Daily Dispatch
Legal battles loom over Graaff-reinet, EL renaming
Major legal battles over recent decisions to change the names of East London and Graaff-reinet are on the cards. Sport, arts & culture minister Gayton Mckenzie indicated this week that he would oppose Afriforum’s bid to overturn the recent renaming of...
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EC villagers still waiting for bridge over troubled waters
Four years ago, South Africans were shocked by video footage of Zoliswa Mfanekiso being ferried across the raging Mzintlava River inside a large blue plastic container. Today, little has changed for the residents of Dikidikini village, in...
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Future of grand prix circuit hangs by a thread
The future of the iconic East London Grand Prix Circuit is hanging by a thread — even as the city explores ambitions of attracting a major international racing event. The Border Motorsport Club has accused the Buffalo City Metropolitan Development...
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Kugompo City’s homelessness crisis sparks fresh calls for action
The growing number of homeless people sleeping on pavements, under bridges and in public spaces across Kugompo City has prompted renewed calls for the government to develop a co-ordinated strategy to tackle homelessness, as community organisations warn...
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Senior officials ‘resist’ efforts to turn metro around — MEC
An intervention team sent by the national government late last year to help turn around the state of affairs at the troubled Buffalo City Metro was met with so much “resistance”that the team had since reported the challenges to provincial and national...
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Brazen hijacking gangs staying one step ahead of the law
Armed men using a vehicle fitted with blue lights ambushed a Kugompo City’s family’s white Mitsubishi people carrier in the early hours of July 8, forcing the driver and his wife out before speeding off in the vehicle that provided the family’s only...
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Withheld Treasury funds released to Buffalo City
Buffalo City Metro has been given the green light by the National Treasury to access its annual R1.29bn equitable share allocation after the grants were initially withheld over the city’s persistent failure to deal with unauthorised, irregular,...
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Foreign nationals say fear has turned them into fugitives
Fear has spread through parts of the Eastern Cape as undocumented foreign nationals abandon their homes, leave their jobs and, in some cases, pay thousands of rands to return to their home countries amid escalating anti-illegal immigration...
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Shocking: 1,287 mob killings, 606 injuries, 10 convictions
Vigilante attacks have claimed the lives of nearly 1,300 people in the Eastern Cape in four years, with hundreds of others surviving brutal assaults that often left permanent injuries. This is revealed in a report tabled in the Bhisho...
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Metro misses Treasury deadline on R50m Duncan Village project
Buffalo City Metro has failed to meet a National Treasury deadline to formally conclude a R49.7m European Union-funded development project in Duncan Village. Its flagship buyback centre remains unfinished. The city, however, insists that the project,...
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R154m police civil claims blow for EC
Eastern Cape police have cost taxpayers more than R154m in successful civil claims over the past four years, with nearly 6,000 more lawsuits still pending, according to a report tabled in the Bhisho legislature. The claims, ranging from unlawful...
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Traditional leaders plan Zim trip to tackle migration tensions
King of Amampondo asemnyandeni Ndamase Ndamase is due to lead a regional diplomatic drive to tackle growing tensions over migration, with Zimbabwe becoming the first stop in an effort by South African monarchs to engage SADC heads of state and fellow...
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Metro not ready to roll out new traffic offences system
Buffalo City Metro says it is not yet ready to implement SA’S sweeping new Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) system, despite the national rollout beginning this month after a high court ruling cleared the way for its...
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Action demanded on ‘shocking state’ of E Cape police stations
Dozens of police stations in the Eastern Cape are facing an operational crisis, with nearly 40 running the risk of possible closure over deteriorating infrastructure and unsafe working conditions. The looming threat follows a campaign by the Police...
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US tech giant’s R1.5bn green investment to create 11000 jobs
US technology giant Amazon has backed a R1.5bn environmental restoration project in the Eastern Cape expected to create more than 11,000 sustainable long-term jobs over the next decade while helping revive one of SA’S most threatened ecosystems. This...
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SAHRC report lifts lid on how sex-pest teachers continue to escape detection
Nearly 1,000 complaints of alleged sexual abuse were reported in Eastern Cape schools during the 2024/2025 financial year, but only two teachers were removed from the profession during this period. This is according to a South African Human Rights...
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Feared unrest fails to materialise as Eastern Cape protests remain peaceful
Fears of widespread unrest, which prompted one of the Eastern Cape’s biggest security deployments in recent years, failed to materialise on Tuesday, with protests across the province remaining largely peaceful. More than 14,000 security personnel were...
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Metro’s cable theft crisis takes dangerous new twist
Buffalo City’s cable-theft crisis has taken a dangerous new turn, with thieves ripping open underground infrastructure and leaving a trail of exposed manholes that residents warn could cost lives. Across Southernwood, manhole covers have been removed...
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Four years after Enyobeni, underage binge-drinking is unabated in BCM
Four years after the Enyobeni Tavern tragedy claimed the lives of 21 young people, underage drinking remains rife across Buffalo City Metro’s townships. A Dispatch team spent Saturday night criss-crossing the metro, speaking to children, residents and...
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Four years on, bereaved Enyobeni families describe ‘everlasting pain’
Four years after 21 young people died in the Enyobeni Tavern disaster, their families say they remain trapped in the trauma of that night as they await an inquest ruling to determine if anyone will be held to account for it. For survivor Amila Dyabha,...
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Marchers slam R600m police spend saying ‘we will be peaceful’
Anti-immigrant protest leaders in Kugompo City have challenged the government’s planned R600m security operation ahead of planned June 30 demonstrations, describing it as wasteful expenditure and declaring they are prepared to go to jail for their...
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Brics billions could be game-changer for BCM
Buffalo City’s business community has welcomed plans to channel part of a R16.4bn Brics-backed infrastructure loan to the metro, but warned that residents and businesses must not be forced to repay the debt through higher tariffs and service...
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Metro’s soaring legal costs revealed
A Buffalo City Metro report detailing more than R166m in legal costs over four years was pulled from a public council meeting after ANC councillors objected to it being discussed in an open session. The report — which reveals that the metro dealt with...
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Taxi commuters face big fare increases
Thousands of Eastern Cape commuters will have to dig deeper into their pockets from July 1 after taxi union Santaco agreed on major fare increases, adding hundreds of rands a month to the transport bills of already struggling workers. The SA National...
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Tidal pool pollution claims spark health fears
The Gonubie tidal pool has been contaminated with sewage for years — without any public warnings being issued, according to residents. But the Buffalo City Metro has denied this, with an official asserting that “there is currently no sewage being...
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Zoning dispute could force closure of care home for disabled children
A high court review application brought by a local property trust could result in the closure of a coastal care home for children with severe disabilities and complex medical needs near Kwelera. The ithemba Home, run by Dr Ranjana Gigi and her husband...
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ANC trip returns to haunt mayor, MM
Senior politicians and officials at the King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality are expected to face fraud and corruption charges over the alleged misuse of municipal funds arising from a trip to attend an ANC rally in Kwazulu-natal two years ago. The...
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‘I’m still here, applying, ready to work’
Fifty years after the youth of 1976 took to the streets demanding equal education, many young people in the Eastern Cape say unemployment is the defining struggle of their generation. For Simphiwe Zendoda Ngqoshela, the promise that education would...
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Families frustrated by slow progress in child rape cases
For several months, a Kugompo City mother has been making long and costly trips to court in the hope of seeing progress in a rape case involving her 11year-old son. Instead, she says, each visit ends the same way: no meaningful update. Court...
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Long walk to school for thousands
Nearly a quarter of a million pupils in Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay walk to school each day, with a new Stats SA report shedding light on the scale of the daily journeys many children undertake simply to access education. The figures reveal...
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Metro by-election puts ANC-SACP alliance to test
The ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) are headed for an electoral showdown in Buffalo City Metro, with the alliance partners set to compete directly for votes in next week’s by-elections. The June 17 polls in the metro’s wards 1 (Braelyn,...
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Crackdown on illegal drug rehab centres
The Eastern Cape social development department has launched legal action against eight unregistered rehabilitation facilities in Buffalo City and Mthatha. This is amid intensified efforts to shut down centres accused of operating illegally and...
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Families seek help after torrential rain
Hundreds of Eastern Cape residents were left displaced after torrential rain flooded homes and left informal settlements under water as a powerful cut-off low weather system swept across the Eastern Cape. More than 200 Buffalo City residents sought...
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Confusion over school closures amid severe weather warnings
Some schools across the Eastern Cape remained open on Wednesday despite an education department directive suspending classes in three districts affected by a level 8 weather warning. The confusion — exacerbated by unofficial messages and screenshots...
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Mandla Mandela set for return to frontline politics
In a surprise political comeback that could see him return to frontline public office, Nkosi Mandla Zwelivelile Mandela has emerged as the ANC’S preferred candidate to lead the troubled King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) municipality in Mthatha after the...
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Government housing payment shakeup may worsen backlog
Thousands of Eastern Cape families waiting for state houses could face additional delays after the province changed how it pays for housing — a move which could cripple emerging contractors and slow delivery. The Eastern Cape department of human...
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Chaotic council pushes through budget
Buffalo City Metro residents and businesses face steep electricity and water tariff increases from July after the ANC pushed through a R12.8bn budget by the narrowest possible margin following a chaotic council sitting on Thursday. The budget,...
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Legal battles loom over EC name changes
The newly gazetted names of Kugompo City and Robert Sobukwe Town face fresh legal challenges. Lobby group Afriforum has approached the high court in Pretoria to challenge the renaming of Graaff-reinet to Robert Sobukwe Town, while National Community...
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Desperate fight to save St Anne’s Primary
Parents of more than 500 pupils at St Anne’s Primary School have accused the Eastern Cape department of education of effectively allowing the collapse of the historic institution and are preparing to relocate pupils to schools across Buffalo City...
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Pupils miss exams due to scholar transport dispute
Almost 1,300 pupils in Buffalo City Metro have been affected by scholar transport disruptions, with many missing nearly two weeks of school and exams. This after operators suspended services over unpaid invoices allegedly owed by the Eastern Cape...
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Broken fences, empty coffers: Alarm over E Cape reserves
Eastern Cape nature reserves are under mounting pressure from chronic underfunding, failing infrastructure and deteriorating tourism facilities, raising fears for the future of conservation in the province. But both the board of Eastern Cape Parks and...
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Clock ticks for underspending Eastern Cape local authorities
Eastern Cape municipalities risk forfeiting hundreds of millions of rands meant for sanitation, roads and stormwater infrastructure, among other services, after spending just 58% of R9.3bn in conditional grant allocations three months before the end of...
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‘Eradicating pit toilets at E Cape schools could still take a decade’
Thousands of pupils in more than 800 Eastern Cape schools still have little option but unsafe pit toilets or the bush to relieve themselves, and the provincial education department says it needs another decade to eradicate them. In many schools, even...
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Cable theft takes heavy toll on Buffalo City
Residents across several Buffalo City neighbourhoods are reaching breaking point after weeks of cable-theft-related outages left homes, schools, businesses and feeding schemes without electricity. Parkside, Parkridge, Pefferville and CC Lloyd have...
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Metro gets nod to host winter school sport championships
Buffalo City has been given the green light to host the Winter National School Sport Championship (WNSSC) in July after authorities scrambled to address concerns over substandard sporting facilities flagged during an earlier inspection. The decision...
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Elderly woman, 75, dragged to stream and killed in witchcraft accusation horror
Two relatives have been arrested on suspicion of torturing and killing a 75year-old woman over accusations of witchcraft and more suspects are believed to be on the run after the incident was captured on video. Police launched a murder investigation...
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EC ANC faces leadership shakeup
ANC leaders in the Eastern Cape could be in for a surprise as Luthuli House moves to install a provincial task team (PTT) to steer the party to a successful provincial conference and November 4 local election. The national executive committee...
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‘No water, no power, and no solution’
Residents of Breidbach in Qonce say weeks of water shortages and recurring electricity cuts pushed them to breaking point on Thursday, sparking a violent protest that brought traffic to a standstill and forced police to intervene. Frustrated residents...
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The Purple High: How codeine is abused by metro’s youths
Schedule 2 products easily available at many outlets, no questions asked Buying illegal medication in some spaza shops in Kugompo City proved to be as easy as uttering two words: ”Ndithenga iyeza(i would like to buy medicine)”. This was all that was...
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Jobless rate surges in the Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape’s unemployment crisis has deepened sharply, with the province recording the highest jobless rate in the country as thousands more people lost work amid mounting pressure from rising food and fuel prices. According to Stats SA’S latest...
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Hawks probe fraud allegations in Fish River resort project
The Hawks are investigating fraud allegations linked to a proposed R4bn redevelopment of the abandoned Fish River Resort near Port Alfred, months after investors publicly promised to transform the site into a luxury tourism destination that would...
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Senior metro officials among dozens facing disciplinary steps
More than 30 Buffalo City Metro officials, including senior executives and heads of department, face suspension, disciplinary action and possible criminal cases over their alleged involvement in two controversial multimillion-rand municipal...
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Court blow for metro officials in R21m Covid tender case
Two senior Buffalo City Metro officials implicated in alleged irregularities in a R21m Covid-19 housing tender may finally face disciplinary action after losing an urgent court bid to stop the process against them. The Makhanda high court this week...
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Battered Eastern Cape braces for more relentless rainfall
Heavy rain, gale-force winds and floodwaters battered parts of the Eastern Cape on Tuesday night and Wednesday, forcing dozens of schools to close, flooding homes and roads, triggering evacuations and disrupting flights. Gqeberha has been one of the...
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Airport chaos as bad weather, system upgrades delay flights
Hundreds of passengers were left stranded at the King Phalo Airport in Kugompo City on Tuesday after flights were cancelled, delayed or diverted amid bad weather and temporary navigation system constraints. Travellers missed key commitments, including...
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SIU visited Botha Sigcau building hours before blaze
The Special Investigating Unit said its investigators were inside the Botha Sigcau building in Mthatha hours before a fire gutted the 11-storey government complex, but says it cannot link its visit to the blaze while investigations into the cause are...
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BCM remains under financial cosh despite modest turnaround
The Buffalo City Metro remains under severe financial pressure, with a debtors’ book of almost R10bn and widening electricity losses, despite signs of improvement in its overall financial performance. The caution has been issued by an independent...
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Potential new Highgate massacre eyewitness raises survivors’ hopes
A possible new eyewitness has emerged in the decades-old Highgate Hotel massacre case, raising fresh hopes — and new questions — about one of the Eastern Cape’s most notorious apartheid-era killings. More than three decades after five people were shot...
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People of EC deserve more than symbolic gestures and political theatre
There is something profoundly unsettling about the enduring crisis of governance in the Eastern Cape, a province fondly known as the Home of Legends. Despite being the secondlargest province in SA by land area, it remains one of the poorest, most...
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Future of historic school shrouded in uncertainty
Sale of Southernwood property leaves hundreds of St Anne’s Primary pupils, staff in limbo The future of the historic St Anne’s Primary School in Southernwood is in doubt as the property it occupies has been sold to another school, leaving more than...
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E Cape in grip of youth crime crisis
Nearly 600 teenagers are being held in Eastern Cape juvenile correctional facilities for serious violent crimes including murder and rape, raising alarm over the scale and severity of youth offending in the province. Figures provided by the department...
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Gonubie landmark in eye of rezoning storm
A storm is brewing over a proposal to convert a Buffalo City Metro beachfront hotel into a mental wellness clinic. At the centre of the controversy is the future of the Bluewaters Hotel in Gonubie, which is on the market for more than R17m. Residents...
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Bid on the table for BCM to host Cosafa Cup
Buffalo City Metro could host the Cosafa Cup for the first time, with talks under way to bring the 14-nation regional football tournament — including Bafana Bafana — to Kugompo City. The potential bid hinges on intended discussions between BCM and the...
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Persistent water leak damaging Baby Lee Jegels beachfront facility
Residents and visitors have raised concern over a persistent water leak at the Leighandre “Baby Lee” Jegels Recreational Park, warning that it is damaging the multimillion-rand facility. The leak, which residents say has been an ongoing problem, has...
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Body of slain young woman returned home in wheelbarrow
The brutal slaying of a 26-year-old mother of two has left two families in grief and a close-knit community demanding answers. Fikiswa Madolwana, a mother of two children aged nine and six years, was killed at the weekend. Her body was buried in a...
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Community renews calls for justice as little Kenisha, 7, is laid to rest
Grief and anger have gripped Parkside residents, with renewed calls for justice, following the burial of seven-year-old Kenisha Thompson, with community members warning that children in the area remained at risk. Kenisha was raped and murdered, and...
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Malema slams magistrate, prosecutor after sentencing
EFF leader Julius Malema has escalated his fight to beyond the courtroom and is now gunning for the magistrate and prosecutor who convicted him as he prepares to challenge his five-year prison sentence. In a blistering attack after his sentencing,...
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Firearm case against Malema disrupts EFF’S election plans, party admits
The EFF has conceded that the ongoing firearm case against its leader Julius Malema could disrupt the party’s preparations for this year’s local government elections, regardless of the outcome of the court process. Party secretary-general Marshall...
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City braces for influx as Julius Malema’s fate hangs in balance
Thousands of EFF supporters are expected to descend on Kugompo City over the next two days as party leader Julius Malema returns to court for proceedings that could determine his political future. While the party says it will not bus in supporters...
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Child murder accused under scrutiny over 2017 cold case
The man accused of the kidnapping, rape and murder of seven-year-old Kenisha Thompson abandoned his bail application on Monday after it emerged that he was under scrutiny over a similar murder committed nine years ago. Police are investigating whether...
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Overgrown BCM cemeteries turned into crime hotspots
Families across Buffalo City say they are too afraid to visit the graves of their loved ones, as overgrown and poorly maintained cemeteries become crime hotspots where visitors risk being attacked. Across the metro, residents describe burial sites...
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Calls for new probe into former top cop’s death
A fresh bid for a “full and transparent” parliamentary inquiry into the death of former Eastern Cape top cop Lt-gen Sindile Mfazi has emerged, following explosive revelations about the circumstances surrounding his death and the investigations he was...
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