Rockets fired from Gaza day after Israel kills four Palestinians - Aljazeera.com

A Palestinian has been killed in an Israeli air raid on the northern Gaza Strip, according to Gaza's health ministry, amid a fresh escalation between Israel's military and Gaza fighters.

Imad Nseir, 22, was killed in Beit Hanoun after Israeli warplanes targeted multiple areas in the beseiged enclave on Saturday morning after dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel.

The latest flare-up comes after Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in two separate incidents on Friday.

Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett, reporting from Jerusalem, said the barrage of rockets fired from Gaza came after an Israeli drone strike in the north of the strip early on Saturday, which injured three people.

"We are looking at another military escalation, the first since last month's in which we saw another exchange of air strikes and rocket fire out of Gaza, which seemed to end with some hopes towards some kind of longer-term resolution," he said.

"There was a good deal of reporting about talks between Israel and Hamas mediated by Egypt with further relaxing of the situation likely to happen from the Israeli side," he continued.

"Hamas says so far all they have seen is the relaxation in the martime controls allowing fishing out to 15 nautical miles from six, which has now been reduced again."

Rockets fired

The Iron Dome missile system intercepted dozens of projectiles, the Israeli army said, adding that about 90 rockets were fired from the strip. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side, the army said.

According to Palestinian news agencies, Israeli warplanes targeted an agricultural area in Beit Hanoun, a northern town in the strip, with multiple air raids following the rocket fire.

Israeli forces at the fence with Gaza also shelled several monitoring outposts east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gaza health officials also said four Palestinians were wounded in one of the Israeli raids.

The Iron Dome system intercepted rockets above Ashkelon [Amir Cohen/Reuters]

Israelis look on as the anti-missile system intercepted rockets over Ashkelon [Amir Cohen/Reuters]

Sirens went off in the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, and the nearby Zikim beach, located two kilometres north of the Gaza Strip, was also closed off.

Municipality workers told beach goers to leave following rocket fire in Ashkelon [Amir Cohen/Reuters]

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire from Gaza.

According to the Palestinian Information Center, Hamas spokesperson Abdullatif Al-Qanou' said: "The resistance will remain present to respond to the crimes of the occupation, and will not allow it to shed the blood of our people."

The Islamic Jihad movement also released a similar statement, saying "the resistance is doing its duty to protect and defend our people", adding that it will "respond to the [Israeli] aggression to the fullest extent."

Meanwhile, the Fatah movement in the occupied West Bank has condemned the escalation on the Gaza Strip and called on the international community to "curb the aggression."

أحد صواريخ المقاومة التي سقطت على طريق 4 في "أشكلون". pic.twitter.com/OLwr4bS87w

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) May 4, 2019

On Friday, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in two separate incidents; two of them were shot dead during the weekly Great March of Return protests near the Israeli fence east of Gaza, while an air raid targeting a Hamas outpost killed two members of the movement's armed wing.

Raed Abu Tair was killed during a protest at the fence on Friday [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]

The Israeli army said it had hit the Hamas base after two of its soldiers were injured at the Israeli fence east of Gaza.

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In an attempt to diffuse an escalation between Israel and Hamas, Egypt had summoned senior figures from Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad movement on Friday to its capital Cairo. 

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2019-05-04 10:31:00Z
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Israeli military answers Gaza rocket attack with airstrikes - New York Post

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The Israeli military says Palestinian militants are firing rockets from the Gaza Strip.

The army said Saturday that sirens warning of incoming projectiles sounded several times in southern Israel.

In response, Israeli aircraft targeted two launch sites in northern Gaza. Local media reported three Palestinian casualties.

The deadly flare-up between Israel and Gaza militants enters a second day, shattering a monthlong Egyptian-mediated easing of hostilities.

On Friday, Israel said two soldiers were wounded by gunshots from the Hamas-controlled territory. No group claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Israeli aircraft carried out retaliatory strikes, killing two Hamas militants. Two other Palestinians were killed during the weekly protests along the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence.

Egypt has been trying to reach a long-term cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, who fought three wars the past decade.

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2019-05-04 07:58:00Z
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At least 12 killed in India as Cyclone Fani lashes Bangladesh - Aljazeera.com

Cyclone Fani, one of the biggest to hit the Indian subcontinent in years, has barrelled into Bangladesh after leaving a trail of deadly destruction across the eastern coast of India.

At least 12 people died in Odisha, the worst-hit Indian state, the Reuters news agency reported on Saturday, citing the local Indian media.

Meanwhile, police in Bangladesh told AFP news agency that nine people perished even before the eye of the storm rumbled over the border on Saturday morning. Over a million people were moved to safety, Bangladeshi officials said.

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Fourteen villages were inundated as a tidal surge breached flood dams. The dead included a minor in Bangladesh's Barguna district on the coast and five others killed by lightning.

"We are mooring our boat because it's the only means of income for us. Only Allah knows when we can go back to fishing again," Akbar Ali, a fisherman near the town of Dacope in Bangladesh, told AFP while battling surging waves to tie his boat to a tree.

With the storm weakening but still packing a punch, winds of up to 70km an hour and heavy rain battered overnight and on Saturday morning the Indian state of West Bengal and its capital Kolkata, including the Sundarbans mangrove forest area.

Reporting from New Delhi, Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler said the biggest challenge before the Indian authorities is to reach the areas hit by the monster cycylone.

"The biggest concern is clearing the roads so that they can get to the communities that are cut off," he said, adding that the hardest-hit areas are without electricity after the power grid collapsed.

Heidler said there are still fears of a heavy rainfall or storm surge along the eastern Indian coast.

"It's a total mess in islands of the Sunderbans as the cyclone has destroyed everything in its path, fuelling fears rivers could burst their banks and leave vast areas underwater," said Manturam Pakhira, Sunderbans affairs minister.

"Locals spent a sleepless night and many came out of their thatched huts and stood on the river banks measuring the level of the water," Pakhira said.

"Several homes have been flattened, roofs blown off, electric poles and trees toppled."

Several hundred thousand people were told to evacuate coastal areas of West Bengal before the arrival of Fani ("snake's hood" in Bengali), with 5,000 leaving the low-lying areas and old, dilapidated buildings of Kolkata, home to 4.6 million people.

"Nearly a dozen people were trapped as an old building in the northern part of the city has collapsed," Kolkata's mayor Firhad Hakim said. "They have been rescued and shifted to a safer place."

Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal's chief minister and a key figure in India's ongoing general election, cancelled all political rallies and set up an improvised control room in a hotel in the path of the storm.

Kolkata's international airport was ordered closed. Train services were also halted.

A damaged water tank after Cyclone Fani hit Puri in the eastern state of Odisha [Reuters]

Odisha state worst hit

Worst hit was the state of Odisha where Fani made landfall on Friday, packing winds gusting up to 200km an hour, sending coconut trees flying, knocking down power lines and cutting off water and telecommunications.

Eight people were killed in Odisha, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported, including a teenage boy crushed under a tree and a woman hit by concrete debris.

While not confirming any deaths, Odisha disaster management official Prabhat Mahapatra told AFP there were about 160 people injured in the Hindu pilgrimage city of Puri alone.

"It just went dark and then suddenly we could barely see five metres in front of us," said one Puri resident.

"There were roadside food carts, store signs all flying by in the air," the man told AFP. "The wind is deafening."

PTI reported that a construction crane collapsed and that a police booth was dragged 60 metres by the wind.

As Fani headed northeast, Odisha authorities battled to remove fallen trees and other debris strewn over roads and to restore phone and internet services.

Electricity pylons were down, tin roofs were ripped off and windows on many buildings were smashed.

Puri's famous 12th-century Jagannath temple escaped damage, however.

Gouranga Malick, 48, was solemnly picking up bricks after the small two-room house he shared with his six-strong family collapsed, its roof blown away.

"I have never witnessed this type of devastation in my lifetime," he told AFP.

"Energy infrastructure has been completely destroyed," Odisha's chief minister Naveen Patnaik said.

The winds were felt as far away as Mount Everest, with tents blown away at Camp 2 at 6,400 metres and Nepali authorities cautioning helicopters against flying.

Ports have been closed but the Indian Navy has sent warships to the region to help if needed. Hundreds of workers were taken off offshore oil rigs.

A damaged fuel station in Odisha state's Puri after Cyclone Fani hit the city [Reuters]

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2019-05-04 07:27:00Z
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At least nine dead as monster Cyclone Fani enters Bangladesh - Aljazeera.com

Cyclone Fani, one of the biggest to hit the Indian subcontinent in years, has barrelled into Bangladesh after leaving a trail of deadly destruction in India.

Eight people died in India, according to local media reports. Bangladeshi police told AFP news agency nine people perished even before the eye of the storm rumbled over the border on Saturday morning.

Some 400,000 people have been taken to shelters, officials told AFP.

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Fourteen villages were inundated as a tidal surge breached flood dams. The dead included a minor in Bangladesh's Barguna district on the coast and five others killed by lightning.

"We are mooring our boat because it's the only means of income for us. Only Allah knows when we can go back to fishing again," Akbar Ali, a fisherman near the town of Dacope in Bangladesh, told AFP while battling surging waves to tie his boat to a tree.

With the storm weakening but still packing a punch, winds of up to 70km an hour and heavy rain battered overnight and on Saturday morning the Indian state of West Bengal and its capital Kolkata, including the Sundarbans mangrove forest area.

Reporting from New Delhi, Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler said the biggest challenge before the authorities now is to reach the areas hit by the monster cycylone.

"The biggest concern is clearing the roads so that they can get to the communities that are cut off," he said, adding that the hardest-hit areas are completely without electricity.

Heidler said there are still concerns about a heavy rainfall or storm surge.

"It's a total mess in islands of the Sunderbans as the cyclone has destroyed everything in its path, fuelling fears rivers could burst their banks and leave vast areas underwater," said Manturam Pakhira, Sunderbans affairs minister.

"Locals spent a sleepless night and many came out of their thatched huts and stood on the river banks measuring the level of the water," Pakhira said.

"Several homes have been flattened, roofs blown off, electric poles and trees toppled."

Several hundred thousand people were told to evacuate coastal areas of West Bengal before the arrival of Fani ("snake's hood" in Bengali), with 5,000 leaving the low-lying areas and old, dilapidated buildings of Kolkata, home to 4.6 million people.

"Nearly a dozen people were trapped as an old building in the northern part of the city has collapsed," Kolkata's mayor Firhad Hakim said. "They have been rescued and shifted to a safer place."

Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal's chief minister and a key figure in India's ongoing general election, cancelled all political rallies and set up an improvised control room in a hotel in the path of the storm.

Kolkata's international airport was ordered closed. Train services were also halted.

A damaged water tank after Cyclone Fani hit Puri in the eastern state of Odisha [Reuters]

Odisha state worst hit

Worst hit was the state of Odisha where Fani made landfall on Friday, packing winds gusting up to 200km an hour, sending coconut trees flying, knocking down power lines and cutting off water and telecommunications.

Eight people were killed in Odisha, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported, including a teenage boy crushed under a tree and a woman hit by concrete debris.

While not confirming any deaths, Odisha disaster management official Prabhat Mahapatra told AFP there were about 160 people injured in the Hindu pilgrimage city of Puri alone.

"It just went dark and then suddenly we could barely see five metres in front of us," said one Puri resident.

"There were roadside food carts, store signs all flying by in the air," the man told AFP. "The wind is deafening."

PTI reported that a construction crane collapsed and that a police booth was dragged 60 metres by the wind.

As Fani headed northeast, Odisha authorities battled to remove fallen trees and other debris strewn over roads and to restore phone and internet services.

Electricity pylons were down, tin roofs were ripped off and windows on many buildings were smashed.

Puri's famous 12th-century Jagannath temple escaped damage, however.

Gouranga Malick, 48, was solemnly picking up bricks after the small two-room house he shared with his six-strong family collapsed, its roof blown away.

"I have never witnessed this type of devastation in my lifetime," he told AFP.

"Energy infrastructure has been completely destroyed," Odisha's chief minister Naveen Patnaik said.

The winds were felt as far away as Mount Everest, with tents blown away at Camp 2 at 6,400 metres and Nepali authorities cautioning helicopters against flying.

Ports have been closed but the Indian Navy has sent warships to the region to help if needed. Hundreds of workers were taken off offshore oil rigs.

A damaged fuel station in Odisha state's Puri after Cyclone Fani hit the city [Reuters]

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2019-05-04 05:58:00Z
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Theresa May heckled by her own party members after local election shellacking thanks to Brexit impasse - Fox News

Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May was heckled by her own party Friday, the morning after a shellacking in local elections that saw her Conservative Party suffer heavy losses amid an ongoing impasse over Britain's departure from the European Union.

“Why don’t you resign,” a man in the audience of the Welsh Conservative Party’s Spring Conference yelled as May took the stage. “We don’t want you.”

THERESA MAY SACKS BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY GAVIN WILLIAMSON OVER LEAK OF HUAWAI 5G DISCUSSIONS

A handful of other members yelled “get out, sir” but that didn't gather too much momentum from those gathered to hear the prime minister.

As ballots were still being counted Friday afternoon, the Tories had lost more than 900 seats, according to a live BBC count. While they may still remain the biggest party in local government overall, with more than 2,000 seats, it would be a significant gutting of their majority and end their control of a significant number of local councils.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the Welsh Conservative party conference at Llangollen Pavilion, Llangollen, Wales, Friday May 3, 2019. Britain's main Conservative and Labour parties took a hammering in local elections as Brexit-weary voters expressed frustration over the country's stalled departure from the European Union (Aaron Chown/PA via AP)

The opposition Labour Party had lost more than 100, while the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats had so far gained more than 500 seats. Other smaller parties and independent candidates picked up more than 400 seats

While local elections are supposed to be fought on local issues, they are often a referendum on the performance of the sitting government in Westminster. Brexit is currently looming over everything, and the result is likely to be seen as a damning indictment on lawmakers’ inability to get Britain out of the E.U. nearly two years after Brits voted to leave in 2016.

SCOTTISH LEADER ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR NEW INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM IN WAKE OF BREXIT CHAOS

May has tried repeatedly to get her withdrawal agreement, negotiated with the E.U. last year, through Parliament. But it has been overwhelmingly voted down three times, leaving May to negotiate a delay until October 31 as she reached out to opposition parties to come to a compromise and muster support for some form of agreement.

Labour Party Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell indicated Friday that the elections may give those talks more impetus, saying that message from the elections was: “Brexit - sort it.”

“Message received,” he tweeted.

The result bodes particularly poorly for May’s party ahead of the upcoming European Parliament elections later this month, that the U.K. was not due to participate in until the government agreed to a delay.

Polls for the European elections suggest that the newly formed Brexit Party, led by former U.K. Independence Party leader and Fox News contributor Nigel Farage, is set to make significant gains at the Tories’ expense and could even emerge as the biggest party overall.

Additionally, polls for any general election called this year suggest that Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn could end up replacing May as Prime Minister -- who was once written off by many commentators as unelectable due to his extreme left-wing positions, until his party significantly cut the Tory majority in Parliament in the 2017 general election.

Under that cloud of gloom, the calls for May to resign have been increasing. May survived a vote of confidence from her own party in December -- meaning she is safe from another such vote until December this year. She also stared down a vote of confidence in Parliament in January.

Daniel Hannan, a pro-Brexit Conservative MEP, wrote this week that May must stand down before the European elections to avoid the party taking a “hell of a beating.”

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“Staying on would be a tragedy for her, ensuring that her premiership ended in bitterness and recriminations. It would be a tragedy for the Conservative Party, which could very well cease to be viable as a party of government,” he said. “And, because it would hand power to Corbyn, [Shadow Home Secretary] Diane Abbott and John McDonnell (who on Monday was delightedly promising a socialist revolution), it would be a tragedy for Britain.”

The result comes amid a rough week for May, in which she sacked Gavin Williamson, the defense secretary for allegedly leaking details about a possible arrangement with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei to the media.

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2019-05-03 15:33:23Z
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Cyclone Fani lashes eastern India, killing at least 3 and displacing millions - Fox News

Three people have died and more than a million people have been displaced after Cyclone Fani tore through India’s eastern coast on Friday, lashing beaches with rain and winds gusting up to 127 miles per hour.

The tropical storm, a grade 5 storm, made landfall early Friday in the coastal state of Odisha and brought down trees and power lines. The “extremely severe” cyclone impacted the weather across the Asian subcontinent with its effects felt as far away as Mount Everest, officials said.

Around 1.2 million people were evacuated from low-lying areas of Odisha and moved to nearly 4,000 shelters, according to India’s National Disaster Response Force. Meanwhile, the airport in Kolkata was closed until at least Saturday and rail lines were closed.

An abandoned house and trees bend with gusty winds ahead of the landfall of cyclone Fani on the outskirts of Puri, in the Indian state of Odisha. (AP Photo)

Some 200 trains were canceled across India.

MIRACLE BABY GIRL IS BORN ON TOP OF A MANGO TREE DURING MOZAMBIQUE CYCLONE

An elderly man died of a heart attack in a storm shelter and a teenager was killed by a falling tree, Sky News reported, citing local reports.

A third person – a woman – was killed by flying debris.

In Bhubaneswar, a city in Odisha famous for an 11th-century Hindu temple, palm trees whipped back and forth like mops across skies made opaque by gusts of rain.

Videos shared on social media showed the impact of the storm, with one showing a bus being turned to its side by strong winds.

It is a "very, very scary feeling," said Tanmay Das, a 40-year-old resident, who described "the sound of wind as if it will blow you away."

30 MILLION UNDER FLASH FLOOD WATCHES FROM TEXAS TO ILLINOIS, AFTER SEVERE STORMS KILL 2 IN OKLAHOMA

The national highway to Puri, a popular tourist beach city with other significant Hindu antiquities, was littered with fallen trees and electricity poles, making it impassable.

Street shops are seen collapsed due to gusty winds preceding the landfall of cyclone Fani on the outskirts of Puri, in the Indian state of Odisha. (AP Photo)

At least 10 villages had been inundated with water in coastal Patuakhali district in southern Bangladesh after flood embankments were breached by the force of the cyclone, according to local reports.

By Friday afternoon, Fani had weakened to a “very severe” storm as it hovered over Odisha. It is expected to move north-northeast toward the Indian state of West Bengal by Friday evening, the India Meteorological Department said.

The National Disaster Response Force dispatched 54 rescue and relief teams of doctors, engineers and deep-sea divers to flood-prone areas along the coast and as far afield as Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a group of islands that comprise a union territory about 840 miles east of mainland India in the Bay of Bengal.

Damaged structures and uprooted trees lie along a road in Puri district after Cyclone Fani hit the coastal eastern state of Odisha. (AP Photo)

Up to four inches of rain were expected in much of Sri Lanka, the island nation off the eastern tip of India.

'EXTREMELY SEVERE' CYCLONE TARGETS INDIA, SPARKING EVACUATION OF OVER 800,000 PEOPLE

More than 1,430 miles away on Mount Everest, some mountaineers and Sherpa guides were descending to lower camps as the weather worsened at higher elevations. The government issued a warning that heavy snowfall was expected in the higher mountain areas with rain and storms lower down, and asked trekking agencies to take tourists to safety.

On India's cyclone scale, Fani is the second-most severe, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.

According to from the Meteorology Department, the storm’s timing is unusual as most extremely severe cyclones tend to hit India’s east coast in the post-monsoon season of October through December.

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Some of the deadliest tropical cyclones on record have occurred in the Bay of Bengal. A 1999 "super" cyclone killed around 10,000 people and devastated large parts of Odisha. Due to improved forecasts and better-coordinated disaster management, the death toll from Cyclone Phailin, an equally intense storm that hit in 2013, was less than 50, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2019-05-03 14:53:30Z
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Local elections: Why has Labour lost seats? - BBC News

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Currently Labour has suffered a net loss of council seats - starting from the low base of 2015 in many cases.

The Conservatives have lost around 10 times as many councillors, but what is remarkable is that the main party of opposition - around the mid-term of a not-very-popular government - has not made net gains.

It seems reasonable to assume that some votes have been lost by Labour in Leave areas because - as the leader of Sunderland City Council Graeme Miller has said - the party hasn't decisively ruled out another referendum.

(It has retained it as an option, if the Conservatives are unwilling to change their deal).

But if you take a close look at the figures in Sunderland, the complexity of Labour's political problems are revealed.

Its vote fell by nearly 17 points there - while UKIP's went up by 4.5.

The pro-Remain Lib Dems saw their vote rise by nearly 10 points and the Greens by 8.5.

Indeed, the combined vote of the Lib Dems and Greens was 21.4%, not far off UKIP's 23.9%.

The swing from Labour to the Lib Dems was about 13% and to the Greens 10%.

Those in Labour's ranks who wanted a stronger commitment to another referendum on any Brexit deal are arguing now that the party is losing support in some Leave areas by failing to appeal enough to those who voted Remain.

Defections to the Lib Dems and the Greens suppressed the Labour vote, and further flatters UKIP's performance.

Local factors

In leave-supporting Derby, where Jeremy Corbyn's party lost six seats and UKIP gained two, the swing from Labour to Lib Dems was 6%.

But those who support Labour's current policy - a heavily caveated commitment to a referendum on Brexit under certain circumstances rather than a public vote in all circumstances - say this is too simplistic an analysis.

In truth, we can't discern the underlying motives of Labour/Lib Dem switchers in every part of the country unless we ask them.

There are genuinely local factors at play in some areas - unsurprising, perhaps, as these are indeed local elections.

And some on Labour's left have another theory. They say the party is vulnerable to a protest vote because some Labour councils have had to cut services due to constrained budgets.

In some cases the Lib Dems are the beneficiaries

Others on the left say the party can't get a hearing for its anti-austerity message as the Brexit debate muffles all else.

They are actually quite keen for their party leadership to reach a deal with the government soon to get Brexit over the line and - they believe - this will then neutralise the political toxicity of the issue.

But there is little doubt politicians will proclaim to know the will of the people, without necessarily exploring deeper motivations - and the results will be interpreted in a way which advances their own arguments.

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2019-05-03 15:15:15Z
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