- 911 Second-Anniversary Events in Germany and New York
City Reveal Growing Strength, Credibility of Movement
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- Many Government Critics Take Center Stage Is McKinney
Running Again?
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- By Michael C. Ruppert 9-17-3 (c) Copyright 2003, From
The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May
be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit
purposes only.
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- (FTW), BERLIN, NEW YORK CITY-- Events marking the second
anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks held in Berlin, Germany and
Manhattan featuring former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, this
writer, and more than a dozen experts highlighted an estimated fifty conferences,
screenings and protests around the US and the world, revealing growing
popular support for the position that the US government was complicit in
those attacks. In a few short words I will try to describe some of the
biggest recent developments in a climate that has changed dramatically
since disclosure that the US and British governments falsified and misrepresented
intelligence to justify a now-failing occupation of Iraq. Those frauds,
constituting impeachable offenses offered as a justification for war, have
solidly returned 9/11 to the table for debate. Unresolved questions about
the attacks are now also drawing attention from the major media and they
will most certainly become an issue in the 2004 presidential race. As this
opportunity presented itself, a great many courageous people---active for
two, long years---were there to seize the moment and they did so powerfully,
with an effectiveness made possible by two years of sometimes bitter experience
and struggle.
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- It is difficult to sit and write a comprehensive story
in the few hours I have since my return from New York before I board another
plane for Seattle and the production of a new CD covering the extraordinary
developments of the last year. But I have acquired a new and important
perspective since leaving for Berlin on September 3.
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- If I leave out a few names or neglect to give credit
where credit is due, it is not for any other reason than the fact that
there are so many who deserve credit, in so many places, that neither my
pen nor my tape recorder can capture them all. Yet it is critical to note
that many of these events, especially the ones in Berlin, happened only
as a result of the opened pockets of private individuals and the tireless
labor of unpaid volunteers. One German, Mr. Ronald Toden, was responsible
for the airfare that brought McKinney, American journalist Daniel Hopsicker,
British author Nafeez Ahmed and me to that historic city. He paid for our
hotel rooms, the rental of the halls and equipment, and the forum that
made Germany and the world listen. He stands as a shining representative
of all the people who have, in virtual anonymity, voted with their money
to keep freedom and dissent alive. In New York, the sponsorship of radio
station WBAI was augmented by organization from Unanswered Questions and
911 Citizen'sWatch along with the efforts of dozens of volunteers to effectively
demonstrate that a sizeable segment of the American population are, in
spite of media claims to the contrary, willing to aggressively fight to
make 9/11 an issue for as long as is necessary to prove and address the
crime. For it is September 11, 2001 that has been the singular defining
moment of the 21st century.
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- BERLIN
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- 9/11 has a special significance in Germany for many reasons.
Mohammed Atta and members of his cell were recruited and operated for some
time in Hamburg. Dan Hopsicker (http://www.madcowprod.com/) has done a
masterful job of investigating and deconstructing the official legend of
Mohammed Atta and the members of his cell. They banked at German banking
giant Deustchebank.
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- Sept. 7 - FTW Editor Mike Ruppert and British author
Nafeez Ahmed review the watershed Guardian editorial by former British
Cabinet Minister Michael Meacher stating that the Bush Administration facilitated
the 9/11 attacks and that the overriding motive was Peak Oil.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- Immediately after 9/11, Ernst Welteke the President of
Germany's state bank, the Bundesbank, confirmed that massive insider trading
across the world's financial markets had occurred right before 9/11, in
stocks that were devastated by the attacks. Then German cabinet minister
Andreas von Bulow declared shortly thereafter that the global value of
insider trading had possibly exceeded $100 billion and that the US government
had deliberately allowed the attacks to happen as a pretext for conquest
of the oil-rich territories of the Caspian basin and the Middle East. Von
Bulow was qualified to speak on this issue. His portfolio had included
supervision of the German intelligence service -- the BND -- which had
issued a number of strong and very clear warnings to the CIA that hijacked
airliners were going to be crashed into the World Trade Center in the week
of September 9th.
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- Also in Germany, and visible from my hotel, was the German
Reichstag, the 1933 burning of which had given Adolf Hitler grounds to
seize unprecedented power. Not for one second did any German or foreign
participant in these 9/11 events forget that this symbolism was close at
hand.
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- Sept. 7 -Former GA Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney delivers
keynote address at Berlin's Tempodrome for the German 9-11 event.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- On September 5 th , Cynthia McKinney and I held a press
conference in downtown Berlin that was attended by some of the largest
media outlets in Germany including German national television, Reuters,
major Berlin newspapers and radio stations. We were treated with respect
and the questions posed were intelligent and showed that the reporters
had done their homework. Though we did not see much air time or ink as
a result, it was clear that posing questions about 9/11 was no longer in
the same category as discussions of a flat earth or Elvis sightings. We
were being taken seriously.
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- That night we spoke together at the Neurotitan gallery,
a dark and unfinished place located behind a "radical alternative
bookstore where floors of bare cement, littered with the debris of artwork
intersected with unfinished plaster walls, glazed windows, dim lights,
dark corners and the faint smell of revolutionary thought and passion.
Many in the cramped audience of about 100 were pierced, tattooed and leathered
while others were dressed in the upscale casual attire of middle class
professionals. There, after opening remarks from McKinney remembering darker
days of American history in which much greater figures like Martin Luther
King struggled to bring a cause to life, I presented a 90 minute updated
version of my lecture, The Truth and Lies of 9/11. As with all of my previous
lectures, more than 30 in six countries, the reception was very enthusiastic
and little different from the responses I had previously received in Canada,
Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the US, or
in Paris where I discussed FTW's research with politicians and energy experts
last May.
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- On the 6th, I collaborated with German-American Nikolas
Levis, the emcee and wrangler for our Berlin events, Dan Hopsicker, German
author Mattias Bröcker ckers and three German researchers. Together
we prepared a list of witnesses and documents that needed to be thoroughly
examined to resolve the glaring inconsistencies in the Bush administration's
story. On September 11th -- as I was preparing to speak in New York --
the German 911 Truth Alliance and The German 9/11 Research Network (www.911truth.org)
presented formal letters to the government asking for responses. This made
news throughout the country and the letters contents were published in
detail.
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- Sept. 7 -Mike Ruppert delivers opening remarks at Tempodrome.
Later in the day Mike presented a 90 minute lecture in the main hall.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- Throughout our collaborations that day, and in the public
events that followed in both Germany and New York, all the experts gave
praise to professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa for
his many contributions to our collective knowledge. Of particular significance
was his detailed work on direct links between the Pakistani intelligence
service, Mohammed Atta and key figures in the US like DCI George Tenet,
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and the heads of both US congressional
intelligence committees.
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- September 6th also brought an early Christmas present.
Britain's The Guardian published an op-ed by former British Minister for
the Environment Michael Meacher. Meacher had resigned months ago over the
Blair government's fraudulent "sexed up intelligence, and its obsequious
backing of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Powell". Titled "The
War on Terrorism is Bogus", Meacher's full-page missive stated that
the US government had facilitated the 9/11 attacks, refused to respond
to detailed, credible warnings, and went further by adding that the motive
was to control diminishing world oil supplies. Had Mr. Meacher asked me
to write an article for him I could not have written it better or said
more. As McKinney and I read the essay, we realized that we had indeed
come a long way.
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- Sept. 11 - Morning. Before beginning the first of many
TV and print interviews, Cynthia McKinney and Mike Ruppert examine the
original Guardian editorial of Michael Meacher. Seated at right, Kyle Hence
of Unanswered Questions.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- On September 7th, a capacity crowd of approximately 700
people showed up for the main event at Berlin's Tempodrome amphitheater.
Nafeez Ahmed, author of the book "The War on Freedom" flew in
from London, and Italian prosecuting magistrate Guido Salvini, who had
previously proven US intelligence connections to alleged terror attacks
in Italy, joined us. Experts from four countries had come together over
9/11 and a second press conference was filled with reporters from all over
Germany and included the German Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal.
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- Sept. 11 - Evening. The main main 9-11 event featured
an all-star panel of presenters including former CIA analyst Ray McGovern
(L), Ruppert (C), and McKinney (R).
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- Presentations in smaller conference rooms were filled
to capacity. Panels in the main hall, where I again delivered a 90-minute
slide presentation on 9/11, were also jammed and interest remained intense
throughout the nine-hour event. In her keynote address, Cynthia McKinney
again harkened back to the turbulent days of the 1960s as civil rights
and the Vietnam War roused an activist spirit throughout America and the
world. She told the German audience that it was of vital importance for
everyone to ask questions and to not be satisfied with pat answers. Most
importantly, she said, it was imperative that diverse groups come together
to form alliances from all over the world because this was truly what made
change possible.
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- New York would make her very happy indeed.
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- NEW YORK
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- I arrived in New York late in the afternoon of September
10th. There was time to eat, sleep a little at the home of volunteer Michael
Kane and his family, and then prepare for the big day. The first stop was
the Walker Stage near Ground Zero where McKinney and I taped an interview
moderated by Kyle Hence of Unanswered Questions. Neither she nor I minced
any words. McKinney's focus was what had happened to the country in terms
of civil rights and the climate that had come to dominate American politics
since the 2000 presidential election. She expressed strong concern for
a new generation of wounded veterans; mistreated, misled, and abused as
well as for the innocent non-combatants who were dying in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and in lesser-acknowledged conflicts around the world. She repeated
her public questions about 9/11 which had caused such a furor a year and
a half ago. It was those questions that had mobilized a massive campaign
by Republican Party operatives and pro-Israeli financial interests (as
acknowledged by The Washington Post) to unseat her. I forcefully repeated
all of the arguments we have so painstakingly documented at FTW showing
that the Bush administration had been criminally complicit in facilitating
the attacks two years ago and I emphasized the fact that Peak Oil and its
effects were becoming harder and harder to hide as witnessed by the massive
blackout that has recently crippled that great city.
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- There to film me at the Walker Stage was an A Team production
crew from the Canadian Broadcasting Company, well into work on a major
documentary about 9/11. I had spoken with the producer, Bruce Livesey,
several times from California and had been surprised to hear him acknowledge
the accuracy of my research . He had also found material that corroborated
my controversial work in the case of Delmart "Mike Vreeland. Vreeland,
who had claimed to be a US Naval officer, while incarcerated in a Canadian
jail, had written a note warning of the attacks a month before they took
place. He had also provided startlingly accurate details about the murder
of Canadian intelligence operative Mark Bastien even before the facts were
known to the Canadian government. Bastien's murder occurred well after
Vreeland had left Moscow in 2000.
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- I will be eager to see their finished product.
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- Another gratifying moment came when the CBC took me to
Ground Zero to shoot footage of me looking at a place I had visited twice
before. As I was leaning over a railing, looking down into the still-stark
ruins with the CBC crew filming me, a New Yorker leaned over and asked
me who I was. I told him and I told him what I thought had happened. Without
hesitation, the man, who had been there on that fateful day, said that
he absolutely believed my analysis and thanked me for being there.
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- Times have indeed changed.
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- We next went to the Radisson Hotel where the CBC crew
filmed an hour and a half interview with me. After that, it was off to
the Riverside Church where Dick Cheney had, just hours before, spoken at
an event sponsored by the New York City Port Authority. The network vans
were packing up to leave as we arrived. They had no interest in what was
planned for later that night. It was their loss. As it turned out, press
from several countries including Greece was there, along with the CBC and
representatives from influential magazines likes Harper's.
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- Sept 11 - The turnout at The Riverside Church was estimated
at between 900-1,100. 200 additional spectators filled an overflow room.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- Estimates of the crowd size varied from 950 to over 1,200.
Not a single seat was available in the main hall. An overflow room held
another 200. Cameras were everywhere and a kind of energy, eager for expression,
that I had not experienced before was thick in the crowd. Prayers were
offered by Rabbi Michael Feinberg; Muslim Imam Dr. Faiz Khan who, as an
Emergency Room physician in Brooklyn, had treated many victims on that
deadly day; and the Pastor of the Riverside Church, Reverend James Fitzgerald.
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- It was a busy night. Again, the workhorse Kyle Hence,
who has worked closely with victim families acted as moderator for films
by (among others) veteran Canadian journalist and commentator Barrie Zwicker
and multiple Emmy award winner Danny Schechter. The now-infamous Guerilla
News Network production "Aftermath" aroused the crowd and prepped
it for the panel discussion that all had come to see.
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- Showtime
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- The main event was a panel of experts including McKinney,
retired veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern, veteran activist and researcher
John Judge, Schechter, and me. It was not important that each of us agreed
totally with the analyses and work of the others. No one was asked, nor
expected, to compromise their positions and the event made no attempt to
forge a perfect consensus. To have done that would have been to destroy
the perfection of the consensus that already existed. What had brought
us there together was a shared belief and commitment that the government
of the United States was totally out of control and that it had, in just
three years, brought the nation and the planet itself to the brink of disintegration
and chaos.
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- Many were surprised that I sat next to a veteran CIA
official, me who has spent twenty-five years opposing the CIA. Even as
I have written that I believe that the CIA is fighting back, for motives
other than a complete rectification of the ills which now eat at the world
like a bioweapon gone mad. It was not a surprise to me, however. I have
always recognized and praised honorable behavior whether among criminals,
soldiers, government officials, journalists or private citizens. Everyone
has a constituency and none of us are ever divorced from our roots. McGovern's
scathing, penetrating, and meticulous deflowering of the neocon modus operandi
vis a vis Iraq was a wonderful start. And just recently, he has written
in some detail about the pre-9/11 briefings given to George W. Bush that
have been classified and censored.
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- McGovern went further than ever when he spoke about the
administration's exploitation of 9/11. While not saying outright that the
administration knew about the attacks and allowed them to happen, even
facilitating them, he implied it. The administration has a lot to hide,
he said. He went on to say that Dick Cheney had a lot of chutzpah to show
up at the Riverside Church calling him a "Meister of cover up and
pointing out that he had turned the FBI loose to intimidate and silence
the congressional committees charged with FBI oversight. He labeled the
explanation that incompetence within the government had allowed the attacks
to succeed as "charitable.
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- John Judge elaborated of his lifetime of experience in
and around the Pentagon; his first-hand knowledge of surface to air missiles
installed within the building and spoke of his work in researching the
million holes in the government's position. He brought belly laughs to
the crowd when he observed, "We're spending a lot of money trying
to develop a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just send them ours? It's
a good one and we aren't using it anymore.
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- When it was my turn to speak I made it clear that I would
always be the "pit bull on 9/11, and that I would never be satisfied
with any explanation that fell short of complete government foreknowledge,
criminal involvement and full participation as an accomplice and principal
in those attacks. This brought one of the largest ovations of the night,
but not the largest. I held up an original page from Britain's The Guardian
containing the Meacher essay, and then dryly observed that in the case
of Meacher, as it had been with Andreas von Bulow in Germany, the organs
of government were quick to state that these cabinet ministers were unbalanced.
Then I noted that we had all gathered that night because of some other
cabinet ministers who were unbalanced, and that their names were Powell,
Cheney and Ashcroft.
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- The biggest thunder came as I paid homage to and introduced
Cynthia McKinney. Because it was she who had opened her mouth to ask questions,
who had taken the best shots the government and the press could throw and
yet not only was she still standing, she had become a recognized world
leader of a protest movement. Before getting up to speak, I leaned over
to her and ask her permission to say something special. She said go ahead.
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- Sept 11 - Ruppert delivers his opening remarks before
introducing McKinney as "the former and next" Representative
of the 4th District of Georgia.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- At the end of my remarks I said, "It is my great
privilege and a very special pleasure to introduce someone who is not only
a friend but a great leader who has inspired us all, the former, and the
next , representative from the 4th district of Georgia, the honorable Cynthia
McKinney.
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- The building vibrated with cheers as the sound meters
on TV and radio recording equipment blasted into the red. A thousand people
leapt to their feet and the cheering did not subside for several minutes.
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- Sept 11 - The crowd at Riverside Church cheered enthusiastically
and frequently interupted remarks from McKinney. The only member of the
US Congress to have openly questioned the official events of 9/11.
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- [click picture to enlarge]
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- McKinney was gracious and powerful in her remarks. She
laughingly blamed me, and From The Wilderness, for getting her into trouble.
She thanked John Judge for his past assistance and support in her investigation
of the assassination of Martin Luther King. She praised Ray McGovern and
everyone who had worked so hard to force 9/11 into the public consciousness.
She thanked WBAI for sponsoring the event and Kyle Hence for organizing
it. She acknowledged the foreign press and the incredible support she felt
whenever she was in New York. And even though she did not announce her
candidacy, she subtly reminded all of us that it would take all of us to
get her back into Congress. Then she left no doubt about what she would
do when she got back there.
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- The significance of this unity between varying organizations
and groups with sometimes differing positions and which had sometimes competed
was important to her. She remembers well the COINTELPRO program of the
1960s and 1970s, which was run by the government to create divisiveness
among groups that could challenge the elites if united. She knows that
the number-one priority of the FBI then was to prevent any alliance between
blacks and whites or any unity between various elements that are most-often
labeled as progressive.
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- She concluded her remarks by saying, "The nightmare
of the people who are in power is that we could come together like this.
Let's not let them have one night's sleep, not one night's sleep until
we have thrown them out, until we have gotten our answers and until we
have won the victory.
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- There was a remarkable lesson in that. It is time for
all of us who have worked on 9/11 to see that something powerful has changed.
Events following the 9/11 anniversary featuring McKinney, Wayne Madsen,
Greg Palast, and Catherine Austin Fitts continued for three days.
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- Probably fifty researchers, writers, and activists have
published and spoken out about 9/11. We all started from the same starting
line. On September 11, 2001, FTW had 900 subscribers. Today we have 10,000.
What has happened is that each of these people made a number of choices
about what evidence was most important; how to present it; what would resonate
as effective issues in the mind of the general public; and what future
events would bring. With varying degrees of accuracy, professionalism and
skill; with differing measures of commitment, intelligence, endurance and
fortitude they have, like primary contenders in a presidential election
year, weeded themselves, honed their skills, toughened themselves, learned
and improved. The cream has risen to the top.
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- I could take great pride in being labeled "The Godfather
of the 9/11 movement" by Guerilla News Network but that would miss
the most important point entirely. The question now is not about one point
of view being co-opted or muted, or about the supremacy of any one individual
or group. The real issue is whether the likes of Michel Chossudovsky, Nafeez
Ahmed, Dan Hopsicker, John Judge, Mattias Bröcker, Ray McGovern,
Kyle Hence, Wayne Madsen, Cynthia McKinney and I can continue the fight
together in a way that guarantees that the Bush administration, and any
administration that follows it, will not sleep soundly for one minute until
they give the American people and the people of the world the truth and
are held accountable for their actions.
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