By ROBERT F. WORTH 27 \ 2 \2010
The New York Times
ADEN, Yemen — Less than an hour’s drive outside this dilapidated port town, the Yemeni government’s authority is scarcely visible, and a different flag appears, that of the old independent state of South Yemen.
The flags are one sign of a rapidly spreading protest movement across the south that now threatens to turn into a violent insurgency if its demands are not met. That could further destabilize Yemen, already the poorest and one of the most troubled countries in the Arab world, and create a broader haven for Al Qaeda here.
The movement’s leaders say the Yemeni government — based in the north — has systematically discriminated against the south, expropriating land, expelling southerners from their jobs and starving them of public money. They speak with deep nostalgia of the 128-year British occupation in South Yemen, saying the British, who withdrew in 1967, fostered the rule of law, tolerance and prosperity. The north, they say, respects only the gun.
In recent months, calls for secession have grown louder after a harsh government crackdown on demonstrations and opposition newspapers. The movement’s leaders say that they believe in peaceful protest, but that their ability to control younger and more violent supporters is fraying.
“It is too late for half measures or reforms,” said Zahra Saleh Abdullah, one of the few Southern Movement leaders who agreed to be identified in print. “We demand an independent southern republic, and we have the right to defend ourselves if they continue to kill us and imprison us.”
Another movement leader, sitting across the room, held up a coin minted under the British in 1964 and pointed to the words engraved on it: South Arabia.
“This is our true identity, not Yemen,” he said. “A southern republic or death.”
Public outrage swelled last month after Yemeni security forces laid siege to the house of a prominent newspaper editor in Aden, setting off a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire as the editor and his young children cowered inside. (The government said he was stockpiling weapons.) They were not injured, but the clash left at least one of the family’s guards dead and others wounded, fueling more demonstrations. All told, more than 100 people have been killed in clashes with the police since the movement began in 2007, its leaders say, and about 1,500 supporters remain in prison.
In some rural areas of South Yemen, police officers refuse to wear their uniforms for fear of being shot, according to several accounts from local residents.
The Yemeni government has largely dismissed the movement as a small band of malcontents and has repeatedly accused its leaders of being affiliated with Al Qaeda.
The movement’s leaders call that an outrageous perversion of the truth: they say that they stand for law, tolerance and democracy, and that it is the north that has a history of using jihadists as proxy warriors. But some human rights workers say a shared hatred of the government could be creating a sense of unity between some members of the movement — which is broad and very loosely organized — and members of Al Qaeda.
Perhaps a greater danger, some say, is the spread of lawlessness across the south if the movement’s demands for greater equity are not addressed and it grows more violent. The movement’s own internal contradictions also pose a real threat.
“There is no clear leadership, everyone wants to be the boss,” said Afra Khaled Hariri, a lawyer here who has represented arrested members of the movement. The movement’s leaders include socialists and Islamists with wildly different goals and unresolved disputes dating to internal conflicts between socialist factions that left thousands of southerners dead during the 1980s.
“If the movement succeeds in making a separate state, I expect disaster because of our bloody past,” Ms. Hariri said. And Aden — the heart of the British protectorate and the base of the south’s intelligentsia — would be the chief victim, she added.
For that reason, some in the south say, the best solution is not secession, but a political accommodation in which the north agrees to address some of the movement’s main grievances about land expropriation and job discrimination. Many also say that moving away from Yemen’s highly centralized system of government and granting the provinces more power to govern themselves would ease tensions.
So far the government has shown little sign it intends to do that.
Behind the Southern Movement’s protests is an old belief that North and South Yemen are fundamentally different societies, and that their unification — achieved with great fanfare on both sides in 1990 — has been a failure.
The differences are apparent even to a first-time visitor. Aden has churches, parks, a smaller model of Big Ben and a stately garden where a statue of Queen Victoria presides. The roads, though a little faded, are generally better than those in the north. It is a commonplace that people respect red lights and driving lanes here, unlike in the north.
The people of the south are generally better educated, a legacy not only of the British but of the Socialist government that ruled here during the 1970s. Although they shattered the economy and suppressed their opponents brutally, the Socialists also put an end to harmful tribal practices like child marriage, championed women’s equality and achieved some of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world.
All those achievements have since collapsed: literacy and education have dropped precipitously across the south, child marriage has returned and lawlessness prevails.
Many here blame the north for all that. A brief civil war broke out in 1994, during which the north used jihadists who had fought in Afghanistan as proxy fighters.
“They want to push us into backwardness so we are like them,” said Ali Abdo, a professor of transportation engineering at Aden University and a member of a party that supports decentralization but not secession. “Aden was tolerant: there were Jews, Christians, Muslims all living together here. The North is not.”
The Southern Movement began in 2007 with protests led by former military officers who said they had been
mistreated and denied pensions after the 1994 civil war. Gradually, it has grown to encompass other groups. Last year, it received a large boost when Tareq al-Fadhli, a former Afghan jihadist and ally of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, defected to the movement.
The movement now includes a substantial body of powerful tribal figures as well as Aden-based intellectuals and political figures. There is a 42-member leadership committee, though it is not clear how many of the movement’s supporters it represents. Most supporters seem to acknowledge Ali Salim al-Bidh, the exiled former president of South Yemen, as their leader. Mr. Bidh emerged from years of silence recently and began actively advocating southern independence.
The movement has its own songs, which can be heard blasting from the open windows of cars in southern towns. “We swear to God, we will not put up with this corrupt dictator and his gang, even if the whole sky erupts in fire,” goes one song by Aboud Khawaja, a singer now based in Qatar.
This month, a 27-year-old man named Faris Tamah was arrested near Aden while playing that song from his car stereo, and he was later shot to death in prison after being tortured, said several movement supporters who know his family and say they saw a medical report. Yemen’s government-run newspapers later ran an article saying that Mr. Tamah was arrested for drunken driving and committed suicide in custody by grabbing an officer’s gun and shooting himself. “The movement began with demands, but they were refused and the pressure grew,” Professor Abdo said. “Now, the movement is in every house in the south.”
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Yemen sappers enter Shi'ite rebel stronghold
By Mohammed Ghobari
Reuters
February 27, 2010
SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni army sappers entered a northern Shi'ite rebel stronghold to clear mines after rebels quit the city of Saada as part of a truce to end a war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia, the defense ministry said on Saturday.
But tension flared in southern Yemen where authorities imposed heightened security measures in a provincial capital to guard against attacks by separatists.
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, struck a truce on February 11 with rebels who have been fighting the state since 2004 over religious, economic and social grievances in the mountainous north.
The two-week-old northern truce has largely held, while a conflict with southern separatists has simmered.
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The rebels left their Saada stronghold, some 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa, on Thursday on condition they were masked, and that they were not followed by security.
"After the evacuation, special military engineering teams moved to survey the city and a number of roads and buildings to remove any mines," the defense ministry said in its online newspaper.
The engineers were also removing unexploded ordnance.
A number of displaced residents of the city had also begun to return to inspect their houses in Saada, the website said. The conflict in north Yemen has displaced 250,000 people.
Yemen has shot to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemeni arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December.
Western governments and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on several fronts in Yemen to recruit and train militants to launch attacks in the region and beyond.
Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict with northern rebels in November after the insurgents seized Saudi border territory and accused Riyadh of letting Yemeni troops attack them from Saudi ground.
In Riyadh, where Western and Arab donors were meeting to discuss economic aid for Yemen, a Yemeni official said Sanaa wanted "a faster march" to membership in the wealthier six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.
"Yemen is convinced that its integration within the GCC represents one of the most important means...to enable Yemen to contribute in consolidating regional and international security," said Abdulkareem al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economy, Planning and International Cooperation.
Yemen has previously said it wanted GCC membership by 2015.
In south Yemen on Saturday, authorities said they would toughen security measures in the provincial capital of Dalea, including a ban on carrying weapons in public, citing the possibility of separatist violence two days after a policeman was shot dead in an ambush in a nearby province.
An official earlier said a state of emergency was called in the city but the defense ministry website later denied this.
Hundreds demonstrating in Dalea on Saturday against recent arrests, some carrying the flag of the former South Yemen, which united with the North in 1990, residents and pro-southern websites said.
A southern leader called in a speech on the donors meeting in Riyadh to address the unresolved conflict in the south.
"The marches today ... carry a message to the Riyadh meeting and to the world (toward) the fulfillment of the just demands of the people of the south," Shalal Ali Shayeh told protesters.
People in south Yemen, home to most Yemeni oil facilities, complain that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement uniting the country to grab resources and discriminate against them.
Demonstrations were also held in several other cities, some shut by a strike call by southern activists, websites said. In Abyan province two people were wounded as security forces opened fire to disperse protesters blocking a road.
The policeman's death on Thursday brought to four the number of people killed in attacks on southern security men in a week as authorities also mounted arrest sweeps targeting separatists.
Tension flared after a protester was killed on February 13 by police. This ignited a week of unrest in which separatists burned northern-owned shops and tried to block a key road.
Security officials have since launched sweeps that netted at least 130 arrests in four southern provinces including Dalea.
Reuters
February 27, 2010
SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni army sappers entered a northern Shi'ite rebel stronghold to clear mines after rebels quit the city of Saada as part of a truce to end a war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia, the defense ministry said on Saturday.
But tension flared in southern Yemen where authorities imposed heightened security measures in a provincial capital to guard against attacks by separatists.
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, struck a truce on February 11 with rebels who have been fighting the state since 2004 over religious, economic and social grievances in the mountainous north.
The two-week-old northern truce has largely held, while a conflict with southern separatists has simmered.
ad_icon
The rebels left their Saada stronghold, some 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa, on Thursday on condition they were masked, and that they were not followed by security.
"After the evacuation, special military engineering teams moved to survey the city and a number of roads and buildings to remove any mines," the defense ministry said in its online newspaper.
The engineers were also removing unexploded ordnance.
A number of displaced residents of the city had also begun to return to inspect their houses in Saada, the website said. The conflict in north Yemen has displaced 250,000 people.
Yemen has shot to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemeni arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December.
Western governments and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on several fronts in Yemen to recruit and train militants to launch attacks in the region and beyond.
Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict with northern rebels in November after the insurgents seized Saudi border territory and accused Riyadh of letting Yemeni troops attack them from Saudi ground.
In Riyadh, where Western and Arab donors were meeting to discuss economic aid for Yemen, a Yemeni official said Sanaa wanted "a faster march" to membership in the wealthier six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.
"Yemen is convinced that its integration within the GCC represents one of the most important means...to enable Yemen to contribute in consolidating regional and international security," said Abdulkareem al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economy, Planning and International Cooperation.
Yemen has previously said it wanted GCC membership by 2015.
In south Yemen on Saturday, authorities said they would toughen security measures in the provincial capital of Dalea, including a ban on carrying weapons in public, citing the possibility of separatist violence two days after a policeman was shot dead in an ambush in a nearby province.
An official earlier said a state of emergency was called in the city but the defense ministry website later denied this.
Hundreds demonstrating in Dalea on Saturday against recent arrests, some carrying the flag of the former South Yemen, which united with the North in 1990, residents and pro-southern websites said.
A southern leader called in a speech on the donors meeting in Riyadh to address the unresolved conflict in the south.
"The marches today ... carry a message to the Riyadh meeting and to the world (toward) the fulfillment of the just demands of the people of the south," Shalal Ali Shayeh told protesters.
People in south Yemen, home to most Yemeni oil facilities, complain that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement uniting the country to grab resources and discriminate against them.
Demonstrations were also held in several other cities, some shut by a strike call by southern activists, websites said. In Abyan province two people were wounded as security forces opened fire to disperse protesters blocking a road.
The policeman's death on Thursday brought to four the number of people killed in attacks on southern security men in a week as authorities also mounted arrest sweeps targeting separatists.
Tension flared after a protester was killed on February 13 by police. This ignited a week of unrest in which separatists burned northern-owned shops and tried to block a key road.
Security officials have since launched sweeps that netted at least 130 arrests in four southern provinces including Dalea.
Emergency state against southern separatists
By Nasser Arrabyee/27/02/2010
An emergency state was imposed on a Yemeni southern province where separatists wanted to stage anti-unity demonstrations, official sources said Saturday.
"The city of Al Dhale'e was surrounded from all directions and all entrances were closed since very early morning to prevent any armed outlaws from entering the city to undermine the security," said the director of security in Al Dhale'e, Ghazi Al Ahwal.
Earlier the governor of Al Dhale'e, Ali Kasem Taleb, said he had a meeting with the security officials and decided to prevent any citizen from walking around with guns.
Local sources said that elements from the separatist southern movement were planning to stage demonstration in Al Dhale'e today Saturday to deliver an anti-unity message to the international and Gulf donors who meet on the same day in the Saudi capital Riyadh for helping Yemen maintain its unity, security and stability.
The separatists call themselves peaceful movement for returning the independent state of the south, which united with the north in 1990. Some of these separatist, however, take to the street with their guns, block roads, set fire to shops belonging to northerners, and sometimes kill northerners only because they are northerners.
"This is an armed movement and not peaceful movement," said the security director in Al Dhale'e, Ghazi Al Ahwal.
In Mukalla far east of the country, owners of the shops and commercial centres closed since early morning in fear of riot acts by disgruntled demonstrators who wanted also demonstrate in coincidence with the Riyadh conference which is reviewing the security and economic challenges facing Yemen.
An emergency state was imposed on a Yemeni southern province where separatists wanted to stage anti-unity demonstrations, official sources said Saturday.
"The city of Al Dhale'e was surrounded from all directions and all entrances were closed since very early morning to prevent any armed outlaws from entering the city to undermine the security," said the director of security in Al Dhale'e, Ghazi Al Ahwal.
Earlier the governor of Al Dhale'e, Ali Kasem Taleb, said he had a meeting with the security officials and decided to prevent any citizen from walking around with guns.
Local sources said that elements from the separatist southern movement were planning to stage demonstration in Al Dhale'e today Saturday to deliver an anti-unity message to the international and Gulf donors who meet on the same day in the Saudi capital Riyadh for helping Yemen maintain its unity, security and stability.
The separatists call themselves peaceful movement for returning the independent state of the south, which united with the north in 1990. Some of these separatist, however, take to the street with their guns, block roads, set fire to shops belonging to northerners, and sometimes kill northerners only because they are northerners.
"This is an armed movement and not peaceful movement," said the security director in Al Dhale'e, Ghazi Al Ahwal.
In Mukalla far east of the country, owners of the shops and commercial centres closed since early morning in fear of riot acts by disgruntled demonstrators who wanted also demonstrate in coincidence with the Riyadh conference which is reviewing the security and economic challenges facing Yemen.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Al Houthi rebels leave the old city of Sa'ada
By Nasser Arrabyee/26/02/2010
All Al Houthi rebels will withdraw today Friday from the houses of the citizens in the old city of Sa'ada while the displaced people will return to their houses, said a mediator Friday.
"We agreed with the representative of Al Houthi rebels that their followers who barricade in some houses of the old city, will all withdraw today Friday," said Ali Abu Hulaika, the chairman of the mediation committee in Sa'ada city.
The people, who left their houses after the war erupted last August, will return to their houses in the old city, said Abu Hulaika.
Abu Hulaika said the time set for implementing the conditions of ending the war is now almost over while his committee did not finish everything they should have done.
"The procrastination of the Al Houthi rebels was behind that delay, but we applied for giving us additional time to finish our task," he said.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar, said in press statements Thursday , that his government is ready to launch a new round of war if Al Houthi rebels did not fully abide by the six conditions for ending the conflict.
The decree of ending the war came only after the rebels yielded to the six conditions, which were set by the government from the first moment of the war. If the rebels recanted at any point, this decree will be reconsidered , Mujawar said.
All Al Houthi rebels will withdraw today Friday from the houses of the citizens in the old city of Sa'ada while the displaced people will return to their houses, said a mediator Friday.
"We agreed with the representative of Al Houthi rebels that their followers who barricade in some houses of the old city, will all withdraw today Friday," said Ali Abu Hulaika, the chairman of the mediation committee in Sa'ada city.
The people, who left their houses after the war erupted last August, will return to their houses in the old city, said Abu Hulaika.
Abu Hulaika said the time set for implementing the conditions of ending the war is now almost over while his committee did not finish everything they should have done.
"The procrastination of the Al Houthi rebels was behind that delay, but we applied for giving us additional time to finish our task," he said.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar, said in press statements Thursday , that his government is ready to launch a new round of war if Al Houthi rebels did not fully abide by the six conditions for ending the conflict.
The decree of ending the war came only after the rebels yielded to the six conditions, which were set by the government from the first moment of the war. If the rebels recanted at any point, this decree will be reconsidered , Mujawar said.
Donors meet in Riyadh to help Yemen
By Nasser Arrabyee/25/02/2010
The representatives of the international and GCC donors will meet in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday February 27, 2010, for discussing mechanisms of implementing the pledges of the donors to help Yemen overcome its major challenges.
The meeting is a follow up for the London conference held late last January, after a call from the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Abdul Kareem Al Arahbi, who will head the Yemeni delegation to Riyadh, said Thursday that ministers of finance and representatives of funds of GCC will attend the meeting.
Representatives from US, EU, UN and WB will also attend the meeting, said Al Arahabi who leaves Sana'a for Riyadh on Friday.
The meeting discusses the status of the donors pledges, and difficulties facing the projects funded by them, the official said. The mechanisms of coordination and communication between Yemen and the donors will be discussed.
The needs of Yemen for reforms during 2011-2015 will also be discussed in the meeting. The meeting will pave the way for the meeting of the friends of Yemen which will held in Berlin next month.
On the same day, the Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar, and the Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Azeez, will sign six agreements to finance development projects in Yemen.
The development projects include roads, electricity, education, health, and vocational training.
The meeting is the 19th round of the Yemeni-Saudi coordination council.
The representatives of the international and GCC donors will meet in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday February 27, 2010, for discussing mechanisms of implementing the pledges of the donors to help Yemen overcome its major challenges.
The meeting is a follow up for the London conference held late last January, after a call from the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Abdul Kareem Al Arahbi, who will head the Yemeni delegation to Riyadh, said Thursday that ministers of finance and representatives of funds of GCC will attend the meeting.
Representatives from US, EU, UN and WB will also attend the meeting, said Al Arahabi who leaves Sana'a for Riyadh on Friday.
The meeting discusses the status of the donors pledges, and difficulties facing the projects funded by them, the official said. The mechanisms of coordination and communication between Yemen and the donors will be discussed.
The needs of Yemen for reforms during 2011-2015 will also be discussed in the meeting. The meeting will pave the way for the meeting of the friends of Yemen which will held in Berlin next month.
On the same day, the Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar, and the Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Azeez, will sign six agreements to finance development projects in Yemen.
The development projects include roads, electricity, education, health, and vocational training.
The meeting is the 19th round of the Yemeni-Saudi coordination council.
Graves of the two dead Saudi soldiers located
By Nasser Arrabyee 25/02/2010
Al Houthi rebels have determined the place where the two missing Saud soldiers were killed and buried, the mediators said Thursday.
"The rebels told us today the place where they buried the two Saudi soldiers who, they said, they were not alive," said Addul Wahab Al Durah member of the mediation committee in Al Malahaid, west of Sa'ada.
Earlier, Al Houthi rebels said they had handed over all the Saudi captured soldiers after Riyadh received three of them. The Saudi army, however, previously said five soldiers went missing in the battles with the rebels.
Al Durah said no single rebel is now positioning in the Saudi-Yemeni borders, but he said efforts of removing mines planted by the rebels are still going on.
The rebels would permanently go down from the remaining mountains and barricades as soon as the local authority starts its work in the areas which were under their control , said member the mediation committee, Al Durah.
For the displaced people, Al Durah said that some displaced people have already returned to their houses and villages and some have not, because their areas are not cleaned from the mines yet.
Some mediators complain that Al Houthi rebels have not handed all the maps of the mines planted in the mountains, roads, farms and houses.
Othman Mujali, member the mediation committee in Sa'ada city, resigned from the committee on Wednesday because he said Al Houthi did not hand over all the maps, which show all planted mines in the areas around Sa'ada city.
"The mines still planted would kill hundreds of people," said Mujali, who is a tribal sheikh from Sa'ada, who is in a tribal feud with Al Houthi rebels.
In an attempt to normalize the situation in the war-torn Sa'ada, the director of education in the province of Sa'ada, Mohammed Al Shamiri, said that more 130,000 students would go to schools starting from Saturday February 27th, 2010.
Al Houthi rebels have determined the place where the two missing Saud soldiers were killed and buried, the mediators said Thursday.
"The rebels told us today the place where they buried the two Saudi soldiers who, they said, they were not alive," said Addul Wahab Al Durah member of the mediation committee in Al Malahaid, west of Sa'ada.
Earlier, Al Houthi rebels said they had handed over all the Saudi captured soldiers after Riyadh received three of them. The Saudi army, however, previously said five soldiers went missing in the battles with the rebels.
Al Durah said no single rebel is now positioning in the Saudi-Yemeni borders, but he said efforts of removing mines planted by the rebels are still going on.
The rebels would permanently go down from the remaining mountains and barricades as soon as the local authority starts its work in the areas which were under their control , said member the mediation committee, Al Durah.
For the displaced people, Al Durah said that some displaced people have already returned to their houses and villages and some have not, because their areas are not cleaned from the mines yet.
Some mediators complain that Al Houthi rebels have not handed all the maps of the mines planted in the mountains, roads, farms and houses.
Othman Mujali, member the mediation committee in Sa'ada city, resigned from the committee on Wednesday because he said Al Houthi did not hand over all the maps, which show all planted mines in the areas around Sa'ada city.
"The mines still planted would kill hundreds of people," said Mujali, who is a tribal sheikh from Sa'ada, who is in a tribal feud with Al Houthi rebels.
In an attempt to normalize the situation in the war-torn Sa'ada, the director of education in the province of Sa'ada, Mohammed Al Shamiri, said that more 130,000 students would go to schools starting from Saturday February 27th, 2010.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Two missing Saudi soldiers died, Al Houthi rebels say
By Nasser Arrabyee/24/02/2010
The two Saudi soldiers captured by Al Houthi rebels are not alive, said a statement by the rebels Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Al Houthi rebels handed over three Saudi soldiers to the Saudi authorities via the Yemeni government as a part of the six conditions accepted by the rebels for ending the war.
According to the Saudi army, five Saudi soldiers went missing during the battles with the rebels who attacked the territories of Saudi Arabia early November before they were driven out in about 45 days later.
This statement came after the government said the rebels were procrastinating in handing over the Saudi and Yemeni captured soldiers, and that they were trying to prevent the Yemeni army from deployment in some places.
Since both sides announced the truce in February 12, the mediation committees have been working on implementation of the six conditions, which include the rebels going down from the mountains and handing over the heavy and medium-sized weapons.
The committees say, the rebels did not hand over the weapons, they even kept the mines which were removed from the roads which were reopened, and they have not yet descended from the mountains and they have not removed all the barricades in the houses, heights and farms.
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