yet effective micro economic money pumping and trickling it down to the three ah's - ahmad, ah chong and arumugam.
I don't usually agree with the grand old man of malaysia, but sometimes you cannot deny his sheer brilliance in managing a 100billion company called malaysia ( yes that was our worth by the mid 90's or so).
1 ringgit transferring from ahmad, to ah chong, and then to arumugam (no racial/prejudicial connotation intended) would mean that at the end, the value of 3 ringgit is generated through the most basic assumption of micro economy.
This monees that they receive will go through the tills at the local mydin's, which then goes to the local farmer, who uses it to give to his child as daily pocket money, who spends it at the school canteen, who s owner using it to buy more local groceries.. And the money keeps on travelling..
Do this at the largest scale, with careful monetary policy to avoid stagflation, would most probaby bring resilience, if not development to our 24 million people based economy.
Why keep 45 billion or so in the reserve when u should spend some of it to spur the local econimic activity?
But then the question is : are the public works being contracted to the lowest 'denomination' of the people?
Or are we still obsessed in awarding the contracts to a few who might just end up buying a house in london that means more malaysian ringgit flowing out of this country?
I have always believed that it is so much better that public economic projects are denominated to lowest and widest possible group of people.
Yes they may not be as competent as the big ones, but what's the point of giving a 1 billion projects to one particular joker when he ends up spending that money buying yet another apartment along hyde park, while using parts of if to pay for the wife's (or wives) shopping spree at selfridges and the 2 kid's 25 thousand pounds a term tuition fees at Oundel or Concorde?
This is the very failure of public expenditure that has to be avoided.
As a matter of fact, I don't mind if that 1 billion man is given the project, albeit him spending it for a grand house in puchong setia (built by local contractors using local stuff), makes sure the wife spends only at midvalley or the local sundry shop and sending the school to sk puchong jaya (ok maybe we can make an exception to them being sent to sri cempaka).
Understandably enough, I have yet to hear any of these jokers doing this. Well who could resist London?definitely not me.
I'm going off tangent...
Anyways.
Point is the future will be worse than you think ( yes don't believe those propaganda that everything will be fine) and really, the lower and the bleaker the expectation that you have of the future, the better it is for you, personally. A soft landing is always better than a crash.either way we are heading down.
good night, good bye and good luck !
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Like malaysia, the newspapers were all talks abt inflation/hyperinflation and the sudden surge in energy prices (read oil)..
PM gordon brown has even outlined a plan to urge saudi and opec to increase production, although the saudis, like all the rest of them lots, blame it on the bloody speculators (sounds familiar?) Brown even went further to suggest that a more sustainable energy source (read nuclear) is now inevitably the imminent solution to the looming problem (what abt the ever increasing industrial and consumer wants?is that not a problem, or the problem ?)
Anyways, I am always amazed by how critical the british ppl are of everything, their govt, their country, and more often than not, of their own royalties.it is one of those peculiarities which describes, their so called, britishness.
In particular over my recent trip, was the increasing criticism thrown at mervyn king the governor of boe and alastair darling the chancellor of the exchequer in their supposed failure in controling inflation ( or hyperinflation- as how the tabloids likes to word it)
But I was left wondering to myself as I stroll down oxford street, because contrary to the so called popular local belief that the average spending power of the average middle class britons have been cut back, the shops were still jam packed with people, and the summer sales arrived on time, like it always do.
I even managed to buy myself, another pair of my favourite airwalk snickers, for a mind boggling price of 1 pound!! (See picture)
So why the hype of hyperinflation?
this is the classic example of british people being over critically british (is that gram correct?) and in my opinion , rightly so.
Britons usually spend only 10 to 15 percent of their income towards food and bills.and now they have to fork out almost 20 percent for their food and bills (cars and transport included).
for them, that is a huge amount since they still have allocation for other 'essentials' such as mortgage (20 percent) entertainment (10 percent) holidays (15percent) and so on and so forth.
We malaysians spend more than 50percent of our income on food and home bills (and sometimes this doesn't include our car installment and petrol).
Mortgage? Most malaysians are renting until almost through their early thirties.
Holiday? What holiday? Cuti cuti malaysia also we cannot afford. Maybe boleh jalan europa or jalan jalan subang jaya (hitz fm advert)
My point is this.
The british people are screaming like mad to their government,to their mps and and to their financial institutions, over an inflation that has affected a mere 5 to 10 percent of their monthly wages.
While we malaysians, are being affected many folds than that by looming inflation, and yet , we ... ? (Sila isi tempat kosong)
Public transport in uk is brilliant, and yet they complain that petrol price is at 1.30 of their currencies unit. And they are not even a bloody net exporter.
The university system is top of the world league, and they still complain that across the atlantic the ivy league are collecting billions in endowments allowing making it more affordable for less privileged to enter them.
Their mp s and cabinet ministers are scrutinised more than britney spears, and yet they still complain abt them..
The result is, their whole system gets better and better, all the time.when u think there is no more room for improvement (or criticism) u ll always be dumbfounded that the british will find one.
So what about us?
Are we content with yes its ok lah..
Sometimes maybe the standard of what is good, is not really good enough.
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And yes the tummy was too big so I had to strap the seat belt over his neck!
:)
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And every friday when I listen to the khutbahs , I can't help but feel annoyed at the level of 'maturity' and 'intelligence' the content of the khutbahs and the way the khatib/imam delivers it. To put it simpley, it is outright patronising.
Let us first look at the topics of the khutbah delivered.
More often than not, the content of the khutbah itself are an insult to our intelligence because it usually concerns of issues so minute and insignificant, that members of the audience couldn't be bothered with.
Take this week. Bapa mithali. I assume this is because father s day is not many days away from now.
But what is so significant about bapa mithali??
How many of the audience are interested to listen to a lecture abt bapa mithali??
Islamist has to be real and updated to world challenges, and so does the khutbah s delivered every week.
Shouldn't we be talking abt the challenges of a world facing with energy crisis? Shoudlt we be questioning why is the muslim world, who owns almost 60percent of the known oil reserves, are the worst affected by the current energy crisis? And shouldn't we be talking abt how islam itself is a religion which speaks of a world that is too consumed by worldly matters, that it is a reminder for us all that there is a limit to everything?
And we want to talk abt bapa mithali?
How stupid we malaysian islamist are sometimes.
The problem is, how can we have a khutbah speech which is more updated to the current issues, when the very people who writes those khutbah's are the very islamist who are katak di bawah tempurung that even though they studied overseas (read al azhar) they only mix with malaysians, and they don't even have friends, who are not malaysians. Pi mai pi mai, tang tu jugak.
To make it even worse, more often than not we get really old imams, who reads the sermon, word by word.no intonation whatsoever. Well not that our national leader don't do the same.
We should send this imams to the toastmasters club or something!!
At least, have some energy lah in delivering the khutbah.khutbah are suppose to be fiery and motivating, not a sleeping pill!
With this kind of topics and this kind of imams, they expect us, the mamums not to fall asleep during the khutbahs?
I think I'm gonna fall asleep now..
ZzzzZzzz.....
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Now for rm 70, which for the many people out there is a staggering 5 percent of their monthly income, or even less, u don't even get 26 litres! How crazy is that?
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Government servants are sick of this patronising advices
How dare the very people who live in damansara heights and driven to work 45km s away daily to putrajaya on a government paid car, tell the government servants to change lifestyle
What lifestyle?
Most govt servants are just lucky to be alive!
And u want to talk abt having lifestyle
Kuman seberang laut nampak, vip sebelah rumah di jalan setia whatever buat buat tak nampak?
Don't u dare tell the already poor and middle class people to tell lifestyle, when u don't even dare to cut ure own big fat salary!
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Not as well attended as it shud be, I thought the speaker spoke quite well.
Bar my anglophilic biasness, surprisingly enough for a lady who s experience before becoming an mp was in social community work (albeit having a degree from nottingham), I think she did extremely well talking abt uk s foreign policy. Not an enviable nor popular subject/position to talk abt!
Anyways, I was just wondering if more malaysian mp s who makes it into cabinet cud have been as eloquent/convincing.
not to forget that she was so informal minus the entourage that usually follow a malaysian cabinet member (Or deputy ministers for that matter)
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Tun hamid omar - chief justice of malaysia, he deserves it lah, hope he can reform judiciary.
Tun ahmad sarji - former ksn, chairmans of like a zillion companies in malaysia, inc the malay mentality pnb. Does he merit a tun ship? Contribution to malaysia?
Tun lim kheng yaik - gerakan maestro, malaysia for malaysia man, one of the best ministers malaysia has ever seen, totally deserve it.
Why no tun ship for one of the grand old man of malaysia, tengki razaleigh? He founded bank bumi for the malays (albeit it being destroyed by others later), he created pernas for the malay sme s (albeit it being bought by others later), and he, almost singlehandedly, under the instruction of tun razak, created the biggest cash cow of malaysia, PETRONAS (albeit those who were victors, denied him in petronas history? ) Then again, maybe I'm biased because I'm kelantanese (in the words of brother anwar)
Tan sri ships , my verdict
Tan sri azman mokhtar - ceo of khazanah nasional malaysia, totally merits the tan sri ship, done job well in khazanah, albeit some sour grapes might say he is still young (below 50). Lest we forget, we had industrialist like tan sri halim saad,tan sri tajudin ramli, and tan sri yahya ahmad, who was way younger than him when they were conferred tan sri ship. Read tan sri azman s reply to tan sri adam kadir in this week s the edge page 60. Classic stuff! :)
Other tan sris..
Tan sri chan kong choy - retirement scheme plan?
Tan sri mohamed jawhar hassan isis chairman - deserve it
Tan sri sulaiman mahbob - dg of economic planning unit, top guy, totally deserves it
Tan sri amirsham aziz - he s a good man, prudent, so ok lah he also merits it, done an ok job building up maybank
Tan sri prof khoo khay khim - this one he totally deserves it! Nasib baik it was not a post humous thing! Govt shud have recognised the old master a long time ago, only last year they gave him datuk ship, now tan sri ship, ok lah better late than never kan? Prof khoo rocks!
Tan sri chua ma yu ? The property cum financial master, does he deserve it? maybe or maybe not?
Finally, the biggest joke of the first half of the year, I present to you...
Tan sri anuar musa!
The former kelantanese minister, mb wannabe,many in umno kelantan claim that he is the culprit behind umno kelantan's demise..managed to bamboozled/trick datuk awang adek to think he can be mb (pity datuk awang) and has a history of being tainted with a scandal involving pprt money when he was minister (pprt is the projek perumahan rakyat termiskin). Dismisses corruption claim, but the ksu of his ministry now meringkup in jail, the businessman involve now apparently hiding in hadyai. Also sent his possible challenger in the coming bahagian election to "political holiday" in putrajaya? U judge yourself.
Contribution of "tan sri" anuar musa to malaysia or malaysian people (or even kelantan for that matter) to merit him receiving the tan sri ship?
Go figure!
This ladies and gentleman, is the cracker riddle of this month!
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Yang vvip still naik mercedes dan bmw dan volvo dan jaguar dan porche
Lepas tuh nak suruh kita berjimat?
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I guess we malays, are ok if we are bamboozled by the powers that be on most things, but when it comes to bread and butter ( read petrol and nasi) no rational argument could convince the malays otherwise, should we be deprive of it!
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As a matter of fact, during the last general election, I did not find a single person amongst my immediate peers who voted for barisan .
Even some of my loyal umnoristas voted for the pakatan rakyat, simply because the bn candidates in their constituencies were deemed as useless, incompetent or just not good looking enough (read old). The last one is in particular to the area of dun subang jaya and parlimen pantai dalam (where many young voters/gen y people voted for the more pretty yet charismatic dap hannah yeoh and pkr's nurul izzah, who for the past 2 months was on the front page of almost all the malay magazines in town)
I think the so called 49 percent of the voters in semenanjung malaysia, inc myself, who still and maybe , will always do support barisan nasional, must have felt a bit betrayed by the reality that we have all woken up to today.
Is this what we voted for?
I hope the govt realise, that yes we do the people do realise that the hike in petrol price was inevitable.
We also do realise, that even at rm 2 70 per litter, we are still the cheapest in the region (thailand is at rm 4).oh how lucky we malaysians..
But I wonder whether the govt realises that we the people are actually angry not only at the surprise of this announcement, but also by the most patronising way we were led into this?
Only 2 days ago, the govt said, no we are not going to increase petrol price. It will be in august.
Mentally, I think we malaysians were prepared for august.
And suddenly, in the most literal way possible, u just dropped the bombshell on us just like that!
We had barely less than 7 hours after the announcement to be informed that price will hike by more than 40percent!
how are we the people expected to except this with an open mind?? Even the most educated of malaysians would demand a gradual increase, simply because we the people need time to adjust to our supposedly 'lavish living' ! ( Well not that we travel around in private jets and have houses in london, sydney or perth)
I would have backed the govt if last night, it was up by even 30cents.
But 80 cents ?? That's just midnight robbery (literrally!)
We the people, must stand united to scrutinise where this money 'saved' will go to.
4 billion, at least, will go to dasar jaminan bekalan makanan negara.
I have never trusted my ringgit on govt expenditure, simply because many usually goes to exhorbitant over priced project, that usually goes to the same ahmad or abu.
But since I am a barisan nasional supporter, I will give them the last benefit of doubt.
6 months time from now, we will revisit.
As a parting shot, I ask also for us the rakyat to think (hint hint to the govt), well since we are now paying higher petrol price and more expensive food in subsequence, why the hell are we the rakyat,especially the people in the cities, still paying sky rocketing toll prices??
Don't all the toll money go to the govt anyways, especially through companies like plus? We already have increased income through less petrol subsidy and soaring petrol prices (less we forget we are net oil exporter), so why is the rakyat still be made to burden it all?
I think now, more than ever, we the people has the right to say
REDUCE TOLL PRICES!
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Come on lah, 3 days ago the govt said it will only be increased in august
And now this??
I wud have vouched for the govt if this SUDDEN increase was just like 30 cents
But 80 cents ???? !!
What were they thinking? That we are stupid lemmings that will not do anything?
The least that they cud do is to give us 3 or 4 months heads up, at least we can prepare for this.
Or naik sket sket jer ket
I don't know how can I defend bn now
Worse still,
I cannot imagine what the poor and middle class people will cope with us
The question now is, how is the govt going to spend the subsidy that they took away from us?
I say we watch how it is spent, every penny of it!
Oh and before I forget,
The electricity tariff will also increase by 25 percent!
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