March: 9, 2026
Head of the “Wings of Unity” political initiative, former RA MP Arman Tatoyan writes. “For me, those who imagine the future of Armenia in the “union composition” are either Nikol Pashinyan’s agents and help him to appear as a “savior”, or they are ordinary unpatriotic people.
And now, specifically to CP and its propagandists. The “saviors” of Armenia’s independence, every day you destroy, simply erode the security of our country and keep it secret from us. A few days ago I showed everything with facts.
Are you the guarantor of our sovereignty, are you the ones expecting a position? You listen to Aliyev’s statements, you don’t come out from under the table. Come on, don’t you have anything to say to Azerbaijan, which is reshaping our borders with your silent permission, or do you also want to enter a union state with Azerbaijan?
Don’t try to drag us into your games.
This is why I say that I will be the candidate of Armenia in the upcoming elections. I will always be guided by the interests of Armenia in my decisions.”
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Nikol Pashinyan met IRI 1 month before publishing the poll results
March: 9, 2026
On March 6, the results of the survey published by the American International Republican Institute, IRI, were published.
The survey participants answered the question “If the parliamentary elections were scheduled for next Sunday, who would you vote for?”
According to this survey conducted on February 3-13 among 1,500 citizens of Armenia, the rating of the “City Agreement” compared to the summer of 2025 was 24% in the Republic, 15% in the city of Yerevan.
The opposition is suspicious of the International Republican Institute published three months before the National Assembly elections of inquiry to the results.
Of course, we do not intend to analyze the results of the survey, especially since this requires professional training, nor to cast doubt on them, but one remarkable circumstance nevertheless attracted our attention.
Nikol Pashinyan had a meeting with Daniel Twining, president of the International Republican Institute (IRI), in Washington, about two months before the poll was conducted, and exactly one month after the date of its publication.
According to the meeting posted on the government website messageDuring the meeting, the course of cooperation between the RA government and the Institute, the programs implemented in Armenia, as well as further joint steps aimed at deepening democratic reforms were discussed. Pashinyan highly appreciated the support of the International Republican Institute and emphasized the importance of developing the capacity of public communication, considering it as the basis of open and transparent governance.
Such a coincidence.
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168: That the political force that will wait for Dabro from outside will be destroyed. Let’s Not Let You Monkey!
March: 9, 2026
“Pressing” in the program Satik Seyranyan the guest political scientist, the chairman of the “Democratic Alternative” party, Suren Surenyants։
A few days ago, the former Secretary of the Security Council of the Republic of Artsakh, Vitaly Balasanyan, made another statement in a conversation with journalists, in which it was said:
“It’s a shame, it’s a shame. I strongly doubt that there will be elections here, because the international situation, in general, in our region is a catastrophic, extremely difficult situation. They talk about peace, but now there is no document. The Armenian authorities are talking about a piece of paper, but it is not even a memorandum. In the near future, the political map will change, now those who understood their place, role, importance, learned that they are in the world order, will be saved very soon. Armenia should maintain very good relations with Iran, and we should be part of the Union. I don’t know what they will call it now, but it is the same as the Soviet Union,” said Balasanyan.
The authorities, the Communist Party, and their propagandists immediately began to present his words as the viewpoint of the opposition.
What does Vitaly Balasanyan have to do with the opposition in general, whose point of view is he actually expressing?
The main theses of the interview with Suren Surenyants are below.
- I never considered Vitaly Balasanyan a person with serious mental abilities and I did not take his statements seriously. Vitaly Balasanyan unwittingly voiced an idea that is a gift to the government, because the entire narrative of the government is built on it, as if the entire opposition is a Russian citizen. And it is more important that he made this statement from the courtyard of the Mother See. If you say in the same interview that you have close relations with the Catholicos, then you say that Armenia should be a part of the Union State, and this is in the case when the nail of the government’s anti-Church campaign is His Holiness’s alleged pro-Russianness. As the head of a political force, let me say that Vitaly Balasanyan made a reprehensible statement. Any statement that would question Armenia’s sovereignty is foreign to me. People like Vitaly Balasanyan are the counter-pole of pseudo-Westerners. A person who does not stand out for his active public activities, suddenly appears in the pre-election stage and says such things to the media, gives rise to suspicion that, to put it mildly, his game is not honest.
Official propaganda received a gift in the name of Vitaly Balasanyan:
- Unlike Azerbaijan and Central Asian countries, we won our sovereignty with the 1988 movement.
- The question of joining the Russia-Belarus Union was never discussed at the official level, neither in Moscow nor in Yerevan.
- Of course, Nikol Pashinyan destroyed our sovereignty, but that does not mean that the solution is to become someone’s outpost. The 1988 movement was an independent, anti-imperialist movement. Vitaly Balasanyan should first explain his statement and then say that it is his personal opinion and has nothing to do with any political force. I have not seen Vitaly Balasanyan in any serious opposition format after 2023 and, frankly, I don’t want to see him.
- Donald Trump has become a hostage of “Epstein’s coalition”. There is no hint of strategy in Trump’s actions. Israel has a strategy, which through its lobbying structures was able to place Trump in its pocket. Israel’s strategy is clear. they are on the path of dismembering Iran. They imagine 6-7 states instead of Iran. It is already obvious that some hopes of Tel-Aviv and Washington have not come true. Iran is neither Venezuela nor Syria. The loss of a spiritual leader could not destroy Iran:
- Mojtaba Khamenei, the new spiritual leader, became the consensus of various factions of the Iranian elite and a large part of society. Iran’s message is that they will continue to fight with the same toughness. At the moment, at least, Iran’s political system shows no visible cracks.
- It is not that Aliyev has no desire to join the anti-Iranian operations, but Aliyev is not adventurous. He would take such a drastic step if the Iranian system were tottering. If today he is looking for diplomatic ways to solve the issue with Iran, then he has information that the Iranian system is still stable:
- Turkey does not need Iranian chaos or fragmentation. He will prevent Azerbaijan from such an adventure.
- At the moment, Pezeshkian or Aragchi is playing more of a decoration role because at the moment all the power in Iran is concentrated in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Ali Larijani and others.:
- I have doubts about the International Republican Institute, IRI polls, because I was aware of different results before they were published. But even with their results, the public’s positive attitude towards TRIPP is 44% against 48% negative. Nikol Pashinyan needs a new success story, because even after all this preaching, there is no positive consensus among the public regarding TRIPP.
Besides, in any case, whether Iran wins or loses this war, TRIPP loses its relevance. Moreover, if Aliyev sees that the roads are not opening, Aliyev will not be able to resist the temptation to take it. That’s why the official propaganda of Armenia is lobbying uncontrollably about giving Azerbaijan a humanitarian corridor. This is an Azeri demand, which the CP government has a problem of packing. They want a road, let them go to Nakhijevan through the borders of Armenia’s sovereignty, with a border guard, customs point, why are you doing special propaganda? Or, what humanitarian corridor do you provide? Does Azerbaijan behave very humanitarianly when ours? holds captives. The government is creating all the grounds not for a humanitarian corridor, but for giving Azerbaijan a privileged path, because it has understood that TRIPP will not be implemented.:
- God forbid, Iran will be divided. In that case, our statehood will face serious danger, Armenia will become a Turkish enclave. The worst scenario for Armenia in this war is the fragmentation of Iran.
- When there was a pause in the middle of serious acts in the circus, a novice clown was sent to keep the people busy. For the big players, Nikol Pashinyan is the clown who was sent to occupy the people so that people don’t realize what is happening around them, don’t see the real dangers, don’t see what disasters the partition of Iran is fraught with for us, that if they lose the Armenian-Iranian border, you won’t need anyone, that there are 10-20 million Azerbaijanis in the north of Iran, that you are surrounded by enemies from several sides.:
- Yes, it is necessary to maintain neutrality in this war. no one says that you should take someone’s side, but neutrality does not mean degradation, it does not mean a happy bus presentation in a fire, a discotheque, the only niche in which Nikol Pashinyan felt valued is playing crazy. Nikol Pashinyan certainly has a loss of adequacy, but let’s not overestimate it, because he is adequate to keep his power. This man destroyed half of the Motherland and was not held accountable. Now he is thinking: if he did such a thing and was not punished, why should he be punished for rigging the election? It’s our fault for letting a man who lost a war get re-elected.
- Only a very strong public consolidation will bring Nikol Pashinyan to rejection. A very large participation in the elections should be ensured. The public must become a subject. People, don’t do such a thing on June 7 that the Azerbaijani special forces will have the right to make arrests in Armenia later.:
- There won’t be a miracle on June 7 if you don’t lay the groundwork for it by June 7 and don’t have a plan by June 8, because you’re dealing with a kamikaze government that will blow up the country by blowing itself up. It is still in the mood of “Either I will be the prime minister or Armenia will not have a prime minister” in 2018. We must have a scenario for post-election developments. What are we going to do if the monkey’s hand turns out to be a grenade on the night of June 7, when he realizes that he has lost the election?
We are dealing with absolute collaborator authorities, which is ready to destroy the state, only to reproduce itself. The government has external supporters in these elections: the West, Turkey, Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the opposition has no external supporters. The only supporter of the opposition is the people. Any political force that waits for help from outside will be destroyed. On September 21, the Armenian people were waiting for Dabro? People should know one thing, by voting for Nikol Pashinyan, they will vote for the “Western Azerbaijan” faction in the National Assembly. I don’t want to become anyone’s satellite, even more so I don’t want to become a dog tied to the door of Turkey and Azerbaijan. If the people left conscious choice, Nikol Pashinyan cannot even receive asylum from his Kaya Kalas and others.
Nikol Pashinyan’s regional visits suggest that even in the regions he receives a slap. The conscious choice of the people can turn the government’s happy bus into a hellish bus:
Details in the video.
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RFE/RL – Armenia Congratulates Iran’s New Supreme Leader
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Monday congratulated Mojtaba Khamenei on succeeding his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as neighboring Iran’s supreme leader one week after the outbreak of the war with the United States and Israel.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts announced Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment late on Sunday. The new supreme leader will have final say in all political and military matters.
“I am confident that the strong ties between Armenia and Iran will continue to develop, recording new successes,” Pashinian said in a congratulatory message publicized by his office. “Taking this opportunity, I wish the friendly people of Iran prosperity and lasting peace.”
Pashinian last week paid tribute to Ali Khamenei, who was killed by US and Israeli forces at the start of their air strikes against the Islamic Republic on February 28. The Armenian premier praised his contribution to “the development of Armenia-Iran relations” in a letter of condolences sent to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Yerevan has reacted cautiously to the continuing war that could have far-reaching ramifications for the South Caucasus nation’s security. It has called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict but refrained from criticizing the U.S.-Israeli military campaign.
Pashinian has been accused by his domestic critics of ignoring potential security fallout from the war and focusing on his reelection campaign instead. Pashinian and senior members of his Civil Contract party toured the southern Armavir and Ararat provinces right after the outbreak of the hostilities. Videos posed on Facebook showed them happily chatting and eating pies on a bus carrying them.
Pashinian released on Saturday similar images of his and his entourage’s campaign trip to other parts of the country. One of the videos showed them dancing on the bus on their way back to Yerevan. The prime minister insisted on Thursday that he has not been careless in the face of the war’s growing impact on the wider region.
Iran is a major trading partner of Armenia and one of the landlocked country’s two commercial conduits to the outside world. Citing technical problems, Tehran has twice briefly closed the Iranian-Armenian border since February 28.
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Man Held Over Molotov Cocktail Attack On Armenian Security Service
- Shoghik Galstian
Law-enforcement authorities arrested at the weekend an individual accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the headquarters of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS).
The apparent arson attack was caught on a mobile phone camera. A short video circulated online on Friday night showed a man seemingly trying to set fire to the main NSS building in downtown Yerevan. The Soviet-era building was not seriously damaged as a result.
The Armenian police said they tracked down and arrested the man a few hours later. According to another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, he was charged with terrorism, hooliganism and property damage. The committee did not identify him or say anything about his motives.
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RFE/RL – Kocharian Set To Again Vie For Power
- Ruzanna Stepanian
Former President Robert Kocharian has given the clearest indication yet that he will top his Hayastan alliance’s list of candidates in Armenia’s parliamentary elections slated for June 7.
Hayastan came in a distant second with 21 percent of the vote in the last elections held in 2021. Kocharian announced last November that he will enter the forthcoming parliamentary race with essentially the same political team that might be joined by new opposition groups or figures. But he said it is not yet clear whether he will be the bloc’s candidate for Armenia’s prime minister.
Speaking on a YouTube podcast co-hosted by his political allies at the weekend, the 71-year-old ex-president implied that he will again vie for the top government post. Citing his past executive experience, he insisted that he can successfully deal with grave security challenges facing Armenia.
“We now need to position ourselves as a political force led by someone who did that a couple of times, who achieved quite serious success in crisis situations and can do that for a third time,” he said. “This should be our message to our voters.”
Opinion polls suggest that a recently established movement led by billionaire Samvel Karapetian has replaced Hayastan as the country’s most popular force. Kocharian acknowledged in that regard that his alliance has lost some of its popular support since 2021. But, he said, it has at the same time dented Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s popularity, paving the way for the emergence of new opposition heavyweights. Clearly singling out Karapetian, Kocharian insisted that he is more qualified to run the country than their leaders.
“The main question is: who can do that? A person who has proved that he can do that, a political team that has proved that it’s a fighter or totally new people who have that desire but not yet the [necessary] experience and have not yet proved their worth in the political struggle in practice?” he said.
Pashinian has repeatedly expressed confidence that his Civil Contract party will win the upcoming elections. Visiting Gyumri on Saturday, he declared that it is aiming for as much as 65 percent of the vote. Opposition figures and other government critics claim that Pashinian is actually afraid of losing the polls.
In recent weeks, senior Civil Contract members have exposed their apparent fears that opposition forces led by Kocharian, Karapetian and another wealthy businessman, Gagik Tsarukian, will collectively win a majority in the next Armenian parliament and be able to form a coalition government. Some of them have said that the Armenian authorities “will not allow” such an outcome, fueling opposition claims that they are planning electoral fraud or foul play.
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Archbishop Mikael sues Stepan Asatryan
The head of the Shirak Diocese, Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, has filed a lawsuit against former priest Stepan Asatryan, according to the Datalex information system.
The lawsuit states that Archbishop Mikael is seeking a refutation of defamatory information, as well as the recovery of monetary damages.
The case has been assigned to Judge Emin Abgaryan of the Ararat and Vayots Dzor Civil Court.
The court has returned the lawsuit along with the attached documents, allowing three days for the corrections of violations identified in the filing.
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Far from the world, in the mountains of Aragatsotn: how the nuns of the Ghazar
Hidden in the Aragatsotn Mountains, the Ghazaravan Monastery may seem like an ordinary monastery complex at first glance. Yet life here is completely different from the world we know.
The nuns living here have renounced worldly life, choosing the path of prayer, obedience, and silence.
The day at the monastery begins with early morning prayer. Then the eight nuns go about their daily duties—taking care of the monastery, working, and continuing their spiritual ministry.
All of this is done quietly, without unnecessary fuss.
The most intriguing question that often arises is: why?
What drives a woman to leave her family, a potential career, and the comforts of everyday life, choosing a path with strict rules?
Sister Shushanik, one of the monastery’s oldest residents who has lived here since 2018, says the decision was not made in a single day:
“I received a Christian upbringing, and the Lord’s self-sacrifice left a deep mark on me. I realized that no good deed can be done without self-sacrifice. After graduation, I considered working in a nursing home or an orphanage. But after experiencing the sacrament of the Holy Liturgy, I made the final decision to become a nun.”
Sister Shushanik notes that relatives are welcome to visit, though they try to go home less and less, as frequent visits are discouraged. Hesitation, she says, never crossed her mind.
The mother superior of the monastery, Mother Elizabeth, emphasizes that obedience is the nuns’ top priority.
When asked who can join the monastery, she explains: “Any believing woman between the ages of 18 and 50 who feels called to dedicate herself to God. She must be certain she can endure this life. The first priority here is obedience, which is the most challenging part.”
Mother Elizabeth adds that nuns are free to return to secular life, as no formal vow has been taken before God.
“There is no prohibition, but leaving would be painful. Those who truly love God will stay,” she says, adding that this does not concern her personally, as she has made a vow before God.
Sister Anahit, considered the youngest by monastery seniority, has four grandchildren.
“The monastery has always been in my heart, but even after starting a family, I never thought I could fulfill this dream. There was a moment when I felt overwhelmed by the world and decided to come here. At first, my relatives thought I had some sort of crisis, but that’s not the case at all,” she recalls.
She emphasizes that the monastery is not a renunciation, but a discovery. “Many think we’ve given up something, but in reality, we find peace here.”
The women who have chosen monastic life say that, though they are far from worldly pleasures, their lives are fuller and happier in God. Spiritual ministers from the Aragatsotn Diocese guide the sisters daily and perform services at the St. Narek Church next to the monastery, with the Holy Liturgy celebrated every Sunday.
Beyond the liturgy, the sisters perform various duties: sewing, candle-making, tending to animals, gardening, and helping local children with schoolwork.
Life in the monastery is simple and strictly structured, yet the nuns assure that time flows differently here.
The silence, which may initially feel heavy, has become a source of inner peace.
Leaving the monastery, the world may appear unchanged. But one thing becomes clear: these women, through their chosen path, strive to preserve what is often lost in modern life’s noise – faith, patience, and inner peace.
See all photos at the link below:
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US Commission on Int’l Religious Freedom prepares a scathing report on Pashiny
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has prepared a scathing report on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church. International lawyer Robert Amsterdam wrote about this.
“I draw your attention to a remarkable passage in the report:
‘Throughout 2025, Prime Minister Pashinyan proposed establishing and personally appointing a council to elect a new Armenian Apostolic Church leader, and elevated clergy who aligned with his agenda to oust the current Catholicos. Pashinyan’s attacks on Catholicos Karekin II coincided with the arrest of AAC clerics and other lay members who had criticized or expressed political opposition to Pashinyan’s government,’” he wrote.
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A Riveting Graphic Novel of an Armenian Family in San Francisco
In 1999, the year she graduated from art school, Bay Area illustrator Nadine Takvorian wrote in an Armenian magazine that she hoped to someday write a book about her experience in the Armenian diaspora. Now, 27 years later, the first-generation Armenian American has released Armaveni:A Graphic Novel of the Armenian Genocide, an autobiographical graphic novel named after her grandmother.
“It’s taken me over half a lifetime to make that dream a reality,” she says.
Armaveni tells the story of how Takvorian’s family survived the Armenian genocide, became Bolsahye (Armenians who live in Turkey) and eventually made a life in San Francisco, operating a small business. Takvorian’s family ran a specialty food shop founded in 1956 called Haig’s Delicacies, named after her uncle, located a block away from Green Apple Books in the Inner Richmond. It was later operated by her parents before its retail space closed.
“It was a very special place for me growing up,” Takvorian says. “It was kind of like a San Francisco foodie destination for a while, a well known place to find delicacies from Europe and the Middle East and India. Now it’s easier to find these kinds of items, but back in the day it was pretty hard.”
In Armaveni, Nadine works occasionally at the shop, showcasing her industriousness and cultural curiosity. An inquisitive young girl, she pesters her parents to explain why her grandmother’s eyes “are always so sad” until one day they acquiesce and unfold her backstory. The book moves back and forth through time from Nadine’s perspective as a schoolgirl who has a homeland she’s never visited and her grandmother Armaveni’s perspective as a young girl in Hayastan (Armenia) living through the Meds Yeghern or “Great Catastrophe” during WWI.
Though she began her career working in the children’s educational market, and has worked on projects like a richly color-saturated Beowulf comic adaptation for kids, Takvorian’s first graphic novel is not in full color. “The subject matter required more restraint,” the author explains. The pages are covered in a lavender wash that gives them an archival feel, in line with the book’s theme of an old family story being dusted off and recounted.
Though we follow Nadine in the book as a teen, in reality, Takvorian was in her thirties when she learned Armaveni’s tale. In a note at the end of Armaveni, she attributes this delay to “old-world habits of the adults shielding children from information that could put them in danger, and my own fear of what I might learn about our family’s history.”
Her grandmother’s story takes place in an Armenia that’s under attack from the Ottoman Empire, which is waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in an attempt to consolidate power and cultural hegemony. It is estimated over one million Armenians were exiled from their land and massacred. Grandma Armaveni’s story panels show Armenians (who were among the earliest adopters of Christianity) forced into religious conversion, trafficked, and, in one harrowing scene, women and children fleeing a schoolhouse they’d been corralled into by soldiers and left to burn.
Though Armaveni is a memoir of her family’s story, the heart of the novel is Nadine’s discovery of this persecution, which Armenians identify as a genocide, and the frustrations she feels when she realizes her parents do not wish to discuss it. Many deny it ever happened, including one of her American schoolteachers, and the country that perpetrated it, Turkey.
“Genocide recognition is so important to the Armenian community,” Takvorian explains, noting that the issue is unfortunately used “as a political football” by politicians. “It’s dangled as, Well, if you do this, then we might recognize the genocide and we don’t want to do that and you don’t want us to do that.” In 2021, on the 106th anniversary of its start, President Biden became the first American president to officially recognize the Armenian genocide — a recognition that the Trump administration has been accused of walking back.
At the end of the novel, Takvorian offers a primer on the consequences of cultural erasure. That includes a note on Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which states it is illegal to insult Turkey, and has been used to go after journalists and writers like Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk for bringing up the persecution of Armenians. For her and other members of the Armenian community, it is important for there to be “closure and consequences” after years of being denied them.
Armaveni is visually personalized. A typeface is based on Takvorian’s actual handwriting, and the pages that recount her grandmother’s story have a storybook frame inspired by ancient Armenian manuscripts that Takvorian encountered at a library in England, “really lush and full of a lot of decorative elements,” she explains. “It’s one of my favorite Easter eggs in the book.”
The nuances of Nadine’s daily experience help the reader’s understanding of Armenian identity. For example, when a fellow Armenian accuses her of being “Turkified,” Nadine experiences the stigma of being Bolsahye —a word that combines “Bolis,” the Armenian word for Istanbul, with a term that signifies Armenian identity. These interactions reveal purity tests and friction that exist within the Armenian diaspora.
Throughout, Takvorian’s book offers readers a cultural education simply by threading in Armenian words and customs. In a subtle one-page seven-panel sequence, Nadine and her family are pulling out of their driveway before a plane trip and her mom splashes water from a pitcher at them and says, “May your journey flow like water.” While the action goes unexplained, it is easily inferred that this is an Armenian custom. Spilling water for luck is in fact a folk tradition in the country and in many of its neighboring countries.
Armaveni is ultimately a very personal story, but one whose themes offer a timely lesson about what it means for a people to be forced to insist on their existence. “This is important for all of us to learn about, because it’s our collective humanity,” Takvorian explains. “This is something that happened to Armenians, but then you see it happening again and again to different groups of people … It’s an Armenian story, but it’s also our story, and it’s really important to share that and help people understand that.”
‘Armaveni:A Graphic Novel of the Armenian Genocide’ is out now. Nadine Takvorian appears March 10 at Green Apple Books in San Francisco; March 14 at Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley; March 15 at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco; and March 21 at Linden Tree Books in Los Altos. Details on author appearances here.
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