AS THE WORLD SQUIRMSã

Saturday, November 29, 2008

 

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Note: Some items contained herein may have additional formatting, emphasis and hotlinks added for context and perspective  ~ Owen

 

 

  

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Experts doubt Al Qaeda link in Mumbai attacks

 

Philip Dru comments for New World Truth: “Global terrorism experts said Thursday they had never heard of the group [Deccan Mujahideen]. And based on its tactics, they said, it was probably not a cell or group linked to Al Qaeda.

 

‘It’s even unclear whether it’s a real group or not,’ said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of the book ‘Inside Terrorism.’ ‘It could be a cover name for another group, or a name adopted just for this particular incident.’

 

Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested that the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims - and not linked to Al Qaeda or the violent South Asian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

 

‘There’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,’ she said of the attack. ‘Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don’t do hostage taking, and they don’t do grenades.’

 

Hoffman agreed that the assault was ‘not exactly Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, which is suicide attacks.’ But he said the timed attacks, which he called ‘tactical, sophisticated and coordinated,’ perhaps pointed to a broader organization behind the perpetrators. Fair also noted that the fact the group had not proclaimed its ideology in a manifesto was ‘not at all unusual.’

 

‘You don’t see these types of terrorist operations very often, if at all,’ Hoffman said. ‘These aren’t just a bunch of radical guys coming together to cause mayhem. This takes a different skill set. It doesn’t take much skill to make a bomb. This is not just pressing a button as a suicide bomber and dying. You don’t learn this over the Internet.’”

 

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·      Video/ This Aljazeera English report from yesterday contains a radio statement from one of the terrorists explaining his motives.

 

·      Claims emerge of British terrorists in Mumbai - The Guardian (London)

 

·      Evidence Mumbai Attackers were Anglo-American Intel Operatives

 

·      Video/ Mumbai Blasts : Deepak Chopra speaks on CNN (26 November 2008) - Muslims should help in combating terrorism

 

 

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Just Ten Trained Terrorists Caused Mumbai Carnage

 

 

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The Gujarat Pogrom: The Mumbai  “Terrorist” Attack in Perspective

 

Ian McDonald comments for THE (UK):The systematic slaughter of Muslims by Hindus across the Indian state of Gujarat three weeks ago was a ferocious and barbaric revenge for the arson attack by a Muslim "mob" on a train carrying Hindu "activists".

 

The horrific fate of nearly 60 Hindus on February 27 cannot compare to the subsequent pogrom waged against the minority Muslim community, in which whole families, including children, were dragged out of their homes to be beaten and burnt alive. The death toll is estimated to be above 1,000.

 

Contrary to many reports on the subject, the Hindus travelling on the Sabarmati Express were not pilgrims making their way to Ayodhya to pray in peace. They were ramsevaks , members of the politico-religious VHP (World Hindu Council) for whom the construction of a temple where once the Babri Masjid (mosque) stood is but the first step towards a fundamentalist Hindu state.

 

It was the VHP that planted the seed of the terrorist destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fanatics in 1992, claiming that it was built on the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama. This resulted in riots targeted at Muslims that left 3,000 dead. The plan to build a temple on the disputed site continued to simmer until the most recent clashes.”

 

 

 

IRAQ

The Cost of Washington’s Militarism and Occupation

 

 

HARDWARE

$573,689,710,096

 

For details, click here

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOFTWARE

 

(Click on picture)

 

 

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than a creation of a new order of things.”

 

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince – 1513

 

 

 

 

The Lancet: Iraqi Civilian Deaths

March, 2003September, 2004 (100,000 “Excess” Iraqi Deaths)

March, 2003July, 2006 (654,965 “Excess” Iraqi Deaths)

Summary

Background: An excess mortality of nearly 100,000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003—September, 2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate.

 

Methods: Between May and July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates, with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from these households was gathered.

 

Findings: Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12,801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3—7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9—16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 (392,979—942,636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 (426,369—793,663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

 

Interpretation: The number of people dying in Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death, although deaths from car bombing have increased.

 

PERSPECTIVE

 

·      INTERVIEW/BBC: Chief Scientific Officer of British Ministry of Defense (MOD) and Others Defend March, 2003—July, 2006  Johns-Hopkins/Lancet Iraqi Deaths Findings

 

·      BBC: Comment on Lancet Study

 

·      New Statesman: Shock, Lancet was right

 

·      Johns-Hopkins: Updated Iraqi Casualties Survey Affirms Earlier Lancet Mortality Findings

 

 

 

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Despite Agreement US Future in Iraq Unclear

 

Maya Schenwar, Truthout: “Iraq’s Parliament passed the US-Iraq security pact by a slim majority on Wednesday, requiring that US troops withdraw from Iraq by 2011, unless the Iraqi people vote for a quicker withdrawal next year. The agreement is a muddle of triumphs and disappointments. The pact - termed a status of forces agreement (SOFA) - has seen considerable revision since its early stages. To the rejoicing of activists on both sides, it now sets a timetable for withdrawal, a provision the Bush administration previously refused to consider. However, as some in Parliament have pointed out, a three-year timetable is twice as long as the one suggested by President-elect Obama, and under the pact, either side needs to give a one-year warning before canceling it. So, when Obama takes office, he couldn't nix the SOFA by command.”

 

 

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Wary Iraqis Weigh Deal That Shapes Their Future

 

 

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War in Iraq Ending for International Forces

 

 

 

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George Bush's Last Days: The Lamest Duck

 

Joe Klein, Time Magazine: "In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad."

 

 

 

 

A Delusional Bush Wants History to See Him as a “Liberator” of Millions

 

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

~ George Orwell

 

 

 

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A man sleeps inside the ruins of a Mogadishu building. The decimated and

depopulated Somali capital is awash in threats, intimidation and political

assassinations. (Tribune photo by Kuni Takahashi / October 7, 2007)

 

SOMALIA: Washington’s Hidden Proxy War

'NOBODY IS WATCHING'

 

It is a standoff war in which the Pentagon lobs million-dollar cruise missiles into a famine-haunted African wasteland the size of Texas, hoping to kill lone terror suspects who might be dozing in candlelit huts. (The raids' success or failure is almost impossible to verify.) It is a covert war in which the CIA has recruited gangs of unsavory warlords to hunt down and kidnap Islamic militants and—according to Isse and civil rights activists—secretly imprison them offshore, aboard U.S. warships.

Mostly, though, it is a policy time bomb that will be inherited by the incoming Obama administration: a little-known front in the global war on terrorism that Washington appears to be losing, if it hasn't already been lost.

’Somalia is one of the great unrecognized U.S. policy failures since 9/11,’ said Ken Menkhaus, a leading Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North Carolina. ‘By any rational metric, what we've ended up with there today is the opposite of what we wanted.’

What the Bush administration wanted, when it tacitly backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in late 2006, was clear enough: to help a close African ally in the war on terror crush the Islamic Courts Union, or ICU. The Taliban-like movement emerged from the ashes of more than 15 years of anarchy and lawlessness in Africa's most infamous failed state, Somalia.

At first, the invasion seemed an easy victory. By early 2007, the ICU had been routed, a pro-Western transitional government installed, and hundreds of Islamic militants in Somalia either captured or killed.

But over the last 18 months, Somalia's Islamists—now more radical than ever—have regrouped and roared back.

On a single day last month, they flexed their muscles by killing nearly 30 people in a spate of bloody car-bomb attacks that recalled the darkest days of Iraq. And their brutal militia, the Shabab or ‘Youth,’ today controls much of the destitute nation, a shattered but strategic country that overlooks the vital oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden.

Even worse, in recent days Shabab's fighters have moved to within miles of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, threatening to topple the weak interim government supported by the U.S. and Ethiopia.

At the same time, according to the UN, the explosion of violence is inflaming what probably is the worst humanitarian tragedy in the world.”

 

 

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'Mummy, can I phone the pirates?'

 

BBC reports: “One of the biggest frustrations facing journalists is being unable to get through to people on the phone. But as Mary Harper discovered, contacting the Somali pirates on the Sirius Star turned out to be child's play.”

 

 

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"They create a wasteland and call it peace."

 

~Tacitus

 

 

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No Mas! Meles Zenawi, Washington’s Ethiopian “Cat’s Paw” In Somalia Has Had Enough

 

Associated Press reports: “MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Ethiopia announced Friday that it will withdraw its forces from Somalia by the end of the year, leaving this country's weak and fractured government to face an increasingly powerful Islamic insurgency. Ethiopia — the region's military powerhouse — has sent thousands of troops to support Somalia's U.N.-backed government, which has failed to assert control over the country. The decision adds urgency to the Somali government's long-standing request for international peacekeepers to deploy here. ‘Regardless of what happens, we have decided to withdraw our troops from Somalia at the end of year,’ Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahide Bellay said Friday in a telephone interview from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.”

 

 

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Afghan Leader Demands Plan for NATO Withdrawal

 

Candace Rondeaux, The Washington Post: "Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sharply criticized the United States and NATO, demanding a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Karzai's comments came late Tuesday in a speech to a U.N. Security Council delegation visiting Kabul, the capital, this week. He accused the international community of failing 'to fight the Taliban properly' since the U.S.-led war in the country began in 2001."

 

 

 

Afghans Riot in Kabul After Civilian Killed

 

Yousuf Azimy reports for Reuters from Kabul: “Dozens of angry Afghans pelted police with stones after a convoy of foreign contractors rammed a minivan off a road and one civilian was killed and three more wounded in the Afghan capital on Friday, witnesses said. Seething resentment against the presence of some 65,000 foreign troops is growing in Afghanistan after scores of Afghan civilians have been killed in a series of mistaken air strikes this year.”

 

 

Taliban Kill 13 Afghan Troops, Capture 16

 

 

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Heed Russia's Warnings About Further NATO Expansion

 

“Ultimately, if it came down to sacrificing US cities in a nuclear war with Russia to save these two non-strategic countries [Georgia and Ukraine], the United States would most assuredly balk. The Ukrainian public has apparently faced this reality – souring on NATO membership – and the tottering Ukrainian government can hardly push through Ukraine's entry into the alliance even if the United States manages to bludgeon the reluctant Germany, Italy, France, Spain and other NATO allies to agree to admit both nations.”

 

Ivan Eland comments for AntiWar.com: “Upon Barack Obama's election, the Russians made threats to US allies over their acceptance of a US missile defense system. Also, Russia recently sent its first large military force to Latin America since the end of the Cold War to participate in naval exercises off the Venezuelan coast. Is this a flagrant test of a new and inexperienced president, much as Nikita Khrushchev tested the neophyte John F. Kennedy when he first took office in 1961?

 

More likely, Russian behavior is merely putting the new president on notice that Russia is stronger now and cannot be kicked around anymore – as it was during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

 

Meanwhile, the lame duck Bush crowd is still polishing its boots to take another whack.

 

Despite investigations by human rights groups indicating that Georgia started the recent Russian-Georgian war and parliamentary testimony by Erosi Kitsmarishvili, a former Georgian ambassador to Moscow and confidant of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, that Georgia initiated the conflict, the Bush administration had the chutzpah to demand that its NATO allies admit Georgia and the Ukraine into the alliance without meeting the usual requirements of defense reform and improved military capabilities. The main reason that Georgia started the war by attacking the breakaway region of South Ossetia, according to Kitsmarishvili, was that Saakashvili thought he had US backing for this aggressive tack. If given a NATO security shield, the belligerent Saakashvili might become even more reckless and involve the United States in a confrontation with a nuclear-armed power.

 

The Russian-Georgian war, however, should have made both Ukraine and Georgia leery of depending entirely on a faraway nation for security, given the reality of Russia's local conventional military superiority and nuclear deterrent.”

 

 

Russia Seeks New Missiles Due to US Shield Plans

 

Conor Sweeney reports for Reuters from Moscow: “Russia's military said on Friday it had intensified efforts to develop new ballistic missiles in response to U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system in Europe and Russia's navy test fired a new generation rocket. … Kremlin officials say the U.S. has failed to listen to their concerns about the missile shield, which Washington says is needed to protect against ‘rogue states’ such as Iran. Russia's missile forces commander said the first of a new generation of Russian RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missiles would enter service in December 2009, Interfax reported. Russian generals say the RS-24 can pierce any anti-missile system. It can be armed with up to 10 different warheads and is intended to replace Russia's earlier generation intercontinental missiles such as the RS-18 and RS-20.”

 

 

Georgia’s Former Ambassador To Russia Testifies That Georgia Politicals Started War With Russia With Washington’s Blessings

Oleysa Vartanyan and Ellen Barry report for the New York Times from Tbilisi, Georgia: “A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament.

A former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region, and continue into Abkhazia.

 

He would not name the officials who he said had told him about planned actions in Abkhazia, saying that identifying them would endanger their lives. … Mr. Kitsmarishvili walked out amid the furor on Tuesday. ‘They don’t want to listen to the truth,’ he told reporters.”

 

 

 

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HAITI: On America’s Doorstep - Washington’s tragically

 failed “Nation Building” adventure

 

In the Wake of Numerous Washington-Inspired "Interventions", Haiti’s Poor Forced to Eat Dirt as Food

 

 

 

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Noted Russian professor predicts economic meltdown will shatter U.S. into six parts

 

A widely regarded professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the U.S. will break into six parts because of the nation's financial crisis. “The dollar isn't secured by anything," Igor Panarin said in an interview transcribed by Russian newspaper Izvestia Monday.

 

"The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this is a pyramid, which has to collapse."

Panarin said the financial crisis will worsen, unemployment will rise and people will lose their savings -- factors that will cause the country's breakup.

 

"Dissatisfaction is growing, and it is only being held back at the moment by the elections, and the hope that president-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he said. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

 

The U.S. will fracture into six parts: the Pacific coast; the South; Texas; the Atlantic coast, central states and the northern states.

 

"Now we will see a change to the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will cease to be the world's regulator," to be replaced by China and Russia, he said.

 

 

 

·       Four new reports reveal battered U.S. economy...

 

·       The Times (UK): California bigger bankruptcy risk than Slovakia...

 

·       U.S. Consumer Spending Posts Biggest Drop Since 9/11...

 

 

 

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 “The armies of a littler folk
Shall pass you under the victor's yoke,
So-beit a nation that trains her sons
To ride their horses and point their guns."

Alan Seeger

 A Message to America, 1915

 

 

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Conversations With Chavez and Castro

by  Sean Penn

The Nation

 

(An extremely informative read ~ Owen)

 

Sean Penn writes: “Hitchens [Christopher Hitchens] asks [President Hugo Chavez], ‘What's the difference between you and Fidel?’ Chávez says, ‘Fidel is a communist. I am not. I am a social democrat. Fidel is a Marxist-Leninist. I am not. Fidel is an atheist. I am not. One day we discussed God and Christ. I told Castro, I am a Christian. I believe in the Social Gospels of Christ. He doesn't. Just doesn't. More than once, Castro told me that Venezuela is not Cuba, and we are not in the 1960s.’

 

‘You see,’ Chávez says, ‘Venezuela must have democratic socialism. Castro has been a teacher for me. A master. Not on ideology but on strategy.’ Perhaps ironically, John F. Kennedy is Chávez's favorite US president. ‘I was a boy,’ he says. ‘Kennedy was the driving force of reform in America.’ Surprised by Chávez's affinity for Kennedy, Hitch chimes in, referring to Kennedy's counter-Cuba economic plan for Latin America: ‘The Alliance for Progress was a good thing?’ ‘Yes,’ says Chávez. ‘The Alliance for Progress was a political proposal to improve conditions. It was aimed at lowering the social difference between cultures.’”

 

 

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Top UN Official: Israel's Policies Are Like Apartheid of Bygone Era

 

Shlomo Shamir, correspondent for Haaretz (Tel Aviv, Israel) reports: “United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann on Monday likened Israel's policies toward the Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of blacks under apartheid.

Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were like ‘
the apartheid of an earlier era,’ said Brockmann, of Nicaragua, speaking at the annual debate marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

He added: ‘
We must not be afraid to call something what it is.’

 

Brockmann stressed that it was important for the United Nations to use the heavily-charged term since it was the institution itself that had passed the International Convention against the crime of apartheid.”

 

 

 

 

Nobel laureate Maguire says UN should suspend Israel membership

 

Haaretz (Tel Aviv, Israel): “Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire said Thursday the United Nations should suspend or revoke Israel's membership. Maguire said Israel should be punished for ignoring a series of United Nations resolutions over the years.

Maguire won the
1976 peace prize for her work with Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. She is visiting the Palestinian territories to protest Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. In October this year she arrived on a boat that sailed into the Gaza Strip carrying international protesters who wanted to bring attention to Israel's blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory.

 

Israel virtually sealed off the territories after the Islamic militant Hamas took over there in 2007. The closure tightened two weeks ago in response to Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border communities.

Maguire told a news conference Thursday that it's time for the international community to take action against Israel.

 

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The Slow Death of Gaza

The collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population

 

Andrea Becker comments for the Guardian (UK):  Israel's official explanation for blocking even minimal humanitarian aid, according to IDF spokesperson Major Peter Lerner, was ‘continued rocket fire and security threats at the crossings’. Israel's blockade, in force since Hamas seized control of Gaza in mid-2007, can be described as an intensification of policies designed to isolate the population of Gaza, cripple its economy, and incentivise the population against Hamas by harsh – and illegal – measures of collective punishment. However, these actions are not all new: the blockade is but the terminal end of Israel's closure policy, in place since 1991, which in turn builds on Israel's policies as occupier since 1967.”

 

 

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2008. Photo: Libyan workers loading a Libyan ship at Zuwara port with food and

medicine to be delivered to Palestinians starved by Israeli blockade for months,

25 November

 

Libyan Aid Boat Heads to Gaza, the First Ever Coming from Arab World


The Tripoli Post reports: “A boat loaded with humanitarian aid has left Zuwara harbor 160km west of Tripoli, Libya on Wednesday heading toward Gaza to deliver much needed food staff despite an Israeli naval blockade. Palestinian legislator Jamal Khoudary said the ship was carrying 3,000 tons of food, medicine, blankets and powdered milk. The ship which is owned by a Libyan businessman and hired by the government would arrive in Gaza early this week and may lead to a confrontation between the first ever Arab ship heads to Gaza and Israeli warships imposing naval blockade that is starving over 1.5 million people.”

 

 

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Gaza’s Grim Reaper

 

Paul J. Balles considers the “irony of Jews ... denying food to hundreds of thousands of children [in Gaza] in order, allegedly, to insure their own security”, with Washington and Europe’s connivance.”

 

 

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“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound

truthful and murder respectable, and to give an

appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

 

~George Orwell

 

 

 

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A classic and extremely trenchant video comment by General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Presidents Bush, Jr. and Sr.

 

Why Invading Iraq Was An Incredibly Stupid Idea

 

 

(Click on blinking dot above for video)

 

 

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Alexander Cockburn

Restoring the Republic 2008

Foreign Policy & Civil Liberties

(NOTE: Upon launch, this multi-segment video presentation plays

automatically with a brief loading pause between segments.)

 

 

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