THANK YOU MR. SECRETARY GENERAL

Ban’s visit may not have achieved any visible outcome, but the people of Burma will remember what he promised: "I have come to show the unequivocal shared commitment of the United Nations to the people of Myanmar. I am here today to say: Myanmar – you are not alone."

QUOTES OF UN SECRETARY GENERAL

Without participation of Aung San Suu Kyi, without her being able to campaign freely, and without her NLD party [being able] to establish party offices all throughout the provinces, this [2010] election may not be regarded as credible and legitimate. ­
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

တျခားေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားကို မုန္းတီးျခင္းသည္ အမ်ဳိးသားေရး မဟုတ္ဟု ေဒၚစုေျပာၾကား

တျခားေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားကို မုန္းတီးျခင္းသည္ အမ်ဳိးသားေရး မဟုတ္ဟု ေဒၚစုေျပာၾကား
ဖနိဒါ
ဗုဒၶဟူးေန႔၊ ႏုိဝင္ဘာလ 11 ရက္ 2009 ခုႏွစ္ 15 နာရီ 22 မိနစ္


မဇိၩမ (ခ်င္းမုိင္) ။ ။ တျခားေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားမ်ားကို မုန္းတီးျခင္းသည္ အမ်ဳိးသားေရး မဟုတ္ဟု အတိုက္အခံ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ေျပာဆိုလိုက္သည္။

”သူ (ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္) တခုပဲ ေျပာပါတယ္။ အမ်ဳိးသားေရးဆုိတာ အင္မတန္ေကာင္းတယ္။ အမ်ဳိးသားေရးဆုိတာ ကုိယ့္အမ်ဳိးသားကို ေကာင္းစားေစခ်င္တဲ့ ေစတနာ ေမတၱာေတြ ေကာင္းတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ္လုိ႔ တျခားအမ်ဳိးသားကို ထိခိုက္ေစတဲ့ဟာ၊ တျခားအမ်ဳိးသားကုိ မုန္းတီးတာဟာ အမ်ဳိးသားေရး မဟုတ္ဘူးဆုိတာပဲ ေျပာလုိက္တယ္”ဟု အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ေျပာေရးဆိုခြင့္ရွိသူ ဦးဥာဏ္ဝင္းက ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေျပာစကားကို ကိုးကား၍ မဇိၩမကုိ ေျပာသည္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္

ေရွ႕ေနလည္းျဖစ္ေသာ ဦးဥာဏ္ဝင္းႏွင့္ ေနအိမ္ခ်ဳပ္က်ခံေနရေသာ ပါတီေခါင္းေဆာင္တို႔ ယေန႔နံနက္တြင္ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ တကၠသိုလ္ရိပ္သာလမ္းရွိ သူမ၏ ေနအိမ္တြင္ ေတြ႔ဆံုခဲ့ၾကရာ ေျပာၾကားလိုက္ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။

ယေန႔သည္ ျမန္မာ့႐ိုးရာ ျပကၡဒိန္အားျဖင့္ တန္ေဆာင္မုန္းလျပည့္ေက်ာ္ ၁၀ ရက္ေန႔ျဖစ္ၿပီး ၈၉ ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ အမ်ဳိးသားေန႔ ျဖစ္သည္။ အဂၤလိပ္ ကိုလိုနီ အစိုးရလက္ေအာက္ ၁၉၂၀ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့ေသာ ပညာေရးအဆင့္ ျမႇင့္တင္ေစလိုေသာ ေကာလိပ္ေက်ာင္းသားမ်ား၏ သပိတ္စတင္ေသာေန႔ကို အမ်ဳိးသားေန႔ဟု သတ္မွတ္ခဲ့ၾကသည္။

စစ္အစိုးအႀကီးအကဲ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မႉးႀကီး သန္းေရႊကလည္း အမ်ဳိးသားေန႔မိန္းခြန္း ေျပာၾကားသည္ကို ယေန႔ထုတ္ စစ္အစိုးရအာေဘာ္ ျမန္မာ့အလင္း သတင္းစာတြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားသည္။

မ်က္ေမွာက္ကာလတြင္ ေခတ္သစ္ကိုလိုနီနယ္ခ်ဲ႕ ႏိုင္ငံႀကီးမ်ားက အျခားႏုိင္ငံမ်ား၏ ျပည္တြင္းေရးကို ဝင္ေရာက္စြက္ဖက္ၿပီး နယ္ပယ္အသီးသီး ကို လႊမ္းမိုးျခယ္လွယ္ရန္ ႀကိဳးပမ္းေဆာင္ရြက္လ်က္ ရွိသည္ဟု ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မႉးႀကီး၏ ေျပာဆုိသည့္ စကားကို ေဖာ္ျပထားသည္။

ထို႔အျပင္ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပႏုိင္ေရး ျပင္ဆင္ေနသည့္အတြက္ ျပည္သူမ်ားက ပူးေပါင္း ေဆာင္ရြက္ရန္လည္း ေတာင္းဆို လိုက္ေသးသည္။

ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ အေမရိကန္၊ ဥေရာပသမဂၢအဖြဲ႔ဝင္ ႏုိင္ငံမ်ား၊ ၾသစေၾတးလ်ား အပါအဝင္ စီးပြားေရးႏွင့္ သံတမန္ေရးရာ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈမ်ား ႐ုတ္သိမ္းေရးတြင္ ပါဝင္ကူညီေပးမည္ဆိုေသာ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ႏုိဘယ္လ္ဆုရွင္က စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ထံ စာေရးသား ေပးပို႔ၿပီးေနာက္ ေနာက္ဆက္တြဲ အျဖစ္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ အမ်ားျပည္သူ ျမင္ကြင္းတြင္ ျပန္လည္ေပၚထြက္လာခဲ့ကာ သူမ၏ ေျပာစကားမ်ားလည္း တဆင့္စကားအျဖစ္ ပံုမွန္ထြက္ေပၚလာေနခ့ဲသည္။

ရန္ကုန္ရွိ အန္အယ္ဒီ ႐ံုးခ်ဳပ္တြင္ က်င္းပေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားေန႔ အခမ္းအနားအတြက္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ဦးဥာဏ္ဝင္းမွတဆင့္ ႏႈတ္ျဖင့္ သဝဏ္လႊာပါး ေက်းဇူးတင္စကား ဆိုလိုက္သည္။ ျပည္နယ္ႏွင့္ တုိင္း အသီးသီးမွ ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား မအားလပ္သည့္ၾကားမွ အခမ္းအနား တက္ေရာက္ျခင္းအေပၚ ေက်းဇူးတင္သည္ဟု သူမက ေျပာၾကားသည္။

အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္က စစ္အစိုးရအေနျဖင့္ ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးအေျဖရွာရန္ ထပ္မံေတာင္းဆိုလုိက္ျပန္ၿပီး ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၊ ဦးတင္ဦး၊ ရွမ္းအမ်ဳိးသားမ်ား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ဥကၠ႒ ဦးခြန္ထြန္းဦး၊ အတြင္းေရးမႉး စုိင္းညြန႔္လြင္ႏွင့္ အျခားတုိင္းရင္းသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္ မ်ားအား အျမန္ဆံုးလႊတ္ေပးရန္ လိုအပ္သည္ဟု ဆိုသည္။

ထို႔အျပင္ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ႐ံုးမ်ားကုိ ကာလရွည္ၾကာ ပိတ္ထားျခင္းမွ ျပန္လည္ဖြင့္ခြင့္ျပဳရန္ႏွင့္ လြတ္လပ္စြာ စည္း႐ံုးခြင့္၊ တရားဝင္ စည္း႐ံုးခြင့္ေပးရန္၊ ၁၉၉၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္ ပါတီစံု ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ အႏုိင္ရၿပီးမွ ဖ်က္သိမ္းခံပါတီမ်ား အပါအဝင္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားကို ႏုိင္ငံေရး မွတ္ပံုတင္ခြင့္ေပး၍ စည္း႐ံုးခြင့္ျပဳရန္တို႔ကုိ စစ္အစုိးရအေနျဖင့္ အျမန္ဆံုး ေဆာင္ရြက္ေပးရန္ လုိအပ္ေၾကာင္း ေၾကညာခ်က္တြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားသည္။

အန္အယ္ဒီ ျပန္ၾကားေရးအဖြဲ႔ဝင္ ဦးအုန္းႀကိဳင္က အမ်ဳိးသားေန႔ အထိန္းအမွတ္အျဖစ္ “ဒီအမ်ဳိးသားေန႔မွာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က အခုလုိ ႏႈတ္နဲ႔ သဝဏ္လႊာပါးခြင့္ရတာဟာ ထူးျခားတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာခ်င္ပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံအေရး ေျပလည္မႈ အလားလာ တုိးတက္လာသလားလုိ႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ႏုိင္တယ္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ အားတက္စရာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာခ်င္ပါတယ္” ဟု ေျပာသည္။

အခမ္းအနားသုိ႔ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ျပည္နယ္ႏွင့္ တုိင္းအသီးသီးမွ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား၊ ဝါရင့္ႏုိင္ငံေရးသမားမ်ား အဖြဲ႔ဝင္မ်ား၊ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ကိုယ္စားျပဳေကာ္မတီ - CRPP ႏွင့္ ရခုိင္ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္တို႔ အပါအဝင္ လူဦးေရ ၁၀၀၀ ခန္႔ တက္ေရာက္ ခဲ့သည္။

ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံေရး ျဖတ္သန္းမႈတြင္ ကာလရွည္စြာ ပါဝင္လာခဲ့သည့္ ဝါရင့္ႏုိင္ငံေရးသမားအစုကလည္း ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေရး ျပဳလုပ္ပါဟု ေျပာဆိုလိုက္သည္။

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Top US officials meet Myanmar junta, Suu Kyi

Top US officials meet Myanmar junta, Suu Kyi

YANGON, Myanmar – The U.S. wants better relations with military-ruled Myanmar if it makes concrete steps toward democracy, a senior American diplomat said Wednesday after holding the highest-level talks with the junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 14 years.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said he explained Washington's new policy, which reverses the Bush administration's isolation of Myanmar, also known as Burma, in favor of dialogue with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.

The goals of the new policy are "strong support for human rights, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners and the promotion of democratic reform," Campbell said in a statement at the end of his two-day visit.

Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Myanmar since 1995.

Earlier Wednesday, Campbell, the top State Department official for East Asia, greeted Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his lakeside hotel in Yangon where they met privately for two hours, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Mei said. The content of the talks was not immediately known.



Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years. Dressed in a pink traditional Burmese jacket, she was upbeat as she emerged from the hotel.

"Hello to you all," she said to photographers before getting into the car that whisked her back to her tightly guarded home.

Myanmar's junta has praised the new U.S. policy, but shown no sign it intends to release Suu Kyi or initiate democratic and electoral reforms demanded by Suu Kyi's party ahead of elections planned for next year.

But the military government has made some gestures, such as loosening the terms of Suu Kyi's house arrest and allowing her more meeting with visitors such as Campbell, in hopes that the U.S. will ease political and economic sanctions.

Campbell said he told junta officials that the U.S. "is prepared to take steps to improve the relationship but that process must be based on reciprocal and concrete efforts by the Burmese government."

Campbell was continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, which were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade. He met Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, Mei said.

Campbell said he emphasized that Myanmar "should abide by U.N. resolutions with regards to proliferation." He did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to arms purchases from North Korea. There is also some speculation, though no evidence has been made public, that Myanmar is seeking to develop nuclear weapons with North Korea's help.

State television, which on Tuesday ignored the Americans' visit, broadcast footage of Campbell's meetings with both Suu Kyi and the prime minister.

Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year's elections, which will be the first in two decades.

U.S. sanctions, first imposed more than a decade ago, failed to force the generals to respect human rights, release jailed political activists and make democratic reforms. The Obama administration decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.

Washington has said it will maintain the sanctions until talks with Myanmar's generals result in change.

Campbell is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Myanmar since a September 1995 trip by then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright.


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Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung

Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung

Washington sends confusing signals to the people who could bring change from within.

By MICHAEL J. GREEN

Since taking office President Barack Obama has used strong words to describe the importance he places on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In July, he told China's high-powered delegation to the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that "support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America" and that the "religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds." In his September 24 address to the United Nations General Assembly, he promised "that America will always stand with those who stand up for their dignity and their rights." As the president prepares to travel to Asia this month, should anyone in the region doubt the United States' commitment to these values?

Unfortunately, there is doubt. Despite Mr. Obama's statements, the administration' s specific actions on issues ranging from Burma to Tibet are creating the impression that Washington has a growing list of concerns that trump human rights and democracy. The president and his team deserve support for attempting new approaches to intractable problems. It makes sense to talk directly to the junta in Burma and to broaden the agenda for cooperation with China. The problem is that the administration' s emphasis on engagement is leading the region's autocrats and dictators to see an opening for further repression at home.

The most obvious case is Tibet. The Dalai Lama has met with the American president at the White House during every visit to Washington since 1991. Initially, the Obama administration signaled it would continue this tradition during the Tibetan spiritual leader's planned visit in October, but later changed its mind. The White House may have hoped a subtler approach to the Tibet problem would pave the way for a successful presidential visit to China and yield quiet results for Tibet. Fair enough—but the opposite is happening. The Chinese are raising the ante on the Tibetans, demanding that the Dalai Lama cease all foreign travel and meetings with other international leaders as a precondition for resuming stalled Sino-Tibetan talks. Beijing is also putting pressure on other nations to follow the U.S. example, including India, which politely gave Beijing a firm "no" to its demand that Delhi stop the Dalai Lama from visiting his followers in disputed Arunachal Pradesh.




Rather than viewing gestures on Tibet as evidence of goodwill to be rewarded, the Chinese reaction has been to pocket the concessions and demand more—steadily asserting its position that regime behavior and internal affairs are not the business of the international community. In the long run, this will only complicate efforts to encourage China to use its increasing power as a responsible stakeholder.

There are also confusing signals on Burma. After a "Burma policy review," the administration reasonably concluded that neither sanctions nor engagement alone were likely to change the behavior of the regime and announced that the U.S. was going to try a new approach that employed both. In September Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell testified to the Senate that the U.S. would not ease sanctions without meaningful steps by the junta and reserved the right to strengthen sanctions if there is not progress. This was the right basis for beginning the dialogue. But the administration has also stated that engagement will be a sustained and long-term process, implying it would not necessarily hinge on the regime's short-term behavior.

In response, Burma's prime minister, General Thein Sein, announced in late October that the U.S. had "softened its approach." The junta also symbolically allowed international diplomats to have access to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the junta has concurrently increased its internal suppression of ethnic minorities and democracy activists since the administration' s policy review and engagement strategy began. In June the Burmese military drove 5,000 members of the Karen minority across the border into Thailand, the largest exodus of Karen in a decade. In August the junta sentenced Ms. Suu Kyi to an additional 18 months of house imprisonment. In August and September the junta began a major military offensive against the Kokang people in northern Burma, driving over 30,000 refugees into China. Just last week the regime arrested 50 students, journalists and political activists, even as the U.S. prepared to send its first senior-level delegation to Burma this week for high-level talks with the junta.

Tibet and Burma illustrate the administration' s serious dilemma: how to prevent its commitment to engagement from being perceived as a sign of shifting U.S. priorities and a greater tolerance for repression. It is damaging enough that Beijing and Naypyidaw are receiving this signal, but even minor adjustments in U.S. policy have a major ripple effect among friendly states also grappling with how to encourage greater democracy and human rights in the region. The European Union was poised to activate stronger sanctions against Burma but is now hesitating. Members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations were engaging in a painful but important internal debate about how to implement the human-rights and democracy principles in their new charter with respect to Burma, but at their most recent summit in Thailand the focus was entirely on what the U.S. would do to help solve the problem.

The president should use his visit to Asia to correct the confusing signals Washington is sending about the U.S. commitment to human rights and democracy. The administration does not need to abandon its aim of seeking results through direct dialogue with Burma's leadership nor curtail its ambitious agenda for cooperation with China. But the administration should not be afraid that a clear stand on human rights and democracy will jeopardize those goals.

President Obama can begin by announcing his clear intention to meet with the Dalai Lama early next year and pressing Chinese President Hu Jintao to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives without preconditions. Mr. Obama can use the trip to clarify, in his meetings with Southeast Asian leaders on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, that the U.S. will increase targeted financial sanctions on Burma if repression continues to escalate. The U.S. should also re-engage Burma's neighbors to pressure the regime for change by stating that the U.S. will continue its new approach only if Ms. Suu Kyi is released and there are real opportunities for the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities to participate in a fair political process.

Finally, he should use his public addresses to single out and demonstrate support for those dissidents and prisoners of conscience who will someday emerge as the future Kim Dae-jungs and Vaclav Havels of Asia. For it is they who face the greatest uncertainty if America's intentions remain unclear.

Mr. Green is senior advisor and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and associate professor at Georgetown University. This is the first article in an occasional series on the Obama administration' s human-rights record. http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748 7039329045745101 92259822258. html?mod= googlenews_ wsj
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Free Trade AND Human Rights

http://blog.labour.org.nz/

Free Trade AND Human Rights
Posted by Maryan Street on November 1st, 2009

Last week I was in Kuala Lumpur for the signing of the Malaysia-NZ Free Trade Agreement (see previous blog on that subject). I had arranged before I left NZ to use some of my time there to visit the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) compound in KL. I had been there once before and wanted to know how things had improved - or not. Malaysia had had an appalling record of dumping people, especially Burmese refugees whom it didn’t want, into the arms of traffickers, until an enquiry by the US Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee exposed it and got the Malaysians to improve their practices. I met with a senior staffer in the office of Senator Dick Luger who worked on this committee recently in Washington and got an update on Malaysia from him.

The UNHCR Rep in KL is Alan Vernon. He told me that things have improved in Malaysia and the UNHCR is no longer getting the reports they had been getting of the trafficking on the Thai-Malaysia border. Burmese refugees used to be rounded up by the Malaysian police and deposited on the Thai border where traffickers would take the women and children for prostitution and domestic service, and the men for labouring work who knows where. They are only hearing of about 100 such cases a year now, compared with 1000-2000 a year previously.

91% of the 300-400 people being processed per day at the compound are Burmese refugees. They end up in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ, among other countries. Some of them end up in my town, Nelson, as well as Auckland, Palmerston North, Hamilton and Wellington. These are people with desperate stories of human suffering inflicted by the most evil regime on the planet. Some have become good friends now and they appreciate everything NZ has given them, while they are not blind to our faults. They retain their ardent politics and live for the day Burma returns to democratic rule, preferably under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, their most recently democractically-elected leader (1990), who has been living under house arrest for 14 of the last 19 years.

In Malaysia, there are no laws protecting refugees. Children of refugees are not allowed to go to school; refugees are arrested and detained without charge for prolonged periods of time; they are harassed in their workplace by police. They have exchanged one kind of fear in Burma for another kind of fear in Malaysia.



The day I visited the UNHCR compound, I met families and individuals who were trying to get in to the US. They are processed in the UNHCR facility, treated well by interpreters, medical staff and teams of interviewers from the soon-to-be host country. They want to be somewhere else. They want to be someone else. They want their children to be educated and have a greater chance of a full and rewarding life than they had.


Win Myin Htut - Chin Burmese refugee at UNHCR compound, KL

People wait all day in the heat for their chance at freedom.


These people are in the final stages of processing. Next stop - the US!

People present at the compound with a range of health problems - most frequently anxiety disorders, as well as the illnesses of poverty, malnutrition, some with HIV/AIDS. Parents must go crazy with worry for their children. Here is a family who have been in Malaysia for 4 years and who are hoping to move on soon. He is a farmer - although the difference in the meaning of that word in Burma and the US is striking.


Chin family at UNHCR in KL - UN interpreter front left

Malaysia has a Human Rights Commission and I met one of its Commissioners. But they are kept on a tight leash and their Annual Report has never been presented to, or debated in, Parliament. The national Human Rights Day is boycotted by the human rights NGOs. Sometimes people say “how can we trade with countries which have such appalling human rights records?” The truth is, trade happens. We can make some gains through the labour clauses we negotiate alongside the FTAs. But even more importantly, a country gets opened up by trade and exposed to other ways of doing things. Trade becomes the vehicle for other conversations.

I hope John Key is having those other conversations, as Helen Clark used to do on a regular basis in the context of free trade negotiations and settlements.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Foreign Affairs, ethnic, human rights, international. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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