Equities’ Slide Sends Bonds Higher, Dents Greenback

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Stock markets around the world tumbled Friday while U.S. Treasury prices rose along with demand for safer bets as better-than-expected U.S. economic data did little to ease anxiety over disappointing corporate profits and trade wars. Wall Street closed above its session lows, but earnings reports from Amazon.com and Alphabet, issued late Thursday, rekindled a rush to dump technology and other growth sectors. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 1.19 percent. The global index went 13.7 percent below its Jan. 26 record close and clocked its fifth straight week of consecutive losses for the first time since May 2013. With equities whip-sawing each day in reaction to the last big earnings beat or miss, investors braced for more volatility through the remainder of the U.S. earnings season and ahead…
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Study: Online Attacks on Jews Ramp Up Before Election Day

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Far-right extremists have ramped up an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates and others ahead of next month's U.S. midterm elections, according to a report released Friday by a Jewish civil rights group. The Anti-Defamation League's report says its researchers analyzed more than 7.5 million Twitter messages from Aug. 31 to Sept. 17 and found nearly 30 percent of the accounts repeatedly tweeting derogatory terms about Jews appeared to be automated "bots." But accounts controlled by real-life humans often mount the most "worrisome and harmful" anti-Semitic attacks, sometimes orchestrated by leaders of neo-Nazi or white nationalist groups, the researchers said. "Both anonymity and automation have been used in online propaganda offensives against the Jewish community during the 2018 midterms," they wrote. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros was…
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Facebook Removes Iran-Linked Accounts Spreading False Info

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Facebook says it has removed 82 pages, accounts and groups linked to Iran from its service and from Instagram for spreading misinformation. The company says the accounts were targeting U.S. and U.K. citizens and typically represented themselves to be American or British citizens, posting about politically charged topics such as race relations and opposition to President Donald Trump. Facebook said Friday that a manual review of the accounts linked them to Iran. Facebook has traditionally relied heavily on automated checks to detect misinformation and other bad behavior on its service. The company has already disclosed that it found and removed similar activity originating in Iran in August. The removals come less than two weeks before the U.S. midterm elections. ...
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US Stocks Plunge, Then Recover Some Ground Friday

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U.S. stock market indexes fell sharply in Friday's early trading, but saw losses ease later in the day.  At one point the S&P 500 and the Dow were down by two percent or more, while the NASDAQ was off by 3.5 percent at one point.  Investors worried about faltering growth, rising interest rates, trade tensions, and weak profit outlook for major tech firms, including Amazon and Google's parent company. By afternoon, losses moderated with the S&P off by 1.3 percent, the Dow down six-tenths of a percent, and the NASDAQ sliding 1.9 percent.  Key European indexes dropped about one percent.Earlier in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was off a bit more than one percent, while Japan's Nikkei moved down four-tenths of a percent. The market turbulence comes at the same…
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US Economy Grew at Strong 3.5 Percent Rate in 3rd Quarter

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The U.S. economy grew at a robust annual rate of 3.5 percent in the July-September quarter as the strongest burst of consumer spending in nearly four years helped offset a sharp drag from trade.  The Commerce Department said Friday that the third quarter's gross domestic product, the country's total output of goods and services, followed an even stronger 4.2 percent rate of growth in the second quarter. The two quarters marked the strongest consecutive quarters of growth since 2014. The result was slightly higher than many economists had been projecting. It was certain to be cited by President Donald Trump as evidence his economic policies are working. But some private economists worry that the recent stock market declines could be a warning signal of a coming slowdown. The GDP report…
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Sources: Honda Mulls Moving US-Bound Fit Production to Japan

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Honda Motor Co is considering shifting production of its U.S.-bound Fit subcompact cars to Japan from Mexico in a few years, partly due to a new North American trade agreement, two people familiar with the deal told Reuters. Fit cars for export to the United States are now made at Honda's auto plant in Celaya, Mexico. The Celaya plant also makes HR-V sport utility vehicles (SUVs) for the U.S. market. A Honda spokesman said the company had not made any decisions on Fit production. The new trilateral deal, which replaces the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), is set to raise the minimum North American content for cars to qualify for duty-free market access to 75 percent from 62.5 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump wants the deal to shrink…
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WTO Member Group Vows to Reform Rules on Subsidies, Dispute Settlement

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Top trade officials from 12 countries and the European Union on Thursday vowed to reform World Trade Organization rules in the face of U.S. actions that threaten to paralyze the body and address some of Washington's complaints about Chinese subsidies. The officials, meeting in the Canadian capital Ottawa, said they shared a "common resolve for rapid and concerted action" to address challenges to the WTO. "The current situation at the WTO is no longer sustainable. Our resolve for change must be matched with action," the officials said in a communique issued after their daylong meeting ended. The United States and China, which are locked in an escalating tariff war that is threatening the WTO's foundations, were not invited to the meeting to discuss reform ideas, but Canadian Trade Minister Jim…
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US Stocks Rebound Strongly

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Major U.S. stock indexes made strong gains in Thursday's trading after some upbeat profit reports by major companies.  The Nasdaq composite posted its biggest daily gain since March, as Microsoft's upbeat earnings spurred a rebound in technology names and investors snapped up oversold shares. The Nasdaq added 209.94 points, or 2.95 percent, to 7,318.34, a day after it confirmed a correction and registered its biggest decline since 2011. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 401.13 points, or 1.63 percent, to 24,984.55, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 49.47 points, or 1.86 percent, to 2,705.57. Both moved back into positive territory for the year.  In Europe, France's key index jumped 1.6 percent, while German and British stock prices made smaller gains.  Variety of gainers The latest round of good U.S. results came from a variety of companies, including Ford Motor Co., Visa Inc., Whirlpool Corp. and Twitter Inc., and offered relief after the…
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UK Fines Facebook Over Data Privacy Scandal, EU Seeks Audit

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British regulators slapped Facebook on Thursday with a fine of 500,000 pounds ($644,000) — the maximum possible — for failing to protect the privacy of its users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. At the same time, European Union lawmakers demanded an audit of Facebook to better understand how it handles information, reinforcing how regulators in the region are taking a tougher stance on data privacy compared with U.S. authorities. Britain’s Information Commissioner Office found that between 2007 and 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by giving app developers access to their information without informed consent. The failings meant the data of some 87 million people was used without their knowledge. “Facebook failed to sufficiently protect the privacy of its users before, during and after the unlawful processing…
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Google Abandons Berlin Campus Plan After Locals Protest

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Google is abandoning plans to establish a campus for tech startups in Berlin after protests from residents worried about gentrification. The internet giant confirmed reports Thursday it will sublet the former electrical substation in the capital's Kreuzberg district to two charitable organizations, Betterplace.org and Karuna. Google has more than a dozen so-called campuses around the world. They are intended as hubs to bring together potential employees, startups and investors. Protesters had recently picketed the Umspannwerk site with placards such as "Google go home." Karuna, which helps disadvantaged children, said Google will pay 14 million euros ($16 million) toward renovation and maintenance for the coming five years. Google said it will continue to work with startups in Berlin, which has become a magnet for tech companies in Germany in recent years.…
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Tech Companies Lead Another Steep Sell-Off in US Stocks

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Another torrent of selling gripped Wall Street on Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points and extending a losing streak for the benchmark S&P 500 index to a sixth day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite bore the brunt of the sell-off, leaving it more than 10 percent below its August peak, what Wall Street calls a "correction." The Dow and S&P 500 erased their gains for the year. Technology stocks and media and communications companies accounted for much of the selling. AT&T sank after reporting weak subscriber numbers, and chipmaker Texas Instruments fell sharply after reporting slumping demand. Banks, health care and industrial companies also took heavy losses, outweighing gains by utilities and other high-dividend stocks. Disappointing quarterly results and outlooks continued to weigh on the…
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Google Abandons Planned Berlin Office Hub

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Campaigners in a bohemian district of Berlin celebrated Wednesday after Internet giant Google abandoned strongly-opposed plans to open a large campus there. The US firm had planned to set up an incubator for start-up companies in Kreuzberg, one of the older districts in the west of the capital. But the company's German spokesman Ralf Bremer announced Wednesday that the 3,000 square-metre (3,590 square-yard) space — planned to host offices, cafes and communal work areas, would instead go to two local humanitarian associations. Bremer did not say if local resistance to the plans over the past two years had played a part in the change of heart, although he had told the Berliner Zeitung daily that Google does not allow protests dictate its actions. "The struggle pays off," tweeted "GloReiche Nachbarschaft",…
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Saudi Crown Prince Expects Economic Growth of 2.5 Percent in 2018

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Wednesday the kingdom will continue with reforms and spending on infrastructure, predicting the economy will grow by 2.5 percent this year. Speaking at an investment conference in Riyadh, the crown prince also said he expected economic growth next year to be higher. Higher oil prices has helped Saudi Arabia's economy grow in the second quarter at its fastest pace for over a year, according to official data. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, expanded 1.6 percent from a year earlier in the April-June quarter. That was up from 1.2 percent in the first quarter and the fastest growth since the fourth quarter of 2016. The pick-up was mainly due to the government sector, where growth jumped to 4.0 percent from 2.7 percent…
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Facebook Unveils Systems for Catching Child Nudity, ‘Grooming’ of Children

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Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that company moderators during the last quarter removed 8.7 million user images of child nudity with the help of previously undisclosed software that automatically flags such photos. The machine learning tool rolled out over the last year identifies images that contain both nudity and a child, allowing increased enforcement of Facebook's ban on photos that show minors in a sexualized context. A similar system also disclosed Wednesday catches users engaged in "grooming," or befriending minors for sexual exploitation. Facebook's global head of safety Antigone Davis told Reuters in an interview that the "machine helps us prioritize" and "more efficiently queue" problematic content for the company's trained team of reviewers. The company is exploring applying the same technology to its Instagram app. Under pressure from regulators…
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Apple CEO Backs Privacy Laws, Warns Data Being ‘Weaponized’

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The head of Apple on Wednesday endorsed tough privacy laws for both Europe and the U.S. and renewed the technology giant's commitment to protecting personal data, which he warned was being "weaponized" against users.   Speaking at an international conference on data privacy, Apple CEO Tim Cook applauded European Union authorities for bringing in a strict new data privacy law this year and said the iPhone maker supports a U.S. federal privacy law.   Cook's remarks, along with comments due later from Google and Facebook top bosses, in the European Union's home base in Brussels, underscore how the U.S. tech giants are jostling to curry favor in the region as regulators tighten their scrutiny.   Data protection has become a major political issue worldwide, and European regulators have led the…
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Rust Belt’s Got Talent, But No Money

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Julius Wakam worked in auto manufacturing for 11 years before being laid off in 2008. Today, the married father of three has a job at a hardware store to make ends meet until he can secure another well-paying position in his field. Like many workers in America's so-called Rust Belt, Wakam lost his manufacturing job not only to an influx of robots, but also because the jobs were shipped overseas where labor is cheaper. "For me and my co-workers, they shipped the jobs overseas to Mexico, Brazil, China and a few went to India," Wakam says. Today, the Rust Belt is perhaps best-known for its declining industry, aging and shuttered factories, and falling population, primarily in the Midwest and Great Lakes region. But the Midwest region was once known for…
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UK Watchdog: Smugglers to Exploit Border if no Brexit Deal

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Smugglers and other organized criminals are likely to exploit gaps in border enforcement if Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement, a watchdog warned Wednesday, amid a growing chorus of warnings about the disruptive impact of a "no-deal" Brexit. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but London and Brussels have not reached an agreement on divorce terms and a smooth transition to a new relationship. The stalemate has heightened fears that the U.K. might leave without a deal in place, leading to chaos at ports and economic turmoil.   The National Audit Office said in a report that political uncertainty and delays in negotiations with the EU have hampered preparations for new border arrangements, and the government is now racing to bolster computer systems, increase…
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No US High-ranking Officials to Attend China Investment Fair

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The U.S. will not send a high-ranking official to attend a major investment fair in China next month, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday, in a move underscoring worsening trade frictions between the world's two largest economies. "China needs to make the necessary reforms to end its unfair practices that are harming the world economy," an embassy spokesperson said, speaking on routine condition of anonymity.   "The U.S. government has no current plans for high-level U.S. government participation" in the expo, the official told The Associated Press. "We encourage China to level the playing the field for U.S. goods and services."   State media reported the first-ever China International Import Expo scheduled for Nov. 5-10 in the financial hub of Shanghai has attracted more than 2,800 companies from 130 nations.  …
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Hi-tech Cameras Spy Fugitive Emissions

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The technology used in space missions can be expensive but it has some practical benefits here on Earth. Case in point: the thousands of high resolution images taken from the surface of Mars, collected by the two Mars rovers – Spirit and Opportunity. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, are using the same technology to analyze air pollution here on our planet. VOA’s George Putic reports. ...
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US Tech Companies Reconsider Saudi Investment

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The controversy over the death of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi has shined a harsh light on the growing financial ties between Silicon Valley and the world's largest oil exporter. As Saudi Arabia's annual investment forum in Riyadh — dubbed "Davos in the Desert" — continues, representatives from many of the kingdom's highest-profile overseas tech investments are not attending, joining other international business leaders in shunning a conference amid lingering questions over what role the Saudi government played in the killing of a journalist inside their consulate in Turkey. Tech leaders such as Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, and Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, declined to attend this week's annual investment forum in Riyadh. Even the CEO of Softbank, which has received billions of dollars from Saudi…
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Low-tech Tools Can Fight Land Corruption, Experts Say

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Technological solutions to prevent land corruption require resources, but they do not have to be expensive, land rights experts said Tuesday. Satellite imagery, cloud computing and blockchain are among technologies with the potential to help many of the world's more than 1 billion people estimated to lack secure property rights. But they can be expensive and require experts to be trained. That's where low-tech solutions such as Cadastre Registry Inventory Without Paper (CRISP) can be useful, said Ketakandriana Rafitoson, executive director of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) in Madagascar. CRISP helps local activists in Madagascar, one of the world's poorest countries, document land ownership using tablets with fingerprint readers and built-in cameras, which cost $20 a day to rent. Users can take pictures of ID cards, location agreements, photos of landowners, their neighbors and any witnesses who were present during land demarcation, Rafitoson…
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Syria’s Food Production Hits 29-Year Low

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A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program finds extreme weather conditions in Syria have caused the lowest production of wheat and barley for nearly three decades in this war-torn country. Still, the Syrian government has managed to pacify most of country after more than seven years of brutal, murderous conflict that has reportedly killed more than 350,000 people. Because of improved security, more people are returning to their places of origin. But the report says despite improved access to agricultural land in some areas, erratic weather has caused a sharp decline in crop production this year, compared to last. It says large areas of rainfed cereals have failed because of a long dry period early in the season. This was followed by unseasonably late heavy…
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First Sign Language Starbucks Opens in Washington DC

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Coffee drinkers in the nation’s capital can now order that tall pumpkin spice iced skim latte in sign language. Starbucks has opened its first U.S. “signing store” to better serve hard of hearing customers. The store in Washington is just blocks from Gallaudet University, one of the nation’s oldest universities serving deaf and hard of hearing students. Marlee Matlin, the only deaf actor to win an Academy Award, posted an Instagram video of herself ordering a drink early Tuesday. “The sign for the week is COFFEE,” she wrote. Starbucks announced in July that it would hire 20 to 25 deaf or hard of hearing baristas to work at the store. The store is modeled after a similar Starbucks signing store which opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2016.   ...
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Global Stocks Fall on Worries About Weak Economic Growth, Profit

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Global stocks tumbled Tuesday amid investors' concerns over world economic growth and gloomy forecasts from U.S. bellwether companies. Major Asian indexes fell sharply after China increased financing for privately-held companies. Compounding investor worries were gloomy forecasts from U.S. industrial giants Caterpillar and 3M. The developments dampened investor optimism about the global economy, which appears to be slowing after an expansion last year propelled global stocks higher. Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund cut its global economic forecast for 2018 and 2019, blaming protectionist trade policies and uncertainty in emerging markets. The U.S. economy, which investors have viewed more favorably, has also shown signs of weakening. The housing and automobile sectors have faltered, and a report to be released Friday is expected to show U.S. economic growth moderated in the…
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Apple Offers a Range of iPhones, From $450 to $1,100

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Apple’s new iPhone XR has most of the features found in the top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max, but not its $1,100 price tag. The XR offers the right trade-offs for just $750. For something cheaper, you’ll need to look in the iPhone history bin. Older models are still quite good. If you’re shopping for a new phone, it pays to think hard about what you really want and what you’re willing to pay for it. Improvements over the previous generation tend to be incremental, but can add up over time — and so do the sums you’ll pay for them. IPHONE 7 ($449) The big jump in iPhone cameras came a generation earlier with the iPhone 6S, when Apple went from 8 megapixels to 12 megapixels in resolution. With the iPhone…
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Twitter Removes Accounts Linked to Alex Jones, Infowars

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Twitter has removed some accounts thought to be used to circumvent a ban on conspiracy-monger Alex Jones and Infowars, the company said Tuesday. A Twitter spokesman confirmed that the accounts had been removed but provided no additional comment. The company says it usually does not discuss specific accounts. Twitter permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope in early September. It said it based that action in reports of tweets and videos that violated its policy against abusive behavior. The company said it would continue to evaluate reports regarding other accounts potentially associated with @realalexjones or @infowars and would take action if it finds content that violates its rules or if other accounts are used to try to circumvent their ban. Other tech companies, including PayPal, YouTube, Apple and…
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US Regulator Orders Halt to Self-Driving School Bus Test in Florida

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday said it had ordered Transdev North America to immediately stop transporting schoolchildren in Florida in a driverless shuttle as the testing could be putting them at "inappropriate" risk. The auto safety agency known as NHTSA said in an order issued late Friday that Transdev's use of its EZ10 Generation II driverless shuttle in the Babcock Ranch community in southwest Florida was "unlawful and in violation of the company's temporary importation authorization." "Innovation must not come at the risk of public safety," said Deputy NHTSA Administrator Heidi King in a statement. "Using a non-compliant test vehicle to transport children is irresponsible, inappropriate, and in direct violation of the terms of Transdev's approved test project." In March, NHTSA granted Transdev permission to temporarily import…
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Individual Cooling Units Could Save Lives

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The World Health Organization is closely watching the Ebola outbreak in Congo where the number of cases has risen to 185 since the outbreak started in August. One of the challenges for health workers fighting highly infectious diseases like Ebola is spending time in HazMat suits. They can be unwieldy and incredibly hot, but new technology could solve one of those problems. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...
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