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The Byron Bay Cookie Company refused to back down on the Halal Certification of its products despite a concerted and vitriolic anti-Muslim, anti-Halal campaign from right-wing groups. (See CCN523 and CCN524).

As a show of support for the stance taken by the company a number of Muslim organizations and Mosques in Queensland signed a letter of appreciation to the company.

The letter can be read here.

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America’s right-wing slammed Hollywood A-lister Ben Affleck for his defence of Islam on a US talk show. Affleck accused TV host Bill Maher of and “racist” depictions of the religion during a televised debate.

Appearing on HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher, the Oscar-winning actor and director Affleck reacted furiously to claims by Maher that Islam manifested as “the only religion that acts like the mafia” and which would “f@#king kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book”.

Atheist author and philosopher Sam Harris also angered Affleck after suggesting: “We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people. It’s intellectually ridiculous.”
Maher backed up the author, telling Affleck that he was wrong to state that fundamentalist beliefs were only held by “a few bad apples”.

Affleck responded: “Hold on – are you the person who officially understands the codified doctrine of Islam? It’s gross and racist. It’s like saying, ‘Oh, you shifty Jew!’ Your argument is, ‘You know, black people, they shoot each other.’”

He added: “How about more than a billion people who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punch women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, pray five times a day, and don’t do any of the things you’re saying of all Muslims. It’s stereotyping.”

The actor’s comments won him praise on Twitter, but conservative US radio and TV outlets have since made Affleck a target.

Rich Lowry, Editor of the conservative National Review magazine, laid into the actor for an alleged refusal to accept “frank truths about the Muslim world” in an article published on October 7.

“He kept on insisting it is just a few bad apples who think this way,” wrote Lowry. “At one point, he tried to wave Maher and Harris off with a condemnation of the Iraq war, positing an implicit moral equivalence between an overly idealistic war of liberation and the stoning of apostates.”

On Fox News, guest Dr Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy referred to the actor as “Imam Ben Affleck”.

On the Fox & Friends show on October 7 Jasser said Affleck was “defending the theocrats, the status quo.”

While America’s Newsroom contributor David Webb accused Affleck of living in a “unicorn-like world” and suggested Islam was “an intolerable religion”.
Meanwhile, presenter Greg Gutfield of the Fox show The Five described Affleck as a “Caliphate crusader”.

On October 6 regular Fox guest Laura Ingraham asked what it might take for liberals such as Affleck to “wake up” to Isis atrocities in Iraq and Syria.
 

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In response to news that anti-Islam campaigners in Australia are urging a boycott of all Australian products with official halal certification, the World Association for Monitoring Racist Idiocy (WAMRI) has officially certified Team Australia as containing The World’s Dumbest Racists.

WAMRI president Timmy Jackman said the clincher was reports an actual member of Australian parliament for the governing Coalition had complained about halal certification, with Nationals MP George Christensen claiming halal certification of products like vegemite was being used to “fund terrorism”.

“Let me get this straight,” Jackson said, “you fucking fools won’t eat a tub of yogurt or a meat pie ’cause of some clearly ludicrous claim it ‘funds terrorism’, but you’ll gladly fill up your petrol-guzzling vehicles despite the fact that ISIS, an actual terrorist group, controls actual oil fields?

“Seriously, not even most bible-thumping redneck Teabagger Yanks are this idiotic,” an almost impressed Jackman told The (un)Australian.

“What does it even mean to campaign against halal? You realise it is simply the Islamic term for ‘allowed’, yeah? You know what else is allowed for Muslims to consume, you stupid fucks? Oxygen. Boycott that you pricks.

“Seriously, how do you idiots even manage to put your own shoes on? Which, by the way, are also goddamn halal! And made by a 12-year-old Muslim girl in Indonesia for two bucks a day!

“Well done Team Australia, you’ve truly earned your official certification for containing the world’s highest concentration of dumb racists. Try not to celebrate with too many race riots.”

Source: The (un) Australian

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One hundred years after the Ottomans joined the war, this three-part series tells the story from an Arab perspective.

World War One was four years of bitter conflict from 1914 to 1918. Called 'The Great War' and the 'war to end all wars', it is often remembered for its grim and relentless trench warfare - with Europe seen as the main theatre of war.

But this was a battle fought on many fronts. There is a story other than the mainstream European narrative. It is not told as often but was of huge importance during the war and of lasting significance afterwards. It is the story of the Arab troops who were forced to fight on both sides but whose contribution is often forgotten.

They fought as conscripts for the European colonial powers occupying Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia - and for the Ottomans on the side of Germany and the Central Powers. The post-war settlement would also shape the Middle East for the next hundred years.

In this three-part series, Tunisian writer and broadcaster Malek Triki explores the events surrounding World War One and its legacy from an Arab perspective.

The story of Arab troops conscripted from North Africa and the Levant to fight on both sides of the Great War and their role in the Allied defeat at Gallipoli.

Arabs troops from North Africa were among the first to be exposed to the Germans' poisonous gas soon after the start of World War One.

France wanted to protect her sons from the horrors of war from death and so sent colonial conscripts to be heroes at the battlefront.

Some reports also suggest that they were subjected to the ancient Roman military practice of 'decimation'. This was the almost random execution of every tenth member of a unit for collective failures of army discipline - and the French are alleged to have used it against their North African troops.

Galliopoli was one of the biggest Allied defeats of the war. But it is not well-known that as many as 300,000 of Mustafa Kamal's Ottoman forces in the campaign were Arabs from Greater Syria – present day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine.

But the Ottoman entry into the war was accompanied by a call to jihad by the Grand Mufti in Istanbul to all Muslims across the world.

Muslim was forced to fight against Muslim; and the German propaganda machine seized up the tension this created in the Arab world by seeking to undermine the morale of the north Africa troops fighting for the western Allies.

It even set up a show camp near Zossen in Germany where Muslim troops were given preferential treatment in an attempt to persuade them to change sides. The Half Moon Camp was the site of the first ever mosque in Germany.
 

Episode two tells the story of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the fall Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the rise of the young Turk government in his place - and the history of the Ottoman-Germany relationship which led to the Treaty of Alliance between them in August 1914.

The war saw the rise of feelings of nationalism among the Arabs of North Africa and the Levant. But the Ottoman response was to crack down hard on the Arabs of Greater Syria – and many leading intellectuals were executed, sentenced to long jail terms or forced into exile under the authoritarian governorship of Jamal Pasha.
 

Episode three covers the secret Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France and the way the two imperial powers carved up the former Ottoman Empire between them, regardless of the rights and demands of rights and nationalist movements across the Arab world.

Despite the Egyptian Revolution and the Iraq Uprising, Arab subservience to Ottoman rule was replaced by a series of mandates across the region in which Britain and France seized control of the areas they prized most – to satisfy their own ambitions, interests and ultimately to gain access to region's valuable oil resources.

The war gave birth to the Turkish nationalist movement which led to the founding of the modern Turkish state; and to Zionism, aided greatly by the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Treaty of Versaillles, however, was referred to by one German-Ottoman military leader not as a peace but as 'a twenty year armistice' – and so it proved ...
 

Source: AlJazeera

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UNIVERSITIES justify their billion dollar budgets by claiming they are a public good essential to the health of liberal democracy, but how well have they defended the public against the illiberal ideology of Islamic State?

“Fear Allah Alone.” During orientation week this year, the traditional welcome to university was replaced with the Koranic command to monotheism on the University of Melbourne Islamic Society’s Facebook page.

The Sydney University Muslim Students’ Association planned to celebrate September 11, the memorial day for the 2996 victims of al-Qa’ida’s attack on the World Trade Centre, with an event featuring the Islamist terrorist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. The University of Western Australia’s Muslim Students Association invited the same Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman, Utham Badar, to speak on campus this year.

Muslim student associations have emerged as a central pivot for the dissemination of radical Islam across the West. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s advice to federal parliament that countering jihadism demands a battle against Islamist ideology is a message he should take home. The newly released report Learning Jihad documents Islamists’ extensive use of English universities to propagate jihadist ideology.

There has not been an in-depth investigation of Islamic extremism in Australian universities. The silence should not be taken as proof that all is quiet on the Western front.

Sheik Shady Alsuleiman, a popular Islamic preacher in Sydney, appeared recently at the University of Sydney Law School and the University of Melbourne’s National Centre of Excellence for ­Islamic Studies Australia. Al­sul­eiman is the founder of Sydney Islamic College, which provides diplomas in Shariah (Islamic Studies). He is also a prominent community leader, serving as the Imam of United Muslims of Australia. The Daily Telegraph reports that the UMA has raised over $3 million for a new mosque which will feature educational facilities.

In his capacity as secretary to the Australian National Imams Council, the sheik met with ­Attorney-General George Brandis in July to discuss proposed anti-terror legislation. Alsuleiman is, by formal education and popular demand, one of the most highly regarded scholars and religious leaders of Islam in Australia. In a series of lectures available through Islamic networks online, Sheikh Alsuleiman engages in questionable preaching. During a podcast entitled “A Path to Knowledge”, he praises jihadists, shouting: “If you’re going to struggle or sacrifice or go in the jihad, make sure this is for the sake of Allah! … Don’t you ever think, don’t you ever imagine, that the ones that fight and die in the path of Allah are dead! They are with Allah, alive … They are so happy with what Allah has granted them”. Alsuleiman then describes in detail the Paradise that awaits jihadists.

The promise of Paradise is a stock standard lure to jihadists, which entices them to enact suicide and homicide without guilt and often, with enthusiasm for the utopia that awaits. The four brothers who recently left Australia to enlist in Islamic State sent their distraught mother a text message: “We will see you in Paradise.”

In another lecture, “Extremism in Jihad”, Alsuleiman proffers a conspiratorial analysis of Islamist terrorist attacks in the West. Apparently, we enjoy being victims of violence: “You know these attacks that take place in the Western world? Walahi, I believe that our enemies love it so much because it gives them an excuse to attack Islam … They want us to do this … They want this to happen. Believe me, they want it to happen …. They are dying for you to do these actions … they can’t wait for the moment that so-called terrorist attacks take place in a country like this.” Motion to dissent.No one loves to be a victim of violence and if Islamic State’s genocidal jihadists have a post-mortem destination, it won’t be Paradise.

For decades, Western university leaders have indulged the ideology of Islamism, censoring speech that offends its advocates, turning a blind eye to the barbarity of life in Islamist states, and entertaining the vastly destructive fiction that the West is to blame for its violently inhumane rule of law. In fact, it is the ideology of neo-Marxism, whose latter-day prophets espouse postcolonialism and critical race theory, that has produced fertile ground for Islamism on campus.

The academic hard Left and Islamists share a voracious hatred of Western civilisation, her culture, creed and citizens. A report on jihadism commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Justice recognised the similitude: “typical European left-wing terrorists in the 1970-80s were males who had a higher education or were dropouts from university … analysts find that the concept of Umma (caliphate) now plays a similar role to that of the proletariat for leftist groups in the 1960s”.

Victim-blaming or blame-shifting is one of the most common tactics used to deflect critical analysis of Islamist ideology on campus. There is no better weapon in the blame-shifting game than the term “Islamophobia”.

When the Sydney University board intervened to prevent Hizb ut-Tahrir speaking on campus, the Muslims Students’ Association penned a letter dropping the I-bomb repeatedly. Several Muslim community organisations have claimed anti-terror legislation causes Islamophobia. Humanities academics regularly research the supposed prevalence of Islamophobia as a corollary of 21st century thought crimes such as patriotism.

Former president of the Muslim Student Association of Victoria and public commentator Yassir Morsi remarked on Channel 10’s The Project that Islamophobia causes jihadists to join Islamic State. In a Guardian article criticising the cancellation of Utham Badar’s talk at the University of Sydney, Morsi wrote: “Islamophobia is not just bigotry or fear. It’s a frenzy that fills the gaps in our social imagination.”

Like most devotees of post-­colonialism and critical race ­theory, Morsi finds no friend in empirical reality. His theory that Islamophobia drives Western Muslims to jihad is undone by the fact that between 90-96 per cent of foreign jihadists in Islamic State are from Muslim countries, where Islamophilia is all the rage.

Thomas Hegghammer, director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, has exposed the harm produced by the Islamophobia narrative in the West. He explains that following 9/11, Western intelligence on militant Islam was undermined because “Middle East scholars on both sides of the Atlantic had long shunned the study of Islamist militancy for fear of promoting Islamophobia”.

Islamophobia is the first line of defence for jihadist ideology in the West — not by chance, but by design. The term was invented in the 1990s by The International Institute for Islamic Thought, a front group for the terrorist organisation Muslim Brotherhood.

Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a former member of the Islamic Institute, witnessed the invention of the word Islamophobia and later described it as a “loathsome term … nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics”.

I cannot think of two word pairs less well suited to marriage than Western university and political Islam. But for decades, universities have played host to purveyors of Islamism on campus while academics have defended the illiberal ideology that commands the conscience of genocidal groups such as Islamic State.

If universities want to be recognised as a public good, it is time they made good on the promise.

Source: The Australian

The above article came under fire from some on Facebook:

She lies, frames issues without context to make it sound concerning, and then also tries to bring a few separate incidents to claim that 'radical Islam' is a silent problem of our universities. Better still, ISIS formalised in June this year but it's ideology has somehow on a huge scale infiltrated our universities. She's stupid. She must want a promotion or something and the only way to do that is to trash Muslims. What's more, if you look at all her previous articles in The Australian, she is listed as:
'Jennifer Oriel is a Melbourne writer.'
'Jennifer Oriel is a Melbourne-based writer and higher education analyst.'
and low and behold in a few months for this article she has evolved into a
'Jennifer Oriel is a political scientist and commentator.'

I demand an apology from her the Australian Newspaper, and all Australians who called her a Political Scientist. I too have a degree in Politics but no one ever calls me a Political Scientist I usually get called words which I can't reproduce on here because this is a family show.

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Whilst retrieving mail from the letterbox out front of my apartment.. a glossy flyer in the garden catches my eye. It’s black and red and mean looking. The text reads STOP! THE MOSQUE. Further details of a community gathering to oppose the building of a mosque in Currumbin are included. My journalistic senses tingle. My initial thought “I wonder what kind of characters show up to a town meeting to oppose the building of a mosque”.

I call my Blank editor immediately and ask if she has any suggestions. Am I likely to come face to face with bucket loads of hate-speak? Yes. Am I likely to get lynched for being calm and open-minded? No. Are there likely to be scary looking dudes with southern-cross tattoos in the crowd? Most likely. But there are also likely to be people who look plain and normal too.

Sunday rolls around and I feel my heart racing as I enter. WTF am I doing? I am extremely uncomfortable around aggressive and angry mobs. Especially sober mobs. Drunken mobs are rarely organised or cohesive in their collective hate. As I breathe I remind myself that there is most likely just going to be a collection of concerned friendly citizens who wish to be informed of the potential future of their community. I stride forward confidently with a coffee and immediately I see the shaven head of a 50-something male with a southern cross tattoo etched into his cranium. Fark……

The chief speaker for the day informs the swollen crowd of the latest Mosque proposal updates. He insists the nature of this project is insidious. That the traffic generated by attendees at the mosque will be chaotic and the parking catastrophic. That the local businesses will suffer due to these nuisance crowds. All potentially legit… But then he declares “a mosque offers nothing positive for the community”. I stifle a LOL and check nobody has noticed. “Offers nothing?” I’m not an expert and know little of the social sciences which measure the success of a community but am certain I am now listening to bullshit being preached. Time to leave.

To round off this article with some basic objectivity I contact Hussin Goss. He’s the acting president for the Islamic Society on the Gold Coast. A very warm and well spoken character. We chat for half hour. Practically besties by the end of the chat. The question I’m dying to ask:

Could you please describe in brief how a mosque contributes to all residents of a community and not just the Muslim population. “In brief (this will be hard)… One example that springs to mind is the flood relief service in 2008. 150 volunteers were summoned to help pack and transport 30 tonnes of food hampers right here in Arundel. There is also our ongoing services such as a constant steam of clothing donations toward the Salvos,” Hussin said.

Myth f*cking busted! Hussin informs me that his family has been here for 100 years. His grandparents and then later his parents emigrating from Pakistan. Part of his role as president includes overseeing the services for births, marriages and deaths in the local community. So I guess aside from all of this, a mosque provides nothin(insert sarcastic sigh).

If our Blank audience would like to become better informed of Islam on the Gold Coast where can they start? “Go to the website goldcoastislam.com.au. We welcome all visitors here to the mosque at Arundel. You can also follow me on Facebook (Hussin Goss).”

Pro mosque for Currumbin or not. All members of the community are entitled to an opinion and I felt privileged to participate with those who are clear on their stance. I do worry that such matters are often decided upon by individuals digesting second-hand misinformation and irrational learned prejudice rather than anything resembling fact. May this encourage you to seek for yourselves the answer to the question of a Mosque in the Currumbin district.

Source: BLANK Gold Coast

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PERTH - A MUTILATED pig’s head and limbs have been thrown at the entrance of a Perth mosque in what the Islamic community has called a “despicable” and “disheartening” act of hatred.

The pig’s remains where found outside the main entrance of the Masjid Ibrahim Islamic Mosque in Southern River this morning by a group of students and local community members.

Imam Shabir, a spokesman for the mosque that was opened in June, said the “despicable act” would not deter members from building relationships with the wider community.

Mr Shabir said it was “disheartening” to see such an act just a few weeks after an open day which had received “tremendous support” from the local community.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t deter us from the in roads we have made in building relationships,” he said.

“It doesn’t deter us, if anything it spurs us on to further educate others.”

Mr Shabir said while the consumption of pig was forbidden to Muslims, animal brutality was a concern for all Australians.

This latest incident follows three other attacks on mosques in Perth in the past month.

Last week, white paint was splashed over the front entrance of the Ar-Rukun Mosque in Rockingham.

Earlier in the month, vandals painted ‘Aussie Pride’ and anti-Islamic slurs on a Sikh temple in Bennett Springs, a north-eastern suburb of Perth, in the mistaken belief that it was an Islamic place of worship.

An Islamic school has also been targeted.

Source: Perth Now Sunday Times

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On Saturday 6 September, Brisbane united together with Muslim Charitable Foundation, Muslim Aid Australia and Al-Imdaad Foundation for humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza at the Islamic College of Brisbane.

A report of this event was covered in CCN..

Over $100,000 was raised on the day to support the relief efforts to alleviate the suffering caused by the most recent conflict in Gaza.

The ongoing attacks resulted in massive destruction to infrastructure in the area, including water plants. Thousands of families in the Gaza Strip have been affected by the impacts of this civil unrest and access to clean water has become very difficult. In any other circumstance the construction of general water wells would have addressed this issue. However due to groundwater pollution from high levels of chloride the decision was made to develop a long-term solution. This involved building a desalination plant to purify the water as means of overcoming the water shortage.

 
The construction phase of the project will take approximately five months to complete with the agreement to further provide the ongoing maintenance for next two years. It is estimated that an astonishing 50,000 people will benefit from this endeavour with the aim to produce 250,000 litres of clean water per day. The estimated cost of this project is approximately $230,000.
 

Once the plant has been constructed, the water truck will be used to transport the clean water to surrounding areas in Gaza. This will ensure that this much needed resource is well distributed and reaches as many people as possible.
 

As the project progresses, the project coordinators aim to provide you with regular updates. If you would like to donate towards this Sadaqah-Jaariyah project for Gaza please use the bank account details below:

Muslim Charitable Foundation
BSB: 124 555
ACC: 2089 7392
Reference: PALWASH (yourname)

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In this episode of '100 Muslims, 1 Question' American Muslims from all walks of life were asked what their Favourite Film was.

These are their responses
 

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Assalamu Alaikum All.

I thought it would be a great time to update the community on the progress of Worongary Mosque.

Alhamdulillah with the wonderful support of the community, we have been able to raise the required costs to purchase property ($400,000.00) and now remaining are the repayments for the MCCA portion of the mosque through their Mosque Fund ($420,000.00).

Currently the committee is in the process of renegotiating some of the conditions that were place by council. Until these conditions are met, we are unable to begin works on the property.

These conditions are:

1. Fence which requires acoustic sound proofing (materials and thickness), and require us to meet their width and height guidelines. After receiving the quote for this fence with these specs, we concluded that the cost of $140,000.00 for a fence is far too expensive and we have taken it back to the council to reconsider these specifications. Council has tentatively agreed to allow for a much cheaper fence that will cost 18,000.00 rather than $140,000.00, but we are waiting for the final confirmation.

2. A "Right turn" road upgrade at the Hinkler drive - Alkirwa way intersection which we must contribute $90,000.00. We realise that at the time of the approval of the mosque, this particular condition was placed to make things a lot tougher for us. We are also hoping that we can change this, and if instalments is a final option, we will accept this.

Both conditions are to be adhered to prior to bringing people on the property, and doing any works on the land. Hence we are doing our very best to change these conditions so we do not start with the additional financial burden that they have placed upon us. Insha'Allah we can then start the development of the Worongary Masjid, which is the second Mosque on the Gold Coast.

Please make duaa for this project, and if you can assist financially please email info@imagc.com.au.

We need all the support we can get.

Jazzakallah.


Regards,

Rami Elmohandis

Vice President - IMAGC
Mob: 0413 904 278
Email: info@imagc.com.au
Web: www.imagc.com.au

Would you like to see the cover of your favourite book on our book shelves below?

Then simply email the title and author to thebookclub@crescentsofbrisbane.org

Double click a book cover to find out what others think of the book

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Avocado and Apple Salad

Mula Nasruddin worked for the security department of a large retail store.

His duties included responding to fire and burglar alarms.

A side door of the building was wired with a security alarm, because it was not supposed to be used by customers.

Nevertheless they found the convenience of the exit tempting.

Even a sign with large red letters, warning "Alarm will sound if opened," failed to deter people from using it.

One day, after attending to a number of shrieking alarms, Mula Nasruddin placed a small handmade sign on the door that totally eliminated the problem: "Wet paint."

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Events and Functions

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Islamic Programmes, Education & Services

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DIRECTORY

PLEASE NOTE

1. All Islamic Event dates given above are tentative and subject to the sighting of the moon.

2. The Islamic date changes to the next day starting in the evenings after maghrib. Therefore, except for Lailatul Mehraj, Lailatul Bhahraat and Lailatul Qadr – these dates refer to the commencement of the event starting in the evening of the corresponding day.

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It is the usual policy of CCN to include from time to time, notices of events that some readers may find interesting or relevant. Such notices are often posted as received. Including such messages or providing the details of such events does not necessarily imply endorsement of the contents of these events by either CCN or Crescents of Brisbane Inc.

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