Headline News

Cameroon’s albinos threatened by magic and superstition

7, December 2021

Cameroon’s albinos threatened by magic and superstition 0

Faced with discrimination around the world with their different appearances, albinos livening in Cameroon live under the fear of being killed for ritual purposes.

In some local traditions, it is believed that the limbs of albinos are magical and brings luck and good health to anyone who possesses them.

President of the Association for the Promotion of Albinos in Cameroon, Kakmeni Wembou Raphaël lamented his mother faced a lot of societal pressure to put her at the granary.

“My mother was told to put me in the granary, because when the corn is dried in the granary and she put me there, I will become black afterwards.

“My own family does not visit me. So everything I do, they don’t take into consideration. They have no respect for me … Njoko Kom Sandra added.

Out of 17 000 people worldwide, there is at least one albino, and one in 5,000 in sub-Saharan Africa.

A primary school pupil, Douangni Sandrine, is now an outcast in her own family. According to her, no member of the family cares about her wellbeing due to her skin colour. “Everyone thinks I am cursed. used the expression.

According to her history teacher, although there are no longer abductions and killings as before, the rituals continue.

In addition to the social problems they face, albinos with sensitive skin easily contract skin cancer if they do not protect themselves from the sun.

Statics shows 80 per cent of albinos in sub-Saharan Africa died from cancer.

In Cameroon, many albinos in the country do not have access to sunscreen because of the high prices.

Regular check-ups, access to sunglasses and sunscreen are important for albinos to continue living healthy lives.

Source: Africa News

Es ist vollbracht: Incoming German government signs coalition agreement

7, December 2021

Es ist vollbracht: Incoming German government signs coalition agreement 0

Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) signed a coalition deal on Tuesday that sets out how to accelerate a green transition and modernise Europe’s biggest economy when they take office this week.

The alliance between the unlikely bedfellows, the first such grouping at a national level, brings to an end 16 years of conservative-led government under Angela Merkel who did not stand for a fifth term in a September election.

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz is due to be elected chancellor by the Bundestag lower house of parliament and officially take office on Wednesday.

Under the logo “Dare More Progress”, leading members of all three parties signed the 177-page agreement in front of television cameras.

“This should be a morning for a new start,” Scholz said.

Greens election campaign manager Robert Heinrich tweeted “It’s done.”

FDP leader Christian Lindner said the last few weeks had been about talking and now it was time for action.

“From this week we want to work on making progress. We are under no illusion, we face big challenges,” he said.

The parties presented the agreement last month but needed members to approve it before signing it.

Democracy ‘binds us together’

Speaking to reporters at news conference in Berlin, Scholz said his new three-party government will focus on working with democracies around the world and praised US President Joe Biden for strengthening a community of democratic countries.

“It is now clear, what binds us together,” said Scholz.

His comments came days before Biden hosts a virtual summit on democracy focused on the challenges and opportunities facing democracies.

The US has invited more than 100 countries, including Taiwan, to the summit. Washington’s major rivals, China and Russia, have not been invited.

Confirming that his first foreign visit as chancellor would be to France, Scholz also stressed the importance of strengthening the European Union.

Source: REUTERS

US announces diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics but will send athletes

7, December 2021

US announces diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics but will send athletes 0

The United States Monday announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a calibrated rebuke of China’s human rights record that stops short of preventing US athletes from competing.

The decision comes after Washington spent months wrangling with what position to take on the Games, hosted in February next year by a country it accuses of perpetrating “genocide” against Uyghur Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

There was no immediate reaction from Beijing, but the Chinese foreign ministry had earlier threatened “resolute countermeasures” to any such boycott.

The decision was broadly welcomed by rights groups and politicians in the US, where President Joe Biden has been under pressure to speak out against Chinese rights abuses.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the administration would send no diplomatic or official representation to the Games given China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

Sending official representation would signal that the Games were “business as usual,” Psaki said.

“And we simply can’t do that.”

“The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home,” she added.

The International Olympic Committee said the sending or not of officials was a “purely political decision for each government, which the IOC in its political neutrality fully respects.”

The announcement “also makes it clear that the Olympic Games and the participation of the athletes are beyond politics and we welcome this,” an IOC spokesperson said.

Diplomatic high-wire act

US-China relations hit a low point under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, with a massive trade war and incendiary debate over how the Covid-19 virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Biden has sought to re-engage with Beijing, while at the same time focusing on strengthening traditional US alliances to counter China’s ever-growing economic clout and military presence across the Indo-Pacific region.

The Olympics boycott is part of a complex diplomatic balancing act.

Biden’s administration has left Trump-era trade tariffs on China in place and continues to order naval patrols through sensitive international sea lanes that China is accused of trying to bring under its control.

However, with Biden also emphasising the need for dialogue, critics on the right say he is being too soft.

This makes the looming Olympic Games a political flashpoint.

Members of Team USA, their coaches, trainers and other staff will still receive consular and diplomatic security assistance, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

When asked about calls for private businesses to end any Winter Games sponsorships, he stressed that the decision was up to them.

“It is not in this country — unlike other countries — the role of the government to dictate the practices that the private sector should adopt,” Price said.

‘Powerful rebuke’

Campaigners say that at least one million Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in camps in Xinjiang, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour.

Bob Menendez, the chair of the powerful US Senate foreign relations committee, welcomed the diplomatic boycott as “a powerful rebuke” of the “genocide in Xinjiang.”

He and top House foreign affairs Democrat Gregory Meeks called for other countries to follow the US lead.

Meeks warned the international community should not be helping China “whitewash its atrocities against Uyghurs and other minorities.”

But Republican Senator Tom Cotton called it a “half measure, when bold leadership was required.”

“The United States should fully boycott the Genocide Games in Beijing,” he said in a statement.

The last full boycott of the Olympics by the US was in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter withdrew in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Human Rights Watch called the Biden administration’s decision “crucial” but urged more accountability “for those responsible for these crimes and justice for the survivors.”

Earlier Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned the Games were “not a stage for political posturing and manipulation” — in response to reports a boycott could be imminent.

“If the US is bent on having its own way, China will take resolute countermeasures,” he vowed.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the United States, said that politicians calling to boycott the Games “are doing so for their own political interests and posturing.”

“In fact, no one would care about whether these people come or not, and it has no impact whatsoever on the #Beijing2022 to be successfully held,” he tweeted.

Coming just six months after the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Summer Games, the Winter Olympics will be held from February 4 to 20 in a “closed loop” bubble because of Covid-19 restrictions.

“To be honest, Chinese are relieved to hear the news, because the fewer US officials come, the fewer viruses will be brought in,” tweeted the Chinese state-owned tabloid newspaper, Global Times.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons: What the Maryland cabal and AGovC/ADF were and what they have become

7, December 2021

Southern Cameroons: What the Maryland cabal and AGovC/ADF were and what they have become 0

The revolution in British Southern Cameroons that broke out five years ago was part of a wider wave of anti French Cameroun sentiments that spread across the whole of English speaking Cameroon territory. The Cameroon Anglophone diaspora supported the revolution without reservations in spite of its shortcomings and ever since the arrest of the Ambazonia leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides in Abuja, Nigeria, revolutionary leadership became a very scarce commodity and what was a genuine expression of the Southern Cameroons masses in both Ground Zero and in the West, was now hijacked by reactionary elements that had a very different agenda.

Although clearly prompted by the actions of the failed CPDM leadership in Yaoundé, the seeds of the Ambazonia uprising were to be found in the social and economic conditions that existed in Southern Cameroons itself.  What allowed the Biya French Cameroun regime to maintain its presence in Anglophone Cameroon in spite of the rampant political marginalization and growing economic difficulties was the fact that it had a sizeable military presence in the territory.   The atrocities committed on a regular basis by Francophone gendarmes, army soldiers and the police led to a growing social polarization, which is at the very heart of the revolutionary upheavals.

Initially there was a genuine revolution that was evident in the early days of the uprising against La Republique du Cameroun. And it was the duty of all Southern Cameroonians to support that movement. However, once the revolutionary content of that movement ebbed and Yaoundé and Abuja helped passed the Ambazonia initiative to various reactionary elements in the USA, there was an impasse in the situation and the patriotic Ambazonia revolutionary elements were overwhelmed by all kinds of opportunist and counter-revolutionary elements that came to the fore seeking to promote their own reactionary interests. We of the Cameroon Concord News Group think that this is a tragedy which has come about because of the lack of a revolutionary leadership with roots among the masses in either Ground Zero or Ground 1.

Faced with the initial revolutionary upsurge before the Abuja incident, attempts were made by the Biya Francophone regime to divide the Southern Cameroons population along the North West and South West lines. The ill-prepared Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako, Cho Ayaba Lucas, Boh Herbert and one John Mbah Akuro also fomented such divisions when they realized that they could not mobilize the Ambazonian diaspora in the way Sisiku Ayuk Tabe had done. The actions of these so-called Southern Cameroons front line leaders successfully cut across the genuine revolution that had begun and provoke conflict between the different groups that make up Southern Cameroons.

This was done in the classic manner of pinpointing particular persons and tribes and carrying out brutal indiscriminate social media attacks against them. On the other side of the Ambazonia divide, reactionary fundamentalist groups such as the AGovC/ADF saw the divisions as a means of promoting their own agenda. And that is what has led to the present impasse. In this process the voice of the genuine revolutionaries in the Southern Cameroons Interim Government led by Dabney Yerima has been drowned out by the forces of reaction.

This factor explains also why the French Cameroun regime under Biya abandoned the peace talks it initiated with the Southern Cameroons jailed leaders in Yaoundé. Had the Maryland cabal read from the same script with the NERA 10 in Kondengui, the story would have been completely different. Unfortunately, Elvis Kumeta, Sako Ikome, Chris Anu and Irene Ngwa failed to look at the bigger picture and it opened up more space for Biya and his Southern Cameroons CPDM political elites. The main message expressed by the Maryland cabal via its spokesman Chris Anu was for the downfall of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and more financial donations to keep ABC TV on air. But their message has not been sufficient to mobilize the people of Southern Cameroons. It must be combined with an answer to why Ambazonia university dons had to be arrested in Nigeria and handed over to Yaoundé.

Apart from the Maryland cabal, very dubious and reactionary fundamentalist elements such as Cho Ayaba Lucas entered the struggle and are working tirelessly to divert it down a different road, giving the Biya French Cameroun regime precisely the resources it required for the purchase of international sympathy. The idea Yaoundé has built up among pro federalism Southern Cameroonians is that the Ambazonia revolution is merely made up of separatists who want to drag the Southern Cameroons society backwards and not forward. This has undoubtedly had an effect in at least neutralizing some layers of the Southern Cameroons population, who cling on to the Yaoundé regime, not because they support Biya or love the union with La Republique du Cameroun, but for fear that something worse could take its place like in South Sudan.

There is another factor that explains the stalling and derailing of the Ambazonia struggle. The reading culture! Southern Cameroonians do not read and many rely on social media postings that only tells them what they want to hear—we are winning!! There too, although the revolution saw the mass participation of teachers and lawyers, once the NERA 10 were arrested, unfortunately, Southern Cameroonians were pushed away from the Interim Government to rally behind smaller groups. A vacuum appeared and it was filled with what was available name them: AGovC/ADF, Sako-IG, Morisc,Ikata, SCNC, Restoration Council and an untrained motor mechanic, Capo Daniel became one of the most important spokesperson of the revolution.

The recent situation deep within the so-called Sako IG and the kidnappings being staged by the AGovC/ADF militiamen in Ground Zero have further added to the confusion. Sako Ikome’s IG has eventually collapsed and he and Chris Anu are no longer an item. But what has replaced the Maryland cabal cannot be very attractive to many ordinary Ambazonians who earlier bought the false notion that Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was trying to govern from prison. The departure of Mr. Chris Anu, the breaking up of the ABC TV, the constant attacks on Sisiku Ayuk Tabe coming from AGovC/ADF is not a very attractive happening. But this again explains why La Republique du Cameroun, in spite of its brutality, has been able to hold on in the Ambazonia homeland.

Having said all this, it is clear that every Southern Cameroonian will sooner or later stand behind the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government, Dabney Yerima. For over five years now, the sea of front line leaders have left Southern Cameroonians with nothing than empty slogans. Sako, Chris Anu, Irene Ngwa, Elvis Kumeta, Cho Ayaba have no revolutionary tendencies, rooted within the Southern Cameroons masses and therefore, they cannot win the ear of the masses and lead them in a class struggle.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Southern Cameroons War: VP Yerima says Francophone army soldiers worn down, weakened

6, December 2021

Southern Cameroons War: VP Yerima says Francophone army soldiers worn down, weakened 0

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government, Dabney Yerima has said that the people of Ambazonia have managed to wear down the Francophone dominated Cameroon government army and deprive it of the so-called military victory as was anticipated by Minister Paul Atanga Nji.

Vice President Dabney Yerima, during his Sunday presentation to the Ambazonia war cabinet, said the war option against British Southern Cameroonians was made by Mr.Paul Biya thinking that French Cameroun was still dealing with the Muna-Egbe Tabi and Foncha generation in Ambazonia and added that the people of Southern Cameroons with the support of their diaspora citizens have become too powerful to fall victim to French Cameroun aggression.

Yerima stressed that the French Cameroun enemy has instead resorted to using some Southern Cameroonians both in the homeland and in the West against the Ambazonia resistance.

Dabney Yerima further opined that the Federal Republic of Ambazonia today is powerful without even a well organized military and La Republique du Cameroun is now aware that the Ambazonia homeland is no longer occupiable.

His remarks came after a Southern Cameroons Interim Government statement last week blamed the kidnappings in Bamenda on the so-called AGovC/ADF militia.

By Asu Vera Eyere

Cameroon gov’t troops arrested about 145 Ambazonians, including women and children in October

6, December 2021

Cameroon gov’t troops arrested about 145 Ambazonians, including women and children in October 0

Troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde arrested some 145 Southern Cameroonians, including women and children, in October, a report released recently by the Ambazonia Interim Government says.

In its monthly coverage of the war in Southern Cameroons, the Department of Foreign Affairs revealed today that La Republique du Cameroun violations against the people of British Southern Cameroons had soared considerably.   

According to Professor Carlson Anyangwe, Francophone army soldiers arrested 145 Southern Cameroonians, including women in October.

The Ambazonia Department of Foreign Affairs added that a young cab driver arrested in Mamfe in Manyu Division was rounded up on lame and ridiculous reason that he was financing Amba fighters.  Also Cameroon government forces detained 12 bike riders in Kumba in Meme Division.

Cameroon government army soldiers often carry out detention raids against Southern Cameroonians in Ground Zero, claiming that they seek to arrest wanted separatists.

More than 3,000 Southern Cameroonians are reportedly held in jails in Buea, Douala, Dschang and Yaounde.  Several Southern Cameroonians have been incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, which allows holding English speaking Cameroonians inmates without trial or charge. Some Southern Cameroons prisoners of concience have been held in administrative detention for up to five years.

By Alain Tabot-Tanyi

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 3 Cameroon gov’t army  soldiers killed in Jakiri

5, December 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 3 Cameroon gov’t army  soldiers killed in Jakiri 0

At least three soldiers were killed and others were wounded when a military outpost was attacked in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region of Northwest, according to local and military sources.

Separatist leaders said on social media that their fighters carried out the attack on Friday at 7.25 a.m. local time in Jakiri, a locality in the region.

There was no information on casualties recorded by the separatist militias, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The separatist terrorists ambushed and killed the soldiers who were at the main security outpost inside the Jakiri market. We have launched a hunt to capture the terrorists and criminals,” a military official with knowledge about the attack told Xinhua but asked not to be named.

Cameroon’s English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest have been experiencing an armed separatist conflict since 2017. The separatists want to create an independent nation they called “Ambazonia” in the regions.

Source: Xinhua new agency

Biya regime says biggest stadium will host AFCON matches despite construction delays

5, December 2021

Biya regime says biggest stadium will host AFCON matches despite construction delays 0

Cameroon’s minister of Sports and Physical Education Narcisse Mouelle Kombi said on Friday that the country’s biggest stadium will be able to host matches at January’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), despite delays in completing ongoing construction work.

Cameroon’s government was scheduled to hand over the new 60,000-seat Olembe Stadium to sports authorities on Friday, but postponed the date “indefinitely.” It was the second time in less than one week the government had postponed the handover ceremony.

Kombi said that technical delays were hindering the stadium’s completion.

“This is mainly because of the pursuance of the technical review and assessment of about 500 compartments within Olembe Stadium and its annex facilities. The full functionality of these compartments is necessary for the total operation of this wonderful football facility. The government has expressed the firm zeal to ensure that all the facets of the stadium meet world class standard,” Kombi told reporters in the capital Yaounde.

The stadium, located 13km north of Yaounde, is scheduled to host the opening match of AFCON on January 9 next year, with the final to take place in the same stadium on February 6.

Cameroon has already inaugurated four other stadiums in the cities of Douala and Garoua, as well as Chinese-constructed stadiums in Bafoussam and Limbe which will also stage several AFCON matches.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

AGovC/ADF kidnappings in Bamenda shines a light on Cho Ayaba corruption

5, December 2021

AGovC/ADF kidnappings in Bamenda shines a light on Cho Ayaba corruption 0

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group developed interest in Mr. Cho Ayaba Lucas when we got intelligence that he had an inappropriate relationship with one Emerald Johnson living in Nigeria. Emerald Johnson had hosted Cho Ayaba Lucas (now with a PhD attached to his name) in her motel while he visited Dadi in Manyu on November 2017, to tour a camp he claimed his ADF boys were being trained.

Lady Emerald Johnson didn’t only host Dr. Ayaba, she accompanied him, sitting in the back seat in the car with him to Dadi. Cameroon Concord News and Cameroon Intelligence Report told the world that it wasn’t a coincidence that Dr. Ayaba Cho chose Emerald Johnson and her hotel facilities to host the meeting in Calabar that saw the arrest of innocent needy Southern Cameroons refugees who had gone there hoping they would get some money after Ayaba addresses them.

Unfortunately for those who ignored the signals we incessantly flashed out and went to the meeting, they were picked up right at their hotel locations before the meeting even started. News began to filter out immediately after the arrest from the police station in Calabar as one of them had succeeded to sneak his phone into the cell. From behind bars, he began sending text messages to others who had stayed back in Ikom. He said what happened to the NERA 10 in Abuja has happened to them, that they have all been abducted.

When things took the wrong turn, Cho Ayaba and his criminal gang spun the news, denying knowledge and responsibility for the meeting entirely! First, he accused the Ambazonia Interim Government of calling the meeting, actually naming the then Acting President, Dr. Sako and Homeland Security Secretary, John Egywang as the ones who called for the meeting. He said that the disgraced Sako Ikome set up the meeting purposefully to get his supporters abducted like in the Abuja case. To some other people, he said that the IG had called for the meeting to persuade his ADF members to defect him and join the joint initiative that was being put together by the IG for self-defense. When contacted, both the disgraced Sako Ikome and John Egywang denied ever knowing about the meeting.

Now, it was well past midnight on 29 November 2021 in Bamenda the chief city in the North West when gunmen pulled up in an AK30 car and snatched Mr. Ndopping Roger Ndem and his breastfeeding wife. The spokesman for AGovC/ADF, Capo Daniel went on social media and demanded a ransom payment. Abductions are now common in Southern Cameroons, but the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima called the instance “an attack on the Ambazonia liberation struggle… aimed at helping Biya and French Cameroun”.

While they are yet to be released, the incident has once again raised questions about the threats faced by innocent Southern Cameroons citizens in Ground Zero, as many are seeing the abductions as teleguided by leaders of AGovC/ADF, one of the numerous armed militia groups committing horrible crimes in Southern Cameroons.

Some of the ones kidnapped were initially leading mass protests against La Republique du Cameroun in Ground Zero and had taken the lead, with mass rallies frequently staged amid the heavily fortified streets in Bamenda and Buea.

Southern Cameroonians living in Ground Zero are now being monitored by the Francophone dominated Cameroon government intelligence agencies and armed militants of AGovC/ADF. One Southern Cameroons analyst based in Bamenda who commented on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of this kidnapping matter, told Cameroon Concord News that AGovC/ADF militias were trying to frighten Southern Cameroons civilian activists through kidnappings and assassinations.

The kidnappings currently being carried out by Mr. Cho Ayaba Lucas and his men is a vain attempt at sending a message to Southern Cameroons civilians that the AGovC/ADF militias are the most powerful [force] today in Southern Cameroons. However, it is shining a light on the Cho Ayaba corruption that took him to London for an oil deal.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Kidnapping of Ndopping Roger and breastfeeding wife: Dr. Patrick Ayuk says all evidence points to Cho Ayaba

5, December 2021

Kidnapping of Ndopping Roger and breastfeeding wife: Dr. Patrick Ayuk says all evidence points to Cho Ayaba 0

A senior Southern Cameroons academic, Dr Patrick Ayuk, has called on Ayaba Cho Lucas and his gang to release Mr. Ndopping Roger Ndem, who was kidnapped 29 November 2021 while working for CamWater in Bamenda the chief city in the North West.

Ayaba Cho Lucas, leader of the notorious AGovC/ADF crime syndicate operating in the Southern Cameroons, has blatantly refused to order the release of Mr. Ndopping Roger Ndem despite collecting over USD 5000 as an initial ransom payment.

Addressing a group of Southern Cameroonians in Luxembourg via zoom, Dr Patrick Ayuk said, “To conceive that a criminal gang would kidnap a man and a breastfeeding wife is appalling and unacceptable. This crime has nothing to do with the Southern Cameroons struggle, and the leader of this criminal entity, Cho Ayaba, should order the release of this man immediately. Kidnap for ransom has no place in Ambazonia”

The Ndopping Roger incident has rightfully invited immense pressure on Ayaba Cho Lucas and his Ambazonia crime syndicate.  Our chief correspondent in Bamenda who contributed to this report opined that 97.4% of Southern Cameroonians are against kidnapping for ransom even if the proceeds are for the liberation struggle.

Dr Ayuk furthered, “even if the AGovC/ADF claims that the proceeds of their criminality will be used to buy tools that will eventually liberate Ambazonia, that doesn’t make their actions acceptable. We cannot intentionally punish the people we want to liberate. Cho Ayaba must know that his actions are tantamount to highway robbery and against international law. These actions diminish our struggle in the eyes of our international partners.”

The AGovC/ADF has been one of the many militias operating in Southern Cameroons ever since President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe declared the independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia on October 2017. The group says its Defense/Kidnapping Unit is led by a certain Mr Capo Daniel an untrained motor mechanic, who regularly announces kidnappings and ransom demands on social media.

Many Southern Cameroonians have wondered aloud why SDOs and Governors representing the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé are braving the bad roads and the streets of Ambazonia, while private citizens are easy targets for AGovC/ADF.

Elsewhere, Ambazonian leaders at home and in the Diaspora have condemned Ayaba Cho Lucas over his disgraceful kidnapping-for-ransom activities in Ground Zero. They say his militia is taking advantage of the security vacuum and making life unbearable for ordinary citizens.

By Isong Asu in London with files

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