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Yale’s Robert Shiller Sees ‘Signs of Softening’ in Housing

“The housing market is slowing down after torrid gains through much of last year, says Nobel laureate economist Robert Shiller of Yale University.

Indeed, the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for 20 cities (named after him) rose 13.2 percent in the year through January, That’s the smallest gain since August, and it’s down from 13.4 percent in the year through December.

Meanwhile, investors such as Blackstone have been curtailing their purchases of houses. Originally these investors were likely attracted by the upward momentum in the housing market since spring 2012 — momentum that was much stronger than in the stock market, Shiller tells CNBC…..”

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Leaked Documents Show Canada is Planning to Invade Syria

“The pro-Israeli government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is making diplomatic and military preparations for military intervention in Syria, leaked documents show.

Canada’s National Defense has drawn up at least five scenarios for the country’s military mission in Syria, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.

In one scenario, Canada recognizes “a legitimate armed opposition group” fighting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

To justify a war on Syria, the National Defense alludes to “the rapidly deteriorating conditions in Syria, its impact on neighboring countries and … the importance of Middle East stability.”

Daniel Blouin, spokesman for the National Defense, has described such plans as “routine to significant international events.”

Separate documents reveal that Canada has been training alternatives to Assad’s government…..”

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Get Your QEG On Yo!

“In a world of problems and solutions, few ideas spur both immediate hope and skepticism as the idea of free energy, and, on the brink of ecological disaster, nothing may be of greater importance to the human race.

The story of Nikola Tesla is a remarkable reminder of how our economic, political and media systems create our reality, because it shows how human ingenuity can be co-opted, shut-down, taken-over and hushed by powerful people with financial interests at stake. Fortunately, the legacy of Tesla lives on and people are now more interested than ever in his theories about cosmic energy and his patents for energy systems that could offer promise for liberating earth from dependence on fossil fuels.

Could it be that his vision has finally come to fruition and has been made available to the public, some 100 years after his patent for a fuel-less electricity generator?

“This new power for the driving of the world’s machinery will be derived from the energy which operates the universe, the cosmic energy, whose central source for the earth is the sun and which is everywhere present in unlimited quantities.” –Nikola Tesla

In March of 2014, a small group of independent engineers and developers released to the public open-source plans for a continuously running fuel-less electricity generator based on a patent by Nikola Tesla, and re-designed by inventor James Robitaille. Calling it the Quantum Energy Generator, or QEG, the portable device is supposedly capable of producing enough electricity to power a modern home, and is about the size and weight of a home gas generator.

“The Quantum Electric Generator system (QEG) is an adaptation of one of Nikola Tesla’s many patented electrical generator / dynamo / alternator designs. The particular patent referenced is No. 511,916, titled simply “Electric Generator”, and dated January 2, 1894 (see back of this manual). The adaptation is a conversion from a linear system, to a rotary system.

The QEG prototype is scaled to produce electrical power in the range of 10-15 kW (kilowatts) continuously, and can be set up to provide either 120 Volt or 230-240 Volt single phase output. We are also planning future designs to provide 3-phase power.” [Fix The World]

Developed by an organization known as the ‘Fix the World Council,’ and promoted by the lively Hopegirl, the prototype for the QEG was recently crowd-funded by over 600 independent contributors, and the plans for the QEG have been made available to the public for download here:

Download Plans for the Quantum Energy Generator here..…”

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Higher Prison Populations Does Not Necessarily Lead to Less Crime or Safer Neighborhoods, Go Figure

“The predatory corporate prison enterprise aims to privatize profits and socialize losses. This combination has led to a situation where correctional facilities have only one incentive: ensure that new bodies arrive as fast as possible, and keep them in a state of indentured servitude for as long as possible.

As you’ll see in the infographic below, the bodies are indeed arriving quickly to fill the coffers of those who are reaping massive profit from caging as much of the public as they can get away with. Thirty-seven states have signed onto this system which promotes a dangerous mutually beneficial relationship between government and corporations. A closer look reveals that it is definitely not beneficial for ordinary citizens and the communities which house these prisons.

America already holds 25% of the world’s prison population, with the number of these prisoners held in private prisons rising 20-fold in the last decade. As the economy declines, there are new opportunities presented by reintroducing debtors prisons, formally abolished in the early 1800s.

Perhaps more troubling is the heightened criminalization of children for behavior which previously was considered merely a nuisance, not something worthy of handcuffs and the big house. The trend is clearly toward making nearly every activity a potential prison-worthy crime….”

 

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Russia Tests a Multi Warhead ICBM for Shits and Giggles

“Russia’s military carried out a flight test of a new multi-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile on Monday amid growing tensions with the United States over the crisis in Ukraine.

The SS-27 Mod 2 road-mobile ICBM was launched around 2:40 a.m. EST from Russia’s Plesetsk launch facility, located about 500 miles north of Moscow.

“The main purpose of the launch is to validate the reliability of a batch of this class of missiles made at the Votkinsk Plant,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov told state-run Interfax-AVN.

An unspecified number of simulated nuclear warheads landed at an impact range on the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East, Yegorov said. The distance is around 3,500 miles.

The SS-27 Mod 2 is Russia’s newest ICBM and has been touted by Russian officials as designed specifically to defeat U.S. missile defenses.

Mark B. Schneider, a missile specialist with National Institute for Public Policy, said there is evidence indicating the Russians have violated the START arms treaty by developing the SS-27 Mod 2 with multiple warheads.

“The original missile that Russia called the Topol M Variant 2 and we call the SS-27 was a single warhead missile,” Schneider told the Free Beacon. “START prohibits increasing the declared number of warheads.”

The missile test launch followed an incident Saturday when a Russian Su-24 jet conducted a dozen low-altitude passes over a U.S. warship in the Black Sea. The Pentagon called the maneuver “provocative.”

“The aircraft did not respond to multiple queries and warnings from USS Donald Cook, and the event ended without incident after approximately 90 minutes,” Army Col. Steven Warren said.

“The Donald Cook is more than capable of defending itself against two Su-24s,” the colonel said.

Warren said the aircraft appeared to be authorized to make the low passes. “We’ve seen the Russians conduct themselves unprofessionally and in violation of international norms in Ukraine for several months, and these continued acts of provocation and unprofessionalism do nothing to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, which we called on the Russians to do,” he said.

The warship has been in the Black Sea in a show-of-strength deployment. It is currently making a port visit to Constanta, Romania.

The Russian ICBM, which Moscow calls the RS-24 Yars missile, will replace older Topol mobile ICBMs.

The United States currently has no comparable road-mobile ICBM. The mobility makes the missiles very difficult to detect and target…..”

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Ukraine Says Military Operation in East Has Begun, Russia Expects Civil War to Breakout

“A Ukrainian military operation to wrest control of cities in the east from pro-Russian militants has begun, Ukraine’s acting president said Tuesday, as Russia’s foreign minister warned use of force could derail international talks on the crisis.

Oleksandr Turchynov said that a phased “antiterrorist” operation began in the early morning hours in the northern Donetsk region, where the majority of the cities commandeered by pro-Russian forces are located. But there were no immediate reports of specific action and it was not clear how big the effort was.

“Overnight, an antiterrorist operation began in the north of Donetsk. But it will be phased, responsible and balanced. The purpose of the actions, I stress once again, is to protect the citizens of Ukraine,” he told Ukraine’s parliament, according to Interfax.

The swelling unrest is posing a major challenge to the new authorities in Kiev. The country’s military is ill-equipped to face off with pro-Russian forces who have barricaded themselves inside buildings in city centers in the east, once the key base of support for ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. A major operation to roust them could be bloody.

In Slovyansk, which emerged as a key city in the recent wave of unrest, there was no sign of the Ukrainian military and the mood remained calm, although many shops were closed. A man guarding a barricade outside the city’s main police station, which was seized on Sunday, said the protesters were prepared for any assault…..”

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Core Inflation Rises

“Inflation unexpectedly accelerated in March due to increased costs of food and shelter, according to just-released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Both the headline consumer price index and the “core” price index (which excludes food and energy prices) advanced 0.2% in March from the previous month, ahead of consensus estimates for a 0.1% rise in both series, matching February’s pace.

The year-over-year change in the core index rose to 1.7% from 1.6%, while the year-over-year change in the headline index was boosted to 1.5% from 1.1%.

housing-inflation
Economists expected the former to hold steady at 1.6% and the latter to rise to 1.4%, due to a drop in energy prices in March 2013……”

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Another Chemical Attack in Syria Took Place Without So Much as a Notice

“Both sides in Syria’s bloody civil war said Saturday that a rural village fell victim to a poison gas attack, an assault that reportedly injured scores of people amid an ongoing international effort to rid the country of chemical weapons.

What exactly happened Friday in Kfar Zeita, a rebel-held village in Hama province some 125 miles north of Damascus, remains unclear and likely won’t be known for some time. It took United Nations weapons inspectors months to say it was likely some chemical weapons attacks happened last year, including an August attack that killed hundreds and nearly sparked Western airstrikes against President Bashar Assad’s forces.

But online videos posted by rebel activists from Kfar Zeita echoed earlier images that sparked a world outcry, showing pale-faced men, women and children gasping for breath at a field hospital. They suggest an affliction by some kind of poison — and yet another clouded incident where both sides blame each other in a conflict that activists say has killed more than 150,000 people with no end in sight.

The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said the poison gas attack hurt dozens of people, though it did not identify the gas used.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that relies on a network of on-the-ground volunteers, said the gas attack happened during air raids that left heavy smoke over the area. It reported that people suffered from suffocation and breathing problems after the attack, but gave no further details.

State-run Syrian television blamed members of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front rebel group for the attack, saying they used chlorine gas to kill two people and injure more than 100. It did not say how it confirmed chlorine was used.

Chlorine, one of the most commonly manufactured chemicals in the U.S., is used to purify drinking water. But as a gas, it can be deadly, with the German army using it in warfare in World War I. The Geneva Protocol of 1925, which Syria signed, banned its use in battle.

The TV report also claimed the Nusra Front is preparing for another chemical attack against the Wadi Deif area in the northern province of Idlib, as well as another area in Hama. The government station did not explain how it knew the Nusra Front’s plans.

Activists in the village could not be reached Saturday.

An activist from Hama who is currently in Turkey and is in contact with residents told The Associated Press that the attack occurred around sunset Friday. The man, who goes with the name Amir al-Basha, said the air raids on the rebel-held village came as nearby areas including Morek and Khan Sheikhoun have witnessed intense clashes between troops and opposition fighters.

An amateur video posted online by opposition activists showed a hospital room in Kfar Zeita that was packed with men and children, some of whom breathing through oxygen masks. On one bed, the video showed six children, some appearing to have difficulty breathing while others cried.
The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the attack.

Chemical weapons have been used before in Syria’s 3-year-old conflict. In August, a chemical attack near the capital, Damascus, killed hundreds of people. The U.S. and its allies blamed the Syrian government for that attack, which nearly sparked Western airstrikes before a negotiated diplomatic settlement saw Assad’s government agree to give up its chemical weapons. Damascus denied the charges and blamed rebels of staging the incident.

Before the August attack, there have been several incidents of toxic gases being used. Britain, France and the U.S. have spoken about chemical weapons use in the central city of Homs, Damascus and elsewhere.

A U.N. weapons inspectors’ report released in December identified four locations where chemical weapons likely had been used in 2013: Khan al Assal outside Aleppo, Jobar in Damascus’ eastern suburbs, Saraqueb near Idlib in the northwest and Ashrafiah Sahnaya in the Damascus countryside. In two cases, inspectors reportedly found “signatures of sarin,” a nerve agent.

The Syrian National Coalition called on the U.N. to conduct a “quick investigation into the developments related to the use of poisonous gas against civilians in Syria.” The coalition also claimed that another chemical weapons attack Friday struck the Damascus suburb of Harasta, though state media did not report on it.

In Washington, the State Department said Friday that the U.S. had no information to corroborate the latest claims of a gas attack. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she would not speculate on any U.S. response if the reports were found to be accurate…..”

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Empire Manufacturing Misses Again

“For the 8th month of the last 9, the Empire Manufacturing missed expectations. Tumbling to its lowest since December (despite the apparent let-up in weather freakishness), this is the biggest miss since Jan 2013. …”

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Got Milk? Appraisal Buyouts On the Rise

“When Dole Food Co. sold itself last year to its founder for $1.2 billion, many market watchers saw just another in a string of buyouts.

A few investors saw an opportunity to squeeze the buyers for potentially millions of dollars more, using an arcane—but increasingly popular—legal process known as appraisal.

Merion Capital LP bought 7.5 million shares of the fruit company in the days before Dole’s October stockholder meeting. It rejected the $13.50-a-share deal price and, alongside three other hedge funds, is seeking more in court through appraisal.

Dole’s buyout highlights the rise of “appraisal arbitrage,” in which hedge funds buy shares of companies on the brink of a buyout and ask a judge to award them a higher price. These lawsuits have risen sharply as a growing group of investors looks to extract more money from corporate takeovers.

Some have won big, but risks lurk in the strategy’s popularity, industry participants say. As more investors chase appraisals, they risk toppling the very deals on which they are trying to profit. That is because appraisal-seekers must abstain or vote “no” on a deal. Dole’s buyout passed with just 50.9% of the vote after the four hedge funds, holding 17 million shares, positioned themselves for an appraisal claim. The litigation is pending.

“People are waking up to the idea that there is a lot of money to be made,” said Kevin Abrams, a lawyer who has worked on both sides of these cases. “But it’s not for the faint of heart. There are risks at every step.”

Above, a picker for Dole Foods, which was the subject of an appraisal. Bloomberg News

In an appraisal case, dissenting stockholders ask a judge to determine the fair value of their shares after a deal closes. The judge weighs expert valuations and decides on a number, which is binding on the company and shareholders.

Appraisal claims were brought on 17% of takeovers of Delaware companies in 2013, the most since at least 2004, according to a coming study from Brooklyn Law School and Case Western Reserve University. Based on deal prices, those claims were valued at $1.5 billion, an eightfold increase from 2012.

So far this year, at least 20 appraisal claims have been filed in Delaware court, compared with 28 in all of 2013, according to a Wall Street Journal review of court filings.

About 81% of Delaware appraisals that went to trial since 1993 have yielded higher prices, according to law firm Fish & Richardson PC, which has represented shareholders in appraisals. In an extreme case, a judge in 2004 awarded dissenting stockholders of Coleman Co. $32.35 a share, five years after the company was sold for $5.83 a share.

Shareholders also get backdated interest on their claims, whether they win or not; the current rate is about 5.75% annually.

The risk of a big payout prompts many companies to settle with the shareholders seeking appraisal. “Having to come back and pay 10 million shares three times the deal price isn’t a very attractive option, especially for a company that’s taken on debt in the deal,” said Carl Sanchez of law firm Paul Hastings LLP.

Settlement amounts vary and are confidential, but lawyers and investors say double-digit per-share price bumps are common.

 

Verition Fund Management LLC has averaged about 30% annualized returns …..”

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Mortgage Lending Hits a 17 Year Low

“U.S. mortgage lending is contracting to levels not seen since 1997 — the year Tiger Woods won his first of four Masters championships — as rising interest rates and home prices drive away borrowers.

Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the two largest U.S. mortgage lenders, reported a first-quarter plunge in loan volumes that’s part of an industry-wide drop off. Lenders made $226 billion of mortgages in the period, the smallest quarterly amount since 1997 and less than one-third of the 2006 average, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington.

Lending has been tumbling since mid-2013 when mortgage rates jumped about a percentage point after the Federal Reserve said it might taper stimulus spending. A surge in all-cash purchases to more than 40 percent has kept housing prices rising, squeezing more Americans out of the market. That will help push lending down further this year, according to the association.

“Banks large and small are going to have to adapt to a new reality because mortgage origination volumes going forward aren’t going to support the big businesses they’ve had in place for the last few years,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. “They’re going to have smaller, leaner operations, and we’re seeing them make that shift.”

At Wells Fargo, home-loan originations exceeded $100 billion for seven straight quarters, ending in June 2013. The figure plunged to $36 billion in the three months through March, the San Francisco-based bank said April 11.

Rising Rates

Wells Fargo’s results show the shift in the housing market away from refinancings as interest rates climb. Just 34 percent of its originations went to customers refinancing loans, compared with 69 percent in the same period of 2013.

Timothy Sloan, Wells Fargo’s chief financial officer, said a combination of forces, including tougher standards following the housing crash, account for the falloff in lending.

“It’s too early to call it a secular shift,” Sloan said in an interview. “This recovery has just been more complicated because of the impact of rates being low, and now they are backing up a little bit. We’ve had a lot of regulatory changes, we’ve had a change in underwriting standards that the market is getting used to.”

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.34 percent last week, up from 3.54 percent a year ago, according to a statement from Freddie Mac.

Cutting Staff….”

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Private Equity Dump BRICs For Emerging Emerging Markets

“Private equity investors have long looked to four large emerging markets for big returns: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. But the BRICs today don’t quite fit the fast-growth that Goldman Sachs strategist Jim O’Neill described in the2001 paper that coined the widely used acronym.

With each BRIC economy in some sort of trouble, private equity firms are increasingly putting their investment dollars to work in other less-developed markets—especially Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa—in hopes of better returns.

Money invested in non-BRIC emerging markets increased 18 percent in 2013, reaching a five-year high of $11 billion and representing 44 percent of total capital invested in emerging markets, according to a recent study by theEmerging Markets Private Equity Association. At the same time, total capital invested in the BRICs declined 20 percent between 2012 and 2013 and was 38 percent lower than in 2011.

“Investors are certainly looking beyond the BRICs, acknowledging that consumer driven growth is accelerating most in these new markets,” said Aly Jeddy, partner at The Abraaj Group, a global private equity firm that runs $7.5 billion across more than 20 sector and country-specific funds. “Investors are increasingly as wary of BRICs hype as they are weary of the unattractive returns many of the funds in these markets have delivered.”

To be sure, the BRICs are still a force….”

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Earnings Jitters Expected To Create Market Volatility

“Like thunderstorms cooling an overheated landscape, more selling could rumble through the stock market in the coming week.

Earnings, Fed speak and some important data, like March retail sales Monday and industrial production Wednesday, will be key in what could be a very volatile, holiday-shortened week. About 50 S&P 500 companies are expected to report—including Bank of AmericaGoogleIntelCoca-Colaand Johnson & Johnson.

Also closely watched will be a speech by Fed Chair Janet Yellen at the Economics Club of New York Wednesday afternoon. Markets are closed on Good Friday, and trading is expected to be thin because of the Passover and Easter holidays.

Traders are also watching developments in Ukraine, where gunfights broke out Sunday as police battled pro-Russian militants for control of a local police station.The US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said Sunday morning that the US could increase sanctions….”

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Syrian Leader Backed by U.S. Says He Will Fight Alongside al Qaida

“The rebel leader touted as the West’s last hope to stem the tide of extreme jihadist groups in Syria has said he will not fight against al-Qa’ida, and openly admits to battling alongside them.

Speaking from a safe house on the outskirts of the Turkish town of Antakya, Jamal Maarouf, the leader of the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) told The Independent that the fight against al-Qa’ida was “not our problem” and admitted his fighters conduct joint operations with Jabhat al-Nusra – the official al-Qa’ida branch in Syria.

The admission could have significant implications for Western involvement in the Syrian conflict. While the US and UK have been vocal in their support for rebels fighting to remove President Bashar al-Assad, they have been reluctant to follow through with material support – such as heavy weaponry – over fears it would fall into the hands of extremist groups who might target the West.

Maarouf and his brigades are viewed as relative moderates in a loosely affiliated rebel army that is increasingly dominated by radical groups, and the SRF and similar groups are presented as the West’s best bet to fight both the Assad regime and extremists. His willingness to work with rebel groups the West deems unpalatable is a symptom of a war in which allegiances frequently change and all actors within it have been forced to compromise in order to survive.

Western support for Maarouf and other moderate rebel groups reached a high point earlier this year, when the SRF was the recipient of significant aid from the US and its allies in order to fight the ultra-extremist and one-time al-Qa’ida affiliate Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).

With help from the Salafi Islamic Front and Aleppo-based Islamist Army of the Mujahedin, the SRF has forced Isis to retreat to its stronghold in the Aleppo provincial city of Raqqa, to Jarabulus on the Turkish border and to the Iraqi border.

But while Maarouf and his men were happy to fight Isis, a group of predominantly foreigners, he said he would not go after Jabhat al-Nusra. “It’s clear that I’m not fighting against al-Qa’ida. This is a problem outside of Syria’s border, so it’s not our problem. I don’t have a problem with anyone who fights against the regime inside Syria,” he said…..”

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New Ukranian Government Launches “Full Scale Operation” Against Pro Russian Nationalists

“If Russia’s intention was to give Ukraine enough “escalation” rope with which to hang itself once again, it may have succeeded when a little over an hour ago acting president Oleksander Turchinov said in a televized address that Ukraine has mobilized its armed forces to launch a “full-scale anti-terrorist operation” against pro-Russian separatists. Furthermore, knowing the only real escalation Kiev can engage in is in the war of words department, Ukraine set an 0600 GMT Monday deadline for pro-Russian separatists to give up their weapons and leave buildings they have occupied in the east of the country, a presidential decree said. It is unclear if this would be the catalyst to launch the military operation, but should Kiev indeed bring in the army it is certainly clear that Russia will respond in kind.

Reuters reports:

Angered by the death of a state security officer and the wounding of two of his comrades near the flashpoint eastern city of Slaviansk, Turchinov gave rebels occupying state buildings until Monday morning to lay down their weapons.

 

He blamed Russia, which opposed a pro-Europe uprising that forced Moscow-backed former president Viktor Yanukovich to flee, for being behind the rash of rebellions across Russian-speaking towns in eastern Ukraine.

 

“The blood of Ukrainian heroes has been shed in a war which the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine,” he said in an address to the nation. “The aggressor has not stopped and is continuing to sow disorder in the east of the country.”

Russia promptly responded, alleging Ukraine’s planned operation is criminal….”

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Documentary: The U.N. & The Occult Agenda

Cheers on your weekend!

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSNU-jlHkDs#t=12 450 300]

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[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6X4NWc7lVY 450 300]

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