Big city volume underpins rise in house sales | Otago Daily Times ...

The volume of house sales in the Central Otago Lakes area were up more than 50% during October, while Queenstown (above) prices declined more than 10% compared with a year ago. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

The volume of house sales in the Central Otago Lakes area were up more than 50% during October, while Queenstown (above) prices declined more than 10% compared with a year ago. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

A surge of more than 30% in national house sales compared with a year ago reflects more strengthening in the residential house market - underpinned by big city sales - with economists predicting more of the same.

However, mixed regional trends beyond the cities were reflected in the Central Otago Lakes area being the largest gainer in sales numbers at 54%, compared with October last year, but that gain came at a cost to sub-region Queenstown with a more than $58,000 decline in its median prices.

With the rebuilding in Canterbury forecast to boost construction and sales, the Reserve Bank is not expected to be overly concerned at the rising prices and volumes, for the time being.

Nationally, the median house price hit a record of $380,000 while sales volumes on October last year rose 32.6%, or by 1633 homes, to 6640 unconditional sales in October. Auckland booked a record $530,000 for its median price.

In Otago, the median house price rose 3.4% to $240,000, while sales volumes on October last year rose 12.2%%, or by 28 homes, to 257 sales in October.

In the Central Otago Lakes area, encompassing Central Otago and Queenstown, the median house price declined by $13,500, or 3.2%, but sales volumes rose 54%, from 68 a year ago to 105 for October, only just ahead of Northland and Hawkes Bay.

ASB senior economist Jane Turner said the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand house sales figures, released yesterday, surged during October, lifting 16% month-on-month and were 33% higher on levels in October a year ago.

Residential and section sales for October rose 46% from $2.15 billion in October a year ago to $3.15 billion last month, while residential sales for the year to October stood at $32.5 billion.

Again, the rise in prices was led by Auckland, surging 5.3% over the month to be 14% higher on year-ago levels, Canterbury lifted firmly, up 1.4% over the month to be 7% higher on year-ago levels, while Wellington prices were starting to pick up; now 3.5% higher on levels of a year ago, Ms Turner said.

REINZ chief executive Helen O'Sullivan said although sales volumes rose across the country, prices did not automatically follow.

"The market is very much in two parts - the metropolitan regions of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch [are] where prices are rising, and the rest of the country where price trends are mixed," she said in a statement.

Queenstown had sales rise from 33 a year ago to 45 now, but prices dropped from a median $575,750 to $517,000 - a decline of more than 10%, or $58,750.

Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said the acceleration in house prices "may be stunning", but it was not surprising, given the low interest rates.

"Mortgage rates have fallen very sharply, and as night follows day, the housing market has responded," he said in a statement.

If the profile of surging house sales is an indicator, the bout of house inflation is about to "radiate out of Auckland" to other regions around the the country, he said.

The rise in demand for housing was at odds with this week's surprisingly weak employment figures, which would have typically weighed heavy on household confidence and housing demand, Ms Turner said.

The Reserve Bank appeared "relatively relaxed" about the housing activity and it also expected an increase in new housing construction during the year would help ease pressures, she said.

However, the Reserve Bank, in its recent financial stability review, noted some concerns about the recent increase in prices, in that rises could heighten the risk of a sharp downward price correction in the future, she said.

-simon.hartley@odt.co.nz

Source: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/234114/big-city-volume-underpins-rise-house-sales

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Across U.S., Veterans Day commemorations under way

Saturday marked the first of what will be three days of Veterans Day commemorations across the United States.

The holiday falls on a Sunday, and the federal observance is on Monday. It's the first such day honoring the men and women who served in uniform since the last U.S. troops left Iraq in December 2011.

It's also a chance to thank those who stormed the beaches during World War II ? a population that is rapidly shrinking with most of those former troops now in their 80s and 90s.

___

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, a steady stream of visitors arrived Saturday morning as the names of the 58,000 people on the wall were being read over a loudspeaker.

Some visitors took pictures, others made rubbings of names, and some left mementos: a leather jacket, a flag made out of construction paper, pictures of young soldiers and even several snow globes with an American eagle inside.

Alfred A. Atwood, 65, of Chattanooga, Tenn., was visiting the wall for the first time.

"I've just never been able to do it," Atwood said of visiting the memorial, which was completed in 1982.

Atwood, who later became a police detective, said he knows a number of people on the wall, but the one name he wanted to find Saturday was his friend Ronald L. Wright. The two had grown up together, and when Atwood decided to join the Marines at 18 there was no stopping Wright, Atwood said.

Wright died in 1968 when he stepped on a land mine, Atwood said, and Wright's mother always blamed him for her son's death. He's never been able to bring himself to visit his friend's grave, he said.

On Saturday he found Wright's name on panel 44E, row 60, and he ran his fingers over it, shaking his head.

"I'm still in the blocking stage. I want to go somewhere and sit down and think a minute," he said after seeing Wright's name. "All I can see when I was touching and reading his name was his mother's face telling me I got her son killed."

___

A half-dozen women of various ages knitted intently near a pile of hand-made scarves while frail, silver-haired men sat waiting for a chance to tell their war stories Saturday as tourists and veterans filed into the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

The museum planned a series of events to celebrate the Veterans Day weekend.

The knitters had gathered to commemorate 1940s homefront efforts to supply World War II troops with warm socks and sweaters.

Nearby, Tom Blakey, 92, of New Orleans sat behind a small table with two grainy black and white photos of his younger self, one standing at ease in uniform in 1942, the other aboard a motorcycle in 1944. Also on the table were pictures of a bridge on the Merderet River in Normandy ? a bridge that he and fellow members of the Army's 82nd Airborne fought to secure as the D-Day invasion unfolded in 1944.

Blakey pointed with gnarled fingers at a map of the landing site and said holding the bridge was key to keeping German forces away from Utah and Omaha beaches.

"If we'd a let them get to Utah and Omaha, the men on those beaches would have been in bad shape," he said.

Blakey regularly takes part in oral history programs at the museum, an opportunity he relishes.

"What the hell else would I do with my life at this time?" he said.

___

At the National Cemetery in Bourne, Mass., on Cape Cod, about 1,000 people including Cub Scouts and Gold Star Mothers gathered on a crisp fall day for a short ceremony.

They then spread out to plant 56,000 flags amid the cemetery's flat gravestones, transforming the green landscape into a sea of fluttering red, white and blue.

Until last year, the cemetery did not permit flags or flag holders on graves. That changed under pressure from Paul Monti of Raynham, Mass., whose son, Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti, was killed by Taliban fighters while trying to save a fellow soldier in 2006 in Afghanistan. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor and is buried at the Bourne cemetery.

Paul Monti led a brief ceremony Saturday where the pledge of allegiance was recited, Miss Massachusetts sang the national anthem and a dedication was read.

___

In the Mojave Desert in California, veterans plan to resurrect a war memorial cross that was part of a 13-year legal battle over the separation of church and state.

The Sunday ceremony on Sunrise Rock follows a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union that argued the cross was unconstitutional because it was in the Mojave National Preserve.

The Supreme Court intervened in 2010 and directed a court to consider a land swap, leading to a settlement that transferred Sunrise Rock to veterans groups in exchange for five acres of privately owned land.

Henry Sandoz, who cared for the original cross as part of a promise to a dying World War I veteran, will re-dedicate a new, 7-foot steel cross on the same hilltop.

___

Thousands of spectators are expected to line Fifth Avenue for New York City's Veterans Day Parade on Sunday.

Former Mayor Ed Koch is the grand marshal for the parade, which will run for 30 blocks, starting at 26th Street.

Also marching will be the Navajo Code Talkers, who transmitted coded messages during WWII, and other veteran groups.

Some participants in the parade are collecting coat donations for Superstorm Sandy victims.

The theme is "United we Stand" and the parade marks the 200th anniversary of The War of 1812.

The parade begins at 11:15 a.m. after a wreath-laying ceremony at the Eternal Light Monument at 24th Street. Bleachers and a reviewing stand are located at Fifth Avenue and 41st Street.

___

A few hundred people attended a Veterans Day parade Saturday in downtown Atlanta.

Roger Ware, 68, walked down the sidewalk wearing his old Air Force flight suit and a patch that read, "Viet Cong Hunting Club." He was in the service nearly 24 years, including two tours in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972 as a crewman on a C-130 gunship. He said the military is more respected now than when he returned home from Vietnam. Ware said the Sept. 11 terror attacks probably changed how the country views its armed forces.

"It just wasn't a good time and right now we're kind of riding on the tails of the troops who served in the Middle East," he said.

Farther down the road, veterans Ronald McLendon, 73, of Kennesaw, and Randy Bergman, 59, of Cartersville, were working as parade marshals. McLendon said when he returned from Vietnam, he was spit on by protesters in San Francisco. He was in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was deployed to Vietnam from 1967 to 1968.

He described the parade as a chance to receive a public thank you.

"You've got to remember that today everyone in the military is strictly volunteer," McLendon said. "So there's a lot of guys getting out there, getting shot in Iraq and Afghanistan that volunteered to be in the military."

Squads of high school ROTC students marched in uniforms, chanting as they went along the street.

Bergman said he would reluctantly support sending young soldiers to fight if it was necessary for national defense. He was unsure how and whether the U.S. should end its military involvement in Afghanistan.

"How many lives have we already put over there? And are we going to pull out and say, 'We lost.' I look back to Vietnam and see the same thing," he said.

___

Gresko reported from Washington. McGill reported from New Orleans. Associated Press writer Ray Henry in Atlanta and freelance photojournalist Gretchen Ertl in Bourne, Mass., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/across-us-veterans-day-commemorations-under-way-190118882.html

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EXPERT: Filmmaking Technique Takes Story Telling Out Of Movie ...

By Technology Editor Ian Bush

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) ? The Hobbit is expected to draw big crowds when it?s released next month, but a filmmaking technique might make moviegoers give the thumbs-down.

Some theatres are showing The Hobbit as director Peter Jackson shot it and intends it to be seen.

?Actually doubling the frame rate to 48 frames per second, so viewers are going to see much more motion on the screen. It?s going to look something similar to when you watch the news, for example,? says Chip Murphy, Drexel University?s Cinema and TV editing facility manager.

He says having 48 frames (or consecutive images) per second will be jarring to many; we?re used to 24fps on the big screen.

?That?s our language; that?s what we use to tell our stories. If you change it and double it, it loses that effect. It feels like you?re in real life, and not like you?re trying to get lost inside a movie,? Murphy explains.

Director Jackson says his way of doing things is more realistic and reduces eye strain when you see The Hobbit in 3D. Some who?ve seen a preview complain of a ?soap opera? effect.

Source: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/11/10/expert-filmmaking-technique-takes-story-telling-out-of-movie/

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Ashok Leyland rallies on July-Sept earnings

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ashok-leyland-rallies-july-sept-earnings-071009577--finance.html

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2 oil companies to pay $35M in MTBE suit in NH

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) ? Two oil companies are paying the state of New Hampshire a total of $35 million to settle pending claims from a lawsuit alleging that they added MTBE to gasoline, knowing that it would contaminate ground water supplies, Attorney General Michael Delaney said Thursday.

The state, which sued the companies and others in 2003, contends they knew they were supplying a product with unique hazards ? specifically, that MTBE travels father and is more difficult to clean up than other contaminants.

Shell Oil Company and Sunoco Inc. agreed to the settlement, Delaney said.

A trial against remaining defendants is scheduled to start in Concord on Jan. 7, 2013. They are Exxon Mobil Corp., Irving Oil Co., Citgo Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, and Vitol S.A.

The state is seeking damages to perform comprehensive investigation and remediation of MTBE contamination sites.

"We must ensure that our public waters remain clean and safe for the benefit of all our citizens," Delaney said. He called the settlement "a substantial recovery that will be used to clean up contaminated groundwaters throughout New Hampshire."

At the time the lawsuit was filed, some of the oil companies said when used as intended, MTBE is safe and effective, and the problem was with leaking gasoline storage tanks.

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is a petroleum-based additive that has been used in gasoline since the 1970s to increase octane and reduce smog-causing emissions. Since 1990, it had been used widely in states with air quality problems to satisfy a federal requirement that gasoline contains 2 percent oxygen.

While it was credited for cutting air pollution, MTBE was found in the late 1990s to contaminate drinking water supplies when gasoline is spilled or leaks into surface or groundwater.

A number of states found MTBE in groundwater near leaking gasoline storage tanks and water agencies reported MTBE found in drinking water supplies, although in most cases concentrations did not exceed EPA advisory levels.

The additive has been banned in a number of states, including New Hampshire, which has had a ban in effect since 2007.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-oil-companies-pay-35m-mtbe-suit-nh-172523849--finance.html

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Judge refuses to throw out charges against former BP engineer ...

A federal judge has refused to throw out one of two obstruction of justice charges an ex-engineer for energy company BP faces after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Kurt Mix is accused of deleting text messages about BP PLC's response to the disaster.

Prosecutors claim Mix deliberately deleted more than 200 text messages to and from a supervisor and more than 100 others to and from a contractor to prevent them from being used in a grand jury probe of what Attorney General Eric Holder has called the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Mix, of Katy, Texas, pleaded not guilty on May 3 to both counts. Each count is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. To date, he is the only BP employee indicted in connection with the spill.

Defense lawyers said Thursday that the second of the two charges should be dismissed because it dealt with texts that amounted to innocuous messages among friends, most of them having little or nothing to do with work on the spill that resulted from the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

"It is not a crime, your honor, to delete inconsequential banter between friends and colleagues," defense lawyer Joan McPhee told U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval.

Duval agreed most of the texts were innocuous but he said some dealt with the spill. He said a jury would have to decide their relevance.

During a three-hour hearing on various defense and prosecution motions, Duval also turned down a defense motion seeking more details from the prosecution on how Mix is alleged to have impeded a grand jury investigation into the spill and response.

The judge declined to rule immediately on a defense motion seeking an array of documents dealing with BP's measure of the flow from the spewing well and efforts to stop the flow.

Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/11/judge_refuses_to_throw_out_cha_1.html

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EnjoY#$@ Anji Makhachkala vs Liverpool live online soccer ...

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Source: http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=199511

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Thatcher's party treasurer denies UK child abuse

LONDON (Reuters) - The treasurer of the Conservative Party under former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Friday denied allegations he had sexually abused children in the 1970s and 1980s and warned he may sue to protect his reputation.

Lord Alistair McAlpine, who served as party treasurer from 1975 to 1990, said in a statement that he had been named by ill-informed commentators on the Internet and in the media as the unidentified man accused by one pedophile victim of abusing children in social care.

"Even though these allegations made of me by implication in the broadcast and print media, and made directly about me on the internet, are wholly false and seriously defamatory I can no longer expect the broadcast and print media to maintain their policy of defaming me only by innuendo," he said.

"I therefore have decided that in order to mitigate, if only to some small extent, the damage to my reputation I must publicly tackle these slurs and set the record straight," he said.

"In doing so I am by no means giving up my right to sue those who have defamed me in the recent past or who may do so in the future."

The abuse claims, which follow the unmasking of late BBC star presenter Jimmy Savile as one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders, had stoked concern that a powerful pedophile ring may have operated in Britain in the 1970s and 1980.

That could have proven damaging to Prime Minister David Cameron's party - which rules in an uneasy coalition with centrists - and tarnished the image of the era of Margaret Thatcher, prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

Cameron ordered an investigation this week after Steven Messham, one of hundreds of victims of sexual abuse at children's care homes in Wales over two decades, said in an interview aired by the BBC that a prominent member of the Conservative party had abused him during the 1970s.

That provoked a wave of speculation on social media sites and in the UK media that McAlpine was one of the suspected Conservative politicians.

"I am, as is now well known to readers of the internet and to journalists working for the print and broadcast media, one of the individuals implicated by Mr Messham," McAlpine said. "I did not sexually abuse Mr Messham or any other residents of the children's home in Wrexham."

"Any abuse of children is abhorrent but the sexual abuse to which these vulnerable children were subjected in the 1970's and 1980's is particularly abhorrent," he said.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thatchers-party-treasurer-denies-uk-child-abuse-120213060.html

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James Bond Skyfalling For Heineken | Brookston Beer Bulletin

007-1
Okay, we?ve been inundated with ads lately, so you probably know that the new James Bond film Skyfall opens today, at least in the U.S. I?ve been a huge James Bond fan since I saw my first one in the theater, which was Thunderball, when I was six. I read all the books, and needless to say, saw every film multiple times. I?ve really been enjoying the reboot with Daniel Craig and will be taking my son Porter to see Skyfall this afternoon. This will be his first Bond film in the theater, though he?s seen a couple of them on DVD. I?m looking forward not just to seeing the movie, but in some ways I?m even more excited that he?s really jazzed to see it and has been talking of little else for the last week. There?s just one tiny problem.

james-bond-skyfall-daniel-craig

Heineken has been associated with the Bond franchise for some time now, but the $45 million deal for Skyfall also requires Bond to actually drink some. Now drinking beer is fine, even for Bond, of course. He styles himself as a hedonist, a man who enjoys the finest pleasures across the board. He soliloquizes on that very subject in the pages of the novel Casino Royale. Especially re-set or rebooted here in the present, where beer is every bit the equal of wine and spirits, you?d not only be unsurprised that Bond drinks beer, you?d be downright shocked if he didn?t. If you read the books, you?d know he?s never restricted himself to martinis but usually drinks the preferred alcohol wherever he happens to be, and has enjoyed beer in several of the novels.

I took a detailed look at this six years ago, when it was rumored that Bond would drink Heineken in Casino Royale ? which turned out not to be the case ? but which caused all manner of odd denunciations that the character would never stoop so low as to drink that swill reserved for the Hoi polloi. I don?t mean Heineken, I mean beer in general. Journalists, who could have done a little research, just went apeshit. Check out James Bond?s Beer. I?ll wait here.

So as you can see, beer and Bond have been together for quite some time now, just not in the way the media has portrayed it, as usual taking the propaganda and marketing given them at face value and regurgitating it without doing any fact-checking or wondering at how convenient it all seemed. Watching the first Bond film, Dr. No, with my son last weekend, I again noted that in Jamaica he?s talking with Quarrel at a bar and Red Stripe can be seen behind the bar. A few minutes later, fighting in the back room of the bar, Bond is pushed over onto a pile of empty Red Stripe cartons that go flying everywhere. Why they?re empty is a bit of a mystery, but the fact is although he never drinks any, there?s been beer front and center since the very first official film. In the novel, The Man with the Golden Gun, he finally manages to drink some Red Stripe. In fact, he drinks three of them waiting for someone in a cafe.

But in Skyfall apparently he?s seen drinking a Heineken from the bottle, while in bed with co-star Tonia Sotiropoulou. MGM has circulated the still below showing just that.

Skyfall

Here was a portion of my take on Heineken and James Bond from six years ago:

Propaganda aside, I?m certainly in favor of James Bond drinking beer. If they?re trying to re-invent (or reboot) James Bond ? which is my understanding of what the new film represents ? it makes sense that a modern Bond would have embraced good beer along with the other pleasures of life today. That would be in keeping with the character?s philosophy. Undoubtedly one of the reasons that Bond was not a beer drinker in 1953 and beyond, when Fleming began writing the Bond novels, was that there were not many good beers widely available worldwide and what was available was not often written about. Remember Michael Jackson?s first beer book wasn?t published until 1977. And American wines were held in no better regard during that time period, either. So keeping Bond?s tastes and preferences rooted in a time fifty years ago, when the diversity and quality of alcohol beverages was vastly different than it is today, doesn?t make sense anymore, if indeed it ever did.

But Heineken? Not Heineken. Bond?s character would never drink such swill. He wouldn?t be a snob about wine, food, clothes, cars and practically everything else and then drink such a pedestrian beer. In fact, in the novel Casino Royale, in Chapter 8, just after ordering champagne, Bond makes the following pronouncement:

?You must forgive me,? he said. ?I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It?s very pernickety and old-maidish really, but then when I?m working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.?

So there is absolutely no way someone who would say that would turn around and order a skunked green-bottle of Heineken. Maybe a Thomas Hardy 1968, a Samuel Adams Utopias, a Deus, or a Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus. He?d more likely order something showy, expensive and impressive; something that showed he had good taste. And that would never be a Heineken. Often Bond orders local specialties in the novels and films, and Casino Royale takes place in northern France. The fictional resort town where most of the novel takes place is supposedly near the mouth of the Somme River in the Picardie region, which is only about two hours from Belgium. So while France is not known for its beers, a good selection of Belgian beers would likely be available at the casino and area restaurants. That?s what a beer savvy Bond would order.

To which today I would only add that he?d never, ever drink it out of the bottle! Well, maybe not never, but if he had the choice, he?d do it the proper way, out of a glass because his character is all about knowing what?s the right way to do things and then taking a particular pleasure in doing them correctly. And what self-respecting English gentleman ? or for that matter any Brit ? would drink Dutch lager over his native ale, especially when his job was protecting the British way of life? It?s unseemly.

To take unseemly a few notches further, Refined Guy reported that Heineken USA will release two special metal bottles of Heineken using James Bond imagery. Known as ?Star Bottles, on the plus side, at least the beer won?t get skunked as easily as in the green glass bottles.

heineken-bond-2012

According to the website Bond Lifestyle, Heineken pulled out all the stops for the Amsterdam premiere of the film, with an obscene amount of product placement for the event. And I?m not alone in believing this tie-in is not the best idea, at least the way it?s being done, with many, many pundits weighing in across the globe. But I think an Australian commentator, Lucy Clark, summed it up best in B&T, when she said. ?In the golden era, products were chosen because they fitted with the character. The sad thing is that, in the modern era, the character and plot is decided by sponsors.?

So while I?m really looking forward to seeing the film today ? and hoping this will be one of those father/son moments that Porter remembers long after I?m gone (as it is for me) ? what I hope above all else is that seeing that out-of-character Heineken won?t break the fourth wall for me and make it harder to immerse myself in the experience and just enjoy it. Fingers crossed.

Source: http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/james-bond-skyfalling-for-heineken/

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'No,' Rihanna And I Are Not Dating, Chris Brown Says

'We're working on our friendship now,' Breezy tells Power 106's Big Boy during a Los Angeles radio interview on Friday.
By Rob Markman


Rihanna and Chris Brown at 2012 Video Music Awards
Photo: MTV

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1697072/chris-brown-rihanna-not-dating.jhtml

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