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Post by sonex on Mar 2, 2016 15:08:11 GMT 10
Yes, I agree Pim, no matter how long it takes, the inquiry should chase every hare. There are records of the police ignoring some complaints as the following article shows. "More than four decades after former Mildura police officer Denis Ryan was stopped from investigating allegations of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, Victoria Police has admitted a conspiracy to cover up the crimes went right to the top." www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-08/victoria-police-covered-up-allegations-of-abuse-inquiry-told/7010442
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Post by pim on Mar 2, 2016 22:20:53 GMT 10
Yes, I agree Pim, no matter how long it takes, the inquiry should chase every hare. There are records of the police ignoring some complaints as the following article shows. "More than four decades after former Mildura police officer Denis Ryan was stopped from investigating allegations of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, Victoria Police has admitted a conspiracy to cover up the crimes went right to the top." www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-08/victoria-police-covered-up-allegations-of-abuse-inquiry-told/7010442And let's not forget the NSW police inspector in the Newcastle region who became a whistleblower and revealed on ABC television how the police hierarchy would interfere with and even scotch investigations into cases of kiddy fiddling by Catholic clergy in the Newcastle area. I understand his career was ruined as a result of the whistleblowing and that he's one of the group who's travelled to Rome.
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Post by pim on Mar 3, 2016 13:07:38 GMT 10
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Post by sonex on Mar 3, 2016 15:38:55 GMT 10
Pim, even much earlier another policeman tried to protect these children. "A former detective is mounting a case against the Victorian police and the Catholic Church for allegedly acting to protect a paedophile priest over 30 years ago. Along with a local teacher, Denis Ryan began investigating the priest after hearing disturbing claims from children in the riverland city of Mildura in the 1970s" www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1264404.htm
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2016 9:11:45 GMT 10
Did you know that up until 1973 and for centuries the rule of the church at the time was that any self flagellating monk, priest, bishop, cardinal, pope et al were found kiddy fiddling were to be handed over to the civil authorities.
Assumprtion being pre 1973 any god botherer abusing children that was reported to the police or authorities, the authorities would say something to the effect ...'Oh Father MacNally is a good man he wouldn't do that'...'go wash your mouth out with soap and say 10 hail Mary's'..then in 1973 as blind eye attitudes changed towards paedophiles the church found a need to protect its dirty members so not beholding to the law.
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Post by pim on Mar 6, 2016 6:52:53 GMT 10
You're kinda right, Ponto, but only in the sense that part of it goes back to when you said. But according to Crikey the cover ups go back to 1917 ... Pope Francis is going to have to do a whole lot more than “act on Pell” if he is to rid the Catholic Church of institutionalised abuse of minors. For 15 centuries Catholic clergy were obliged by Church edicts to hand over paedophiles to the law. In 1917 — the ‘Code of Cannon Law’, 1922 — the ‘Secret of the Holy Office’ and 1974 — the “Pontifical Secret” all subjected acts of paedophilia to absolute secrecy within the Catholic Church. The Pope and the whole Catholic hierarchy must swiftly repeal these obnoxious edicts wherever they impede the investigation and disclosures of any act that would be illegal in the countries in which they are perpetrated.Further, they must repeal them retrospectively so that current and past criminal action by members of the Catholic clergy are not placed above the law and the necessary criminal investigations and, if necessary, prosecutions can proceedwww.crikey.com.au/2016/03/04/the-popes-problems-are-bigger-than-pell/?wpmp_switcher=mobile
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Post by slartibartfast on Jul 30, 2016 14:20:15 GMT 10
Striking similarity.
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Post by geopol on Jun 29, 2017 10:58:40 GMT 10
Pell should be on the main boards. This aint about religion, it's more about an institution that thinks it and its hierarchy are above the laws of the states in which it operates. It is political social, economic and legal matters all together. It's really about transforming the relationship between one church and the sate, and is of great import in the modern word as it always has been in the past too.
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Post by pim on Jun 29, 2017 14:32:37 GMT 10
Hmm ... he will probably be able to avoid any action by hiding in the Vatican. I think you should put it a lot more strongly than that. If Pell ends up, as you say and as I fully expect him to do, "avoiding any action by hiding in the Vatican" then Pell should be called out for what he would become: a fugitive in the Vatican. In that regard he would become the second official fugitive from justice in his Vatican bolthole. He would join Bernard Law, a Boston Cardinal who has been a fugitive in the Vatican since 2002 and whom the FBI would very much like to have a conversation with. I'm not certain if the FBI actually has laid any charges that Law would have to face if he got into their clutches. At this stage they see him as a person of interest. But Pell would be facing a far more serious situation. If charges end up being laid against Pell then a court would issue a warrant for Pell's arrest. Now there are no extradition arrangements between Australia and the Vatican but should he step over that white line into surrounding Rome then he's in the Repubblica Italiana and Australia most definitely has agreements with the Italians through Interpol. He could be arrested in Italy in which case the Australians would be into the Italian courts like rats up a drainpipe with an application to extradite him. So he can cower inside the Vatican if he wants. But he'll never be able to go anywhere else. On the other point, the one that Geopol made, it's a grey area isn't it. Personally I think that this issue represents the most profound moral and spiritual crisis for the Catholic Church since the Protestant Reformation and that aspect of it could very much be followed up here. Alas the board gets too heavily trolled for that to be possible. I do thank you, though, Geopol, for making this important and very pertinent point: It is, actually, See above. However I think I can guess at your reason for saying that and I am sympathetic. Quite right!
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Post by KTJ on Jun 29, 2017 18:17:23 GMT 10
I can still clearly remember back during the Premier and Antares days at NTB when I posted that George Pell was a kidfucker and those rightie wankers threw a lot of shit at me over it. Well, now the Victorian Police have agreed with me that George Pell IS a kidfucker, which proves that Premier and Antares (and others) were the full-of-shit ones back then. Glad I can now say, “TOLD YOU SO!!” with the full backing of the Victorian Police....
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Post by pim on Jun 30, 2017 18:29:59 GMT 10
I can still clearly remember back during the Premier and Antares days at NTB when I posted that George Pell was a kidfucker and those rightie wankers threw a lot of shit at me over it. And I'm sure you thoroughly deserved it. And you still deserve it. You're not interested in the wellbeing of kids or the interests of the suffering families. You're only interested in the tabloid porno peep show angle where you act as judge and jury and throw around words like "kidfucker" I think the Vic Police would strenuously deny that they agree with you. They've investigated allegations over a period of 18 months and submitted a brief of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions in the state of Victoria. Apparently this is the third time that the Vic Police have submitted a brief of evidence to the DPP on Pell. On the other two occasions the DPP returned the brief saying there was insufficient evidence to make a case. On this the third time the DPP decided on the basis of the brief submitted by the cops to prosecute. It now gets placed before a magistrate who will hear arguments for/against referring it to a judge & jury. If the magistrate finds that there are criminal matters that must be dealt with by a judge & jury s/he will refer it to the State Supreme Court. This has got a long way to go before any verdict is brought down. It proves nothing of the kind. And don't worry I had my fair share of run-ins with Premier and Antares. I carry no brief for them. Well bully for you. And I'm sure they'd still throw a bucket of shit over you. And quite right too.
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Post by pim on Jul 22, 2017 13:31:29 GMT 10
Pryor used to be cartoonist for The Canberra Times when I lived in the bush capital. I'm quite familiar with his work and still enjoy it. Canberra, despite the high socio-economic status of the average Canberran, is rock solid Labor in its voting patterns. On the rare occasion that Canberrans vote in a Liberal, it's because Labor has been in for so bloody long it's got too cosy. This may be one of those times. ACT Labor has run the territory for the past 20 years and the local Libs are running hard on "It's Time". Anyhoo, Pryor was hugely popular when he was at the Canberra Times. His daily cartoon was the first thing you turned to when you picked up the morning paper. Trust me, he's no redneck apologist for George Pell.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 8:45:13 GMT 10
Pell will return to court in March 2018 ... progress is slow. Which reminds me ... “After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche Thanks...I was wondering where this was sitting... as you say, a long drawn out process.
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Post by KTJ on May 1, 2018 12:05:42 GMT 10
He's third from the top of the Papist Church too!!
Absolute PROOF that the Roman Catholic Church is the world's BIGGEST ORGANISED PAEDOPHILE RING!!!
Time to BAN religion....it's full of sexual sickos!!!!
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Post by pim on May 1, 2018 13:31:36 GMT 10
Typical authoritarian top-down solution. See something you don't like? Disapprove of it? Ban it!!!
You're more of a fascist than you realise!
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Post by fat on May 1, 2018 21:33:06 GMT 10
"Absolute PROOF" let's wait and see what the court has to say
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Post by pim on May 2, 2018 10:12:20 GMT 10
Fat while I agree with and wholeheartedly support the "onus of proof" principle and its corollary "innocent until proved guilty" (I'm not American so I say "proved" and not "proven"), I think that with someone like Pell the bar is a lot higher - particularly given the nature of the charges he faces. An acquittal based on a failure by the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, while sound in law, wouldn't be good enough. In order for Pell to deal with this matter in such a way that he can return to his Vatican role as a Cardinal of the Church with his reputation and integrity intact, he has to emerge from this case smelling of roses. And that's a big ask.
The "onus of proof" principle quite rightly places a heavy burden on the prosecution in a criminal trial - and rightly so! Normally the defence has a more straightforward task which is to introduce "reasonable doubt" to the prosecution case. But in Pell's case, in order for Pell to come up smelling of roses, the defence has just as much "onus of proof" as the prosecution.
Pell may well not go to jail. In fact I expect that the prosecution will fail the "onus of proof" test and that Pell will be acquitted. But - and here's the thing - Pell will walk, but with his reputation shattered and his career in ruins. I'd expect that the Pope will accept Pell's resignation as #3 Man in the Vatican and Treasurer within the next few days.
Today's rooster, tomorrow's feather duster. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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Post by fat on May 3, 2018 0:55:34 GMT 10
The new order is that things don't just have to be squeaky clean - they have to be SEEN to be squeaky clean (and that is how it should always have been)
I am inclined to agree with you Pim. Cardinal Pell may never recover - even if proved innocent, rather than just not guilty.
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Post by pim on May 3, 2018 9:36:51 GMT 10
Yeah yeah, crimes of omission as well as commission. We get it. I'll leave trying the case to the actual trial itself rather than here on social media. The point Fat and I were making is that Pell is finished both professionally and morally even if the trial process fails to secure a conviction because of "onus of proof". The rest is anti-religion trolling by you and KTJ. Nothing new here ...
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Post by KTJ on Dec 13, 2018 11:00:08 GMT 10
Hahaha ... America news media have the story splashed all over their websites.
It's featured at The New York Times, at The Washington Post and also at the Los Angeles Times.
Yet another nail in the coffin of the world's biggest organised paedophile ring.
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Post by KTJ on Dec 13, 2018 20:10:47 GMT 10
from The Washington Post…A top cardinal's sex-abuse conviction is huge news in Australia. But the media can't report it there.A suppression order has forced newspapers to remain silent, but some journalists are pushing back.By MARGARET SULLIVAN | 4:41PM EST — Wednesday, December 12, 2018Cardinal George Pell walks to a car in Melbourne on Monday. — Photograph: William West/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.THE front page of Thursday's Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne, capital of the Australian state of Victoria, is dominated by a single word in huge white type, all caps, on a black background: CENSORED.
“The world is reading a very important story that is relevant to Victorians,” reads the subhead. “The Herald Sun is prevented from publishing details of this significant news. But trust us. It's a story you deserve to read.”
The story is, indeed, a blockbuster, especially for Australian citizens: Cardinal George Pell, sometimes described as the third-most-powerful Vatican official, was convicted of all charges that he sexually molested two choirboys in Australia in the late 1990s. (Pell, 77, has been the Vatican's chief financial officer in recent years; he earlier was the archbishop of Sydney and of Melbourne.)
But because of a court-issued gag order intended to preserve impartiality, the news media has been forbidden from publishing news in Australia on the details of the Melbourne trial, and now on the unanimous decision of the jury.
Suppression orders — almost unheard of in the United States — are fairly common in Australia. But they are true anachronisms in the digital age, where information, thankfully, can't be shut up in a padlocked barn.
In the meantime, publications worldwide are treading carefully, as they try to avoid legal trouble.
One of the first to publish a story on the conviction was the Daily Beast, a major news site based in New York City.
Editor in chief Noah Shachtman told me that he waded carefully into the dangerous legal waters.
“We understood there could be legal, and even criminal, consequences if we ran this story,” said. “But ultimately, this was an easy call. You've got a top Vatican official convicted of a horrific crime. That's major, major news. The public deserves to know about it.”
Shachtman said the Daily Beast did its best to honor the suppression order, consulting with attorneys here and in Australia, and even “geo-blocking” the article so that it would be harder to access in Australia, and keeping headlines “relatively neutral.”
The Associated Press reported this week that Pell had been removed from Pope Francis's informal cabinet, and some U.S. news organizations have published stories on the gag order itself.
That the Australian justice system takes enforcement seriously is clear. Last spring, an Australian state court employee was fired merely for looking up details of charges facing Cardinal Pell in a restricted computer system, according to the Catholic publication Crux.
The suppression order is remaining in place, reportedly because there is another case against Pell, on separate charges, making its way through the courts.
The secrecy surrounding the court case — and now the verdict — is offensive. That's especially so because it echoes the secrecy that has always been so appalling a part of widespread sexual abuse by priests.
That has changed a great deal in recent years — in part because of The Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2002 that broke open a global scandal and was the subject of the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight”. (Current Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron was executive editor at The Globe at that time.)
But clearly, it hasn't changed entirely. And the news media shouldn't be forced to be a part of keeping these destructive secrets.
Steven Spaner, Australia coordinator from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests told the Daily Beast he felt frustrated and left “in the dark” because of the suppression of news about Pell.
“It's hard to know if there are any shenanigans going on — things the church did that are illegal themselves,” he said. “There is always suspicion when you don’t know what is going on.”
Spaner is right. The Catholic Church's culture of denial and its stonewalling has been disgraceful.
Journalists — whose core mission is truth-telling — shouldn't be forced to be a party to it.
Pope Francis told journalists earlier this year that he would talk about Pell only after the judicial process was complete. America magazine reported that Pell, who has always insisted on this innocence, will appeal.
And so the silence continues.
A front-page editorial in the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph is challenging the suppression order, calling it “an archaic curb on freedom of the press in the current digitally connected world.”
And, the editors said, “We've taken steps to fight the ban.”
They're clearly right to push back, and their efforts deserve the support of press-rights advocates everywhere.__________________________________________________________________________ • Margaret Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she was The New York Times public editor, and previously the chief editor of the Buffalo News, her home-town paper, where she started as a summer intern. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She was a member of the Pulitzer Prize board from 2011 to 2012, and was twice elected as a director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, where she led the First Amendment committee. While living in Manhattan, Sullivan taught in the graduate schools of journalism at Columbia University and the City University of New York. www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-top-cardinals-sex-abuse-conviction-is-huge-news-in-australia-but-the-media-cant-report-it-there/2018/12/12/49c0eb68-fe27-11e8-83c0-b06139e540e5_story.html
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Post by KTJ on Dec 13, 2018 20:35:21 GMT 10
from The Washington Post…Australian court convicts once-powerful Vatican official on sex-abuse-related chargesCardinal George Pell is the highest-ranking cleric to be found guilty. By CHICO HARLAN | 7:29PM EST — Wednesday, December 12, 2018Australian Cardinal George Pell arrives at the Magistrates Court in Melbourne on May 1. — Photograph: Joe Castro/Associated Press.VERONA, ITALY — Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty in Australia of charges related to sexual abuse, according to two people familiar with the case and other media reports, becoming the highest-ranking Vatican official to face such a conviction.
The conviction provides one of the clearest examples of how the sexual abuse scandal has eroded the church's credibility while ensnaring figures in the upper echelons of power. Pell, who has categorically declared his innocence, had taken a leave of absence from the Vatican's third- most-powerful position, as the economy minister, to fight the charges.
The Vatican on Wednesday did not address the explosive case, but it did announce that in October Pope Francis had removed Pell from his advisory group known as the Council of Cardinals, along with a Chilean cardinal, Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, who is accused of covering up for abusive priests. (A third cleric — Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya — was also removed from the council but has no known connections to abuse and recently retired from his position as the archbishop of Kinshasa.)
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Francis was “thanking them for the work they have done over these past five years.” Francis's tepid responses on specific cases related to high-ranking clerics and abuse have sent his favorability rates plunging. The Vatican announcement came after the council's latest meeting.
One Australian courtroom observer said that Pell's sentencing proceedings would begin in February and that he will be tried next year on additional charges.
This is the second church-related case from Australia to make headlines in recent days. Last week, an Australian appeals court cleared Philip Wilson, the former archbishop of Adelaide, on charges that he helped conceal the sexual abuse of two altar boys by a priest.
The Pell conviction was first reported by the Daily Beast, which said that the charges stemmed from the abuse of two choir boys in the 1990s. His case in Melbourne has unfolded in secrecy because of a court-issued gag order.
That order has led to a blackout in Australia about the news of a figure who was once among the country's most highly regarded Catholic leaders, the son of a gold miner who rose to become the archbishop in both Melbourne and Sydney. Major Australian outlets on Wednesday did not carry headlines about the case, but some wrote cryptic stories explaining that significant news had unfolded but was unreportable.
“A very high-profile figure was convicted on Tuesday of a serious crime, but we are unable to report their identity due to a suppression order,” Melbourne's paper, The Age, wrote. The newspaper said that the person “was convicted on the second attempt, after the jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict.”
A judge in the County Court of Victoria had called earlier this year for the gag order as a way “to prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice.”
Calls and messages to Pell's lawyers were not returned.
Pell had risen to become one of the most powerful officials at the Vatican, and he was placed several years ago on Francis's advisory council, which was meant to help Francis reform the Vatican bureaucracy.
When authorities in Australia last year announced that Pell faced “historical sexual assault offenses”, Pell said the accusations were false.
“The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me,” Pell said.
A Vatican spokesman on Wednesday declined to address Pell's case, saying that the Holy See “has the utmost respect for Australian judicial authorities.”
“We are aware there is a suppression order in place by the court, and we respect that order,” said Burke, the spokesman.
Peter Saunders, a founding member of Ending Clergy Abuse, said that the secrecy surrounding the case reminded him of the church's own approach in dealing with alleged abusers behind closed doors.
“Justice not only must be done but also [must] be seen,” Saunders said.
For Francis, Pell's conviction is just the latest in a series of major abuse-related developments that have amounted to the greatest challenge of his papacy. In several countries, and in more than a dozen states across the United States, outside authorities are pursuing crimes within the church with unprecedented vigor. Francis himself has been accused by a former Vatican ambassador of knowing about — and failing to swiftly respond to — the sexual misconduct of Theodore McCarrick, who earlier this year resigned from the College of Cardinals.
The Vatican is preparing for a landmark summit in February in which leading bishops from across the world will meet in Rome to discuss sexual abuse and the protection of minors.__________________________________________________________________________ • Stefano Pitrelli and Michelle Boorstein in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.• Chico Harlan is the Rome bureau chief for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in 2008, first covering the Washington Nationals baseball team and then spending four years as the paper's East Asia bureau chief, focusing on Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Before moving to Europe, Harlan covered economic issues and spent a year on The Post's national enterprise team. Harlan worked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Daily Telegraph, in Sydney, prior to coming to The Washington Post. He grew up in Pittsburgh. __________________________________________________________________________ Related to this topic: • VIDEO: Pope demotes two cardinals accused of sex abuse • Pope cuts 2 cardinals from cabinet named in abuse scandal • More than 300 accused priests listed in Pennsylvania report on Catholic Church sex abuse • Pope Francis accepts resignation of Australian archbishop convicted of sex abuse coverup • Move to omit controversial cardinal's name from Pruitt's schedule prompted protests • Australian archbishop convicted of covering up sexual abuse • Cardinal George Pell will face trial on sex-offense charges • Sex abuse scandal has followed Cardinal George Pell for decadeswww.washingtonpost.com/world/australian-court-convicts-once-powerful-vatican-official-on-sex-abuse-related-charges/2018/12/12/da0d909c-fe20-11e8-a17e-162b712e8fc2_story.html
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Post by fat on Dec 24, 2018 19:07:12 GMT 10
I worry about suppression orders - the one eyed supporters now have ammunition to have the Church say 'business as usual and nothing needs to be done - Phew! That was close' and the one eyed detractors have the ammunition to say (and quite rightly say) 'business as usual and nothing will be done'.
Where is the proof of guilt - Justice needs to be seen else it continues as injustice.
Where is the open admission "WE WERE WRONG". We were wrong to cover up behaviours which never should have been countenanced in the first place. We were wrong to knowingly allow continued access to vulnerable children (and adults) by people purporting to represent the church's authority and mandate to be 'good' in the community. We were wrong to seek in any way to protect the church rather than those we were called to protect. We were wrong not to initiate processes and procedures church wide to make damn sure this could not be repeated after the very first instance was shown.
Where is the blanket statement saying 'This behaviour and the abuse of power and authority is against everything that is right. It was wrong in the past, it is wrong now and will continue to be wrong into the future'.
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Post by KTJ on Feb 26, 2019 10:52:58 GMT 10
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Post by pim on Feb 26, 2019 11:39:54 GMT 10
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