Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

400 ISIS Fighters Roaming the Streets of Britain

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Almost 400 ISIS jihadis trained in Iraq and Syria are now at large on Britain’s streets… as it’s revealed just 14 fighters who have returned to the UK have been jailed

Just 14 battle-hardened ISIS fighters who returned to Britain after waging war in Syria have been jailed, the Government has admitted.

Imran Khawaja was jailed for 12 years after he was caught trying to sneak back into Britain
Imran Khawaja was jailed for 12 years after he was caught trying to sneak back into Britain

DailyMail: The shock figure is far lower than Ministers previously claimed and means almost 400 jihadis trained in Syria and Iraq are at large on Britain’s streets.

Experts told The Mail on Sunday they could use the deadly skills with automatic weapons and bombs that they honed on the battlefield to plot atrocities such as the Paris and Brussels attacks in the UK, massacring hundreds.

Figures slipped out in Parliament reveal that the Home Office believes 850 Britons have travelled to fight for the Islamic State terror group and although many have been killed by drone strikes and in battle, about 400 have sneaked back into the UK.

Any of them could be prosecuted as it is a crime to attend terrorist training camps and also to be a member of a banned group such as ISIS.

But Ministers admit that only 14 people who have fought for Islamic State have been convicted, despite mistakenly claiming the number was 54 earlier this year.

Last night, critics urged Home Secretary Amber Rudd to give more money to the Border Force so it can catch terrorists as they sneak back into the country, as well as ensuring that police and MI5 have enough officers to track down those already here.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, who believes thousands of Britons have travelled to Syria and Iraq, said: ‘It is a tiny number who have been prosecuted and it’s absurd to say this is any form of success.

‘If they know who they are, they should be prosecuted but the police and security services don’t have the resources to do that.

Professor Anthony Glees, Director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, told The Mail on Sunday that the ‘minuscule’ number of prosecutions was ‘very disturbing’.

‘These people have been trained to be killers and people will think it beggars belief [that they haven’t been prosecuted]. What message are we sending out to the world?

‘If you go out to join a regime like so-called Islamic State, you forfeit your right to come back.’

Former Security Minister Lord West of Spithead said: ‘We know that people who have been abroad and radicalised are extremely dangerous.

HATE CLERIC CONVERT IS ‘KILLED FIGHTING FOR ISLAMIC STATE’

Terence Le Page, 30, died in Syria in June

Terence Le Page, 30, died in Syria in June

A white convert to Islam who became a disciple of jailed hate cleric Anjem Choudary is believed to have been killed in Syria fighting for Islamic State.

Terence Le Page, 30, died in Syria in June, according to jihadists on social media. Le Page, from Lewisham, South-East London, converted to Islam around five years ago, shortly after his older brother, Dean, 31, also became a Muslim.

Both brothers then became members of Choudary’s banned group Al-Muhajiroun.

Terence took the Muslim name Abu Khalid and is believed to have gone to Syria in the middle of last year with his wife and two children.

Last night, his mother Donna Le Page, 50, of South-East London, confirmed she had received news of his death.

‘Clearly we need to be able to keep a handle on that and make sure they are properly monitored. If we’re not doing that, we are letting the public down.’

Among the hundreds of ISIS veterans at large in the UK is Maarg Kahsay, a student who fled to Syria while awaiting trial for rape.

He spent up to two months in IS territory as a fighter in 2014 but then returned home and, as this newspaper revealed in the summer, is free to roam the streets of London and live in a council flat.

Another jihadi, Gianluca Tomaselli, is working as a parking attendant at an NHS hospital in London after spending up to a year fighting in Syria.

The revelation that only 14 returnees have been convicted was quietly made in a written answer given to the House of Lords.

Ministers had claimed in May that 54 jihadis had been successfully prosecuted – but last month admitted this larger figure wrongly included dozens who had been fundraising for terrorism or attempting to reach the war zone.

In the new statement, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said: ‘Data from the Crown Prosecution Service shows that they have successfully prosecuted ten cases involving 14 defendants who have returned to the UK and are suspected of having fought in Syria and/or Iraq.’

She added: ‘All those who return from engaging in the conflict in Syria and Iraq can expect to be subject to investigation to determine if they have committed criminal offences abroad or represent a threat to our national security.’

Police and MI5 attempt to contact all those who return from the war zone to work out how dangerous they are.

Some will be left alone if they only went to experience life in the so-called Islamic State or to deliver humanitarian aid, but others will be put under surveillance to see if they form terror cells or start to plan attacks.

Other returnees will be referred to NHS mental health services or the Channel deradicalisation programme if it is felt they can be turned away from extremism.

Among the dangerous returnees who have been locked up is Imran Khawaja, who tried to sneak back into Britain

undetected by faking his own death. 

The West Londoner was caught at Dover and jailed for 12 years in February last year.

Labour’s former policing spokesman Jack Dromey MP said: ‘Britain faces the most serious terrorist threat for a generation. We need to stop jihadis going to the Middle East and we need to be confident that when people return they are under proper surveillance.’

 

 

What is the Reason for this Global Demand by Putin?

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Russia recently held defense drills for 40 million citizens in apparent preparation for an all-out nuclear war.

“And earlier this month, Putin’s ministers announced they had built bunkers capable of housing Moscow’s 14 million people.

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The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has stated that it is considering the return of Russian military bases to Cuba and Vietnam. Judging by everything, this information slipped through the cracks into the public space by accident, as most officials now prefer to either remain silent or answer evasively in the face of reporters’ questions. For a list of targeted Russian bases globally, click here.

Related reading: Breaking Sanctions with Cuba?

Related reading: The U.S. has had a Russian Problem of Espionage for Decades

Related reading: Rubio was Right, the Russian Memo, Just the Facts

Russia orders all officials to fly home any relatives living abroad, as tensions mount over the prospect of a global war

DailyMail: Russia is ordering all of its officials to fly home any relatives living abroad amid heightened tensions over the prospect of global war, it has been claimed.

Politicians and high-ranking figures are said to have received a warning from president Vladimir Putin to bring their loved-ones home to the ‘Motherland’, according to local media.

It comes after Putin cancelled a planned visit to France amid a furious row over Moscow’s role in the Syrian conflict and just days after it emerged the Kremlin had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has also warned that the world is at a ‘dangerous point’ due to rising tensions between Russia and the US.

According to the Russian site Znak.com, administration staff, regional administrators, lawmakers of all levels and employees of public corporations have been ordered to take their children out of foreign schools immediately.

Failure to act will see officials jeopardising their chances of promotion, local media has reported.

The exact reason for the order is not yet clear.

But Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky is quoted by the Daily Star as saying: ‘This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites to some ‘big war’.’

Relations between Russia and the US are at their lowest since the Cold War and have soured in recent days after Washington pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks

The Kremlin has also suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium.

Just days ago, it was reported that Russia had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border as tensions escalated between the world’s largest nation and the West.

The Iskander missiles sent to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Nato members Poland and Lithuania, are now within range of major Western cities including Berlin.

Polish officials – whose capital Warsaw is potentially threatened – have described the move as of the ‘highest concern’.

RUSSIA TESTS BALLISTIC MISSILES AS TENSIONS BUILD

Russia’s military conducted a series of intercontinental ballistic missile tests on Wednesday, the latest flexing of its muscles as tensions with the US spike over Syria.

Russian forces fired a nuclear-capable rocket from a Pacific Fleet submarine in the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan, state-run RIA Novosti reported.

A Topol missile was shot off from a submarine in the Barents Sea, and a third was launched from an inland site in the north-west of the vast country, Russian agencies reported.

The latest display of might by Moscow – which has been conducting regular military drills since ties with the West slumped in 2014 over Ukraine – comes as tensions have shot up in recent days.

Russia has pulled the plug on a series of deals with the US – including a symbolic disarmament pact between the two nuclear powers to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium – as Washington has halted talks on Syria.

The Kremlin has also moved an air defence missile system and missile cruisers to the war-ravaged country to bolster its forces there.

That comes as the West has accused Moscow of committing potential war crimes in its bombing of rebel-held part of the city of Aleppo in support of an assault by regime forces.

Washington has previously lashed out at Moscow for resorting to alleged “nuclear sabre-rattling” as East-West relations fell to the worst level since the Cold War following Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.

Putin’s decision to cancel his Paris visit came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian forces had committed a ‘war crime’ in the battered city of Aleppo with the support of Russian air strikes.

Putin had been due in Paris on October 19 to inaugurate a spiritual centre at a new Russian Orthodox church near the Eiffel Tower, but Hollande had insisted his Russian counterpart also took part in talks with him about Syria.

The unprecedented cancellation of a visit so close to being finalised is a ‘serious step… reminiscent of the Cold War’, said Russian foreign policy analyst Fyodor Lukyanov.

‘This is part of the broader escalation in the tensions between Russia and the West, and Russia and NATO,’ he told AFP.

The Kremlin has also been angered over the banning of the Russian Paralympic team from the Rio Olympics amid claims of state-sponsored doping of its athletes.

Meanwhile, the top advisor to US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said the FBI is investigating Russia’s possible role in hacking thousands of his personal emails.

But Russian officials have vigorously rejected accusations of meddling in the US presidential elections and dismissed allegations that Moscow was behind a series of recent hacks on US institutions.

Retired Russian Lt. Gen. Evgeny Buzhinsky told the BBC: ‘Of course there is a reaction. As far as Russia sees it, as Putin sees it, it is full-scale confrontation on all fronts. If you want a confrontation, you’ll get one.

‘But it won’t be a confrontation that doesn’t harm the interests of the United States. You want a confrontation, you’ll get one everywhere.’

Earlier this week British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson waded into the row, calling for anti-war campaigners to protest outside the Russian embassy in London.

Johnson said the ‘wells of outrage are growing exhausted’ and anti-war groups were not expressing sufficient outrage at the conflict in Aleppo.

‘Where is the Stop the War Coalition at the moment? Where are they?’ he said during a parliamentary debate.

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Mexican Officials are Smuggling Haitians into the U.S.

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Immigration Official Warns 40,000 Haitians On Their Way To U.S. Via California’s Mexico Border

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A top U.S. immigration official says 40,000 Haitians may be on their way to the United States amid what she calls an “emergency situation” on California’s border with Mexico.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana said Thursday in Washington that the estimate came from other governments during a recent trip she made to Central America.

Saldana told the House Judiciary Committee that word of the new arrivals contributed to the Homeland Security Department’s announcement on Thursday that it was lifting special protections shielding Haitians from deportation that were put in place after their country’s 2010 earthquake. She says changing conditions in Haiti also played a part.

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Mexican officials quietly helping thousands of Haitian illegal immigrants reach U.S.

WashingtonTimes: Mexican officials are quietly helping thousands of illegal immigrant Haitians make their way to the United States, according to an internal Homeland Security document that details the route taken by the migrants, the thousands of dollars paid to human smugglers along the way and the sometimes complicit role of the governments of America’s neighbors.

More than 6,000 Haitians arrived at the border in San Diego over the last year — a staggering 18-fold increase over fiscal year 2015. Some 2,600 more were waiting in northern Mexico as of last week, and 3,500 others were not far behind, waiting in Panama to make the trip north, according to the documents, obtained by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican.

The migrants are paying at least $2,350 to be smuggled from South America to the doorstep of the U.S., where many present themselves at the border and many demand asylum, hoping to gain a foothold here.

Boat maker Audit Volmar walks inside the shell of a sail boat he's building on the beach of Leogane, Haiti. The 30-foot-long boats are purchased by smugglers for around $12,000 and then taken to northern Haiti to find passengers. (Associated Press)
Photo by: Dieu Nalio Chery
Boat maker Audit Volmar walks inside the shell of a sail boat he’s building on the beach of Leogane, Haiti. The 30-foot-long boats are purchased by smugglers for around $12,000 and then taken to northern Haiti to find passengers. (Associated Press)

“Haitians have forged a dangerous and clandestine new path to get to the United States,” says the document, which lays out in detail the route and the prices paid along the way for smugglers, bus tickets and, where they can be obtained legally, transit documents.

Their trek begins in Brazil and traces a 7,100-mile route up the west coast of South American and Central America, crossing 11 countries and taking as long as four months.

Some countries are more welcoming than others, according to the document, which was reviewed by The Washington Times. Nicaragua is listed as being particularly vigilant about deporting the Haitian migrants if they are caught — so smugglers charge $1,000 to get through that country.

When traveling through Central American countries the Haitians will claim instead to be from Congo, believing that authorities in Central America aren’t likely to go through the hassle of deporting them to West Africa if they are caught, Homeland Security said.

Being smuggled through Ecuador costs $200, while Guatemala and Colombia cost $300 apiece, the document says.

Mexico, though, is more accommodating to the migrants. It stops them at its southern border in Tapachula, processes them and — though they don’t have legal entry papers — “they receive a 20-day transit document” giving them enough time to get a bus across Mexico, arriving eventually in Tijuana, just south of San Diego.

Once in the United States, many of the Haitians claim asylum and fight deportation in cases that can drag on for years, guaranteeing the migrants a foothold in the country in the meantime. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it received referrals to conduct credible fear screenings, which is the first part of an affirmative asylum claim, for 523 Haitians over the last year.

Other Haitians who are apprehended are put on a slow deportation track, giving them a chance to blend into the shadows along with other illegal immigrants. Southern Florida is a particularly attractive destination for the Haitians once they are released into the U.S., the document said.

Haitians are the latest nationality to surge into the United States, along with Central Americans enticed by the belief that lax enforcement policies under President Obama will enable them to stay, even if it means living in the shadows.

“The exponential increase in Haitian migrants showing up at the southern border is truly astonishing, and it shows one of the many consequences of President Obama’s immigration policy, which invites illegal entry and exploitation of the system,” said Joe Kasper, chief of staff for Mr. Hunter.

He said he was struck by “Mexico’s complicity” in helping the Haitians by granting them legal passage just to reach the United States.

“Mexico doesn’t want them, but it’s entirely content with putting migrants — in this case Haitians — right on America’s doorstep,” he said.

The Mexican Embassy in Washington has not responded to repeated inquiries from The Times, dating back to last month, on its role in the Haitian surge.

As many as 75,000 Haitians fled to Brazil after the 2010 earthquake. Some 50,000 still remain, but the rest have left — including a steady stream over the last year headed for the United States.

Haiti’s embassy in Washington promised to make someone available to discuss the situation, but didn’t follow through.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that guards the borders and ports of entry, acknowledged “an uptick” in Haitians arriving without permission. In fact, the numbers leapt from 339 in fiscal year 2015 to 6,121 in 2016 — an increase of more than 1,800 percent.

“While CBP officials have made adjustments to port operations to accommodate this uptick in arriving individuals, CBP officials are used to dynamic changes at our local border crossings, including San Ysidro, the nation’s busiest border crossing, and are able to flex resources to accommodate those changes,” the agency said in a statement.

CBP says it processed the Haitians “on a case by case basis” and those that don’t have permission to be in the U.S. are sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the deportation agency.

As of Sept. 24, ICE had 619 Haitians in detention.

ICE had been moving slowly on deportations of Haitians under a humanitarian policy in place since the 2010 earthquake. But on Sept. 21, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced a change, saying agents would again begin rapid deportations of Haitians caught at the border.

Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the data shows just how much the smuggling operations control illegal immigration. She said there are faster routes through Mexico and into the United States, but the fact that 90 percent of them are coming to San Diego is evidence they have an arrangement, likely with the Sinaloa cartel.

She also that by issuing transit permits, Mexico was assisting not only the Haitians’ illegal migration, but also providing a financial boost to the very criminal cartels that Mexican officials say are a threat to their society.

“I understand how this collusion or ambivalence to a criminal phenomenon works in Mexico, but I don’t understand why the Obama administration is letting it happen,” she said. “We could shut this down in a hurry simply by telling asylum seekers that they need to apply in one of the eight or nine safe countries that they passed through on the way. Otherwise we are just asking to see another 160,000 or more applicants next year.”

Secret Refugee Operations in Vermont, Your State Too?

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Judicial Watch: Federal Contractor Tells Local Official to Keep Syria Refugee Plans Secret

 BostonGlobe  NBC

‘If we open it up to anybody and everybody, all sorts of people will come out of the woodwork’ — Amila Merdzanovic, executive director, Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program 

Second Group Helping to Resettle Syrian Refugees in Rutland, Vermont Received 91% of its Funding from Government Grants

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 128 pages of documents it obtained from the mayor of Rutland, Vermont, showing a concerted effort by the mayor and a number of private organizations to conceal from the public their plans to resettle 100 Syrian refugees into the small southern Vermont town.

The documents include an April 14, 2016, email from Amila Merdzanovic, executive director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, to Mayor Christopher Louras, in which she wrote:

I want to share with you the concern my HQ has about holding a public forum. If we open it up to anybody and everybody, all sorts of people will come out of woodwork. Anti-immigrant, anti-anything. They suggest that the forum be invite only but make it as wide as possible. Work with faith leaders, United Way, etc… Perhaps, we could go back to the Congregational Church and continue the conversation there.

The mayor and resettlement organizations shrouded the plan in such secrecy that not even the town’s aldermen were informed of what was taking place behind closed doors. The aldermen eventually wrote to the U.S. Department of State protesting the plan and opened an investigation into the mayor’s actions. The State Department has not yet ruled on whether it will resettle refugees in Rutland despite the aldermen’s protest.

Handwritten notes state that the issue was, “Not what can ‘we’ do for ‘them,’ but what the diversity, cultural richness do for the community.” The documents contain detailed discussions of what Rutland will need to provide for the refugees – including housing, jobs, medical care, and places for worship.

Judicial Watch received the documents in response to a Vermont Public Records Law request to the office of Mayor Christopher Louras.

Merdzanovic later told the Boston Globe that the hidden talks were “the right thing to do — to move slowly, keep it to a small circle of people, and then expand.”

On April 10, 2016, she wrote to the director of the State Refugee Office about her coordination with the mayor to keep the resettlement program secret:

He did share with me that the Governor’s office called him after getting a frantic call from DOL [Vermont Department of Labor] inquiring about the plan to resettle ‘100 Syrians in the next month’ in Rutland.  Again, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of not sharing the information even if it is confidentially. Please respect our process, you will have plenty of opportunity to share and take action once we have met with the stakeholders. At that point we can and will share it widely. It will not serve any one of us well if the community in Rutland learned about it through the grapevine and not directly from us. The above example shows that what people hear and how they interpret it is two different things.

A May 3 document shows Hal Cohen, secretary of the agency for human services, introducing a meeting: “Vermont gains from diversity – new ideas, delicious food (laughs) …” A set of April meeting notes by the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants stated: “Refugees can bring global perspectives and expertise … direct knowledge about history and world events (unfiltered by media) … synergize energy & momentum with youth.”

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nonprofit based in Virginia, is the parent organization of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program working with the mayor’s office. According to its financial statements the Committee received $46,560,462 of its $50,858,706 (or 91.45%) for fiscal year 2015 from “government grants.”

Local opponents of the refugee plans wanted a public vote on the proposal and transparency on the refugee settlement plan.

In December 2015, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. State Department to obtain documents about the Obama administration’s plan to resettle Syrian refugees across the country.  Judicial Watch is investigating the Obama administration’s Refugee and Resettlement program, which plans to bring an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States in 2016, and even more in 2017.  Obama is pressing ahead with his plan even though 129 people were killed and 350 were wounded by Syrian-trained terrorists recently in Paris.  The Obama administration is working in conjunction with The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to settle these individuals all across the U.S.  The federal government contracts with non-profits and other entities to settle and provide financial payments to refugees.

“Americans should be concerned that the Obama administration is funneling at least $46 million in tax dollars to a shady operation that encourages elected officials to cover up Obama’s Syrian refugee scheme,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

WikiLeaks Released More Podesta Emails, Political Media Marriage

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It is rather humorous at this point in the process as John Podesta, the Hillary campaign architect says he is not sure any of the releases are authentic. Then Hillary and the government says that the hacks are authentic and Russia is the culprit hacker. Then often, including the second debate, Donald Trump says no one can prove it is Russia and further, there may be no hack. Sigh…all of them are misguiding the American voters with the exception of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, it IS Russia.

So we have a whole campaign season for the White House that is riddled with government agencies, hackers and dinner date types in media.

WikiLeaks on Monday published 2,000 new documents that it claims were stolen from the email files of the chairman of Hillary Clinton campaign, shortly after the U.S. government linked the anti-secrecy group to Russian hackers.

The 2,086 emails of John Podesta’s posted to WikiLeaks’ website on Monday follow a similarly sized batch of messages released on Friday evening.

The messages date from as recently as this year, and include several discussions about campaign tactics and updates, as well as spam messages. The cache of emails released on Friday included what appeared to be portions of controversial speeches Clinton gave to major banks.

In one of the newly released emails, opinion writer Brent Budowsky, who writes a column for The Hill, told Podesta that the Clinton campaign was giving prominence to discussion about President Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs by trying to limit his media exposure.

“I had a multi-email exchange with someone in the media this morning—a name you would know—who is telling me that there are people close to the Clintons who says WJC’s sex life could be damaging to her,” Budowsky wrote, referring to Bill Clinton. More here from The Hill.

So all politicians have their favorites and for Democrats, they are called ‘friendly media;. Those media types are from various outlets, after all, most of the time the stories are shopped while others are purposely planted.

Hacked: Clinton campaign worked with NYT reporter behind scenes

FNC: Internal documents made public on Sunday revealed a reporter for the New York Times working with Democratic officials to promote Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy, with party apparatchiks saying she has “never disappointed” them.

The January 2015 document centering on Clinton’s media strategy, released by the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0, was describing Maggie Haberman, who worked for Politico but who moved to the Times that month.

“We are all in agreement that the time is right [to] place a story with a friendly journalist in the coming days that positions us a little more transparently while achieving [our] goals,” said the memo, which was first published by The Intercept.

“We have [had] a very good relationship with Maggie Haberman of Politico over the last year,” the unsigned document noted. “We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed. While we should have a larger conversation in the near future about a broader strategy for reengaging the beat press the covers HRC, for this we think we can achieve our objective and do the most shaping by going to Maggie.”

The Intercept reported that metadata pointed to Nick Merrill, the campaign’s press secretary, as the document’s author. It is unclear which party apparatus Guccifer purportedly hacked in order to obtain the document. Guccifer is the same persona that took credit for breaches of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over the summer.
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