Monday, July 24, 2006

DEMONISING THE DEMON

7.30pm update
Sorry seems to be the hardest ... The letter has been faxed to Kalimullah, with a copy to the Group Editor-in-chief Hishamuddin Aun. Sufi won't discuss the content of the letter but we are all adults so we can guess.

Kalimullah has until Thursday to respond.

In the original posting, I mentioned the former GEIC of the NSTP and reporter for the Straits Times as the executive chairman of ECM-Libra. Screenshots, incidentally, has this intriguing takeover piece based on an Utusan Malaysia report.

Apart from Kalimullah, the other person in PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's core group involved with ECM-Libra is Khairy Jamaluddin, the son-in-law who, by the way, also writes a column in the NST.



Original posting:)
Before the end of the day ...
Sufi Yusof will be asking Kalimullah Hassan to apologise for passages of untruth he wrote on in a June 11 article about a Dr M-Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's meeting in Tokyo.

"And who, really, is demonising whom?" was the title of the offending article, written by Kalimullah, the Executive Chairman of ECM-Libra, Editorial Adviser and Deputy Chairman of the NSTP, and an aide to the Prime Minister, among other things.

Ironically, it was Abdullah who set the record straight about the meeting with Dr M.

Sufi's letter won't be your typical Letter to the Editor. It will be addressed to Kalimullah himself.

Watch this space for updates.

21 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:03 pm

    Are we seeing the end of Kali, the real end to the yuga? I don't think so. PM will not act on this chap. If Umno cannot get rid of him, do you think another letter from Sufi will? Kali will spin another one to say that he was misled into believing that Mahathir who asked to see Abdullah.We are in the NAE (no action era) Bru. Keep dreaming, keep blogging. I am jaded.

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  2. Anonymous12:43 pm

    dear kaliyuga:)-
    i am sure the end is near. and in the end, it will be umno who will officially end it. like how they ended dkl's honeymoon at nst nearly 3 years ago. it should be done that way. pak lah has to be consistent. and kali deserves it. there's no way kali can get out of this. he can't apologise the way they apologised to malaysians for using the carricature on prophet mohamad's carricature.
    i am waiting anxiously for the updates. rocky's bru has rarely been wrong. in fact, i don't think he has been wrong unless he wants it to seem like he's wrong, you know what i mean?
    by the way, "kaliyuga" means something, right. i heard it's "the end of times" or something and i was thinking, wow, this is deep, man? pls kaliyuga, shed some light.
    regards.

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  3. Anonymous2:11 pm

    hahaha kaliyuga takes from caligula la...go and google him..anyway if kali hits the road, what happens to his trusted lieutenant, Hisham? Bru tell us more, Bru. And is it true one of ex-BT colleagues behind the whole controversy of the London sports centre?

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  4. Anonymous2:57 pm

    Dear Rocky,
    I've finally finished reading all your postings. It was worth the late nights. Not to mention the exhaustive comments from your readers. (They are an entertaining lot & very reliable too i must add).

    Being far away from home, i only caught a glimpse of what was going on in KL. Now i get the whole picture, thanks to Rocky's Bru.

    Keep it up Rocky. I know your source of information is reliable. Looking forward to the next drama :)

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  5. Dear Rocky!

    I had a short break it was good but coming back it is the same old shit. It is either kalimullargh a/l massheerul hassan, now haji, or other shittty story about impotent Umno and its leader.
    So Rocky, tell me! is it true that MAS's inflight magazine is going to be taken over by Singapore Press Holding (SPH) under its subsidiary Blue Inc (?}. If it does, the morons in the government in the country and in Umno can kiss this country good bye.
    Bad enough the NST is now the mouth piece of Singapore and saying all the subliminally wrong with the Malays. Now the Malays will be maligned via MAS inflight magazine, the Chinese will be portrayed as the hardest working of all and the Indians will be drawn as the persecuted and the most undernourished lot. All these will be done inb ost subliminally sophisticated ways.
    Dollah Badawi I respected you once and I cannot do it anymore, either you are so stupid not to know, if that is the case you should step down, or you are being held captive or being blackmailed by the Singapore government.
    The best thing for him (badawi) to do is to sack kalimullargh and to restore things as they were, starting with the NST.


    so sorry I have top say all these, as I should be doing something else!

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  6. Anonymous5:12 pm

    kaliyuga and m. said. stop wishing because kali is not going anywhere. of course you people wish to see the death of the nst. why bother? because the nst is going to die sooner or later. have patience, my friends.

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  7. Anonymous7:50 pm

    M,

    My understanding of kaliyuga is that it is a belief in Hinduism. It is the last of the 4 yugas (ages) that make up 1 cycle of creation. The kaliyuga in which Hindu believes we are now living is characterize by wickedness and disaster and leads up to the destructions of this world in preparation for a new creation and a new cycle of yugas.

    Thus I leave it to you to interpret the world we are in now...

    Rocky,

    Please allow me to also comment on your earlier blog regarding MB's last flight... I missed it though as I just got back from Europe Sun morning.

    To say that I know so much about Berita Publishing would be wrong. But I do know a little bit of the company and it’s contents as I was once the proxy of one of its shareholders. BP produces very quality magazines like Jelita, Anjung Seri, I-Remaja, Malaysian Business and most recently, Madam Chair which The Sun describe as a bit of Forbes/Fortune and Hello/OK. I couldn’t agree more.

    BP was also the contract publisher for Going Places, MAS in-flight magazine. Unfortunately, it lost the contract to Bluinc. No reason to the contract lost. I was informed that Bluinc did not send in their tender, this is according to the shareholder of Bluinc, because they were given a short notice to put up their proposal. I was even told that the lady who runs Bluinc was very angry/upset on the last minute call by MAS.

    So what say you of a tender which was not send but was given due recognition to undertake the project? Unless they were given special attention and new deadline...

    BP brought in good advertising revenue and many give positive comments to the magazine as well under the editorship of one Indian guy. Fyi, the lady who runs Bluinc marries a Sarawakian businessman.

    Margaret had problem with one of KJ’s wives? Aiyo, which one lah… I think I know Margaret and she is incapable of having problem with others. So Anon, don’t make up story. If Bluinc has bigger share in Magazine World, definitely they have to bring along HerWorld with them to their new premises. Logic understanding what…

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  8. Anonymous9:12 pm

    IMHO, Kali will not apologize and will try to divert the attentions to other stories of utmost importance like carrying photostated copy of Mykad (what is the huha abt this small thing, but well, they were running Mawi's ex-fiance stories on their Sunday's Entertainment sections, so...)maybe they will try to divert the attention with another Myteam thingy, AF etc...
    and one day, when the throne is no longer occupied by the not so royal "Bedouines" probably Kali will migrate to another country coz, he will surely be "torched" here if he remains...
    and what is this with the roadshows? 9MP roadshow, Asian youth roadshow by the UMNO youth, they really do have time to spend...and it was reported that OIC will make an emergency meeting to talk about the Israel and Lebanon issue, hopefully this will take place before the end of the said "aggression"....belle

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  9. Anonymous10:40 pm

    The materialistic, coxcombing corporate Toy Boy

    ON his good mood days, Kalimullah Hassan would either strut like a beaming peacock or lumber like a sniffing rhino whenever he enters the NST newsroom and you can bet your sweet posterior that he has a delectable mission that he needs to either bolster or spin. But that’s not the only radiating lustre that you’d notice. Observe the apparel and accessories that he wears.
    Kali is a classic coxcomb and a flauntingly-challenged one at that. He can’t help exhibiting his limited edition Rolex watch which could buy you a couple of Perodua Kancils or brandishing a Vertu handphone that could cost you a plasma TV. He cannot help but show off his pricy, high fashion suits, one which should cost more than your monthly house and car payments combined.
    Outside of the newsroom, he is happiest driving one of his slew of super-luxury cars, each worth more than your average life’s mortgage. Kali has been consummately ostentatious with his personal wear for as long as he was a journalist but as a corporate toy boy, it went notches up the opulence Defcon.
    Financially, Kali is set for life. Would anyone wearing a RM65,000 wristwatch not be set for life? But Kali has been walking on the yellow brick road, acquiring his wealth as he plodded along after plunging into business in Kedah and betting on ECM-Libra as the boutique banker patronised by the serious corporate boys.
    By this definition of His Flauntedness, the Sith Lord is as fond of his haute couture musings as he is of quoting the prose of people of wisdom. Flaunting his wealth though comes natural to him as he is adept at spinning the news, especially on fudging the facts and the truth. But for now, let’s stick with the fashion criticism and his social mores.
    When he first took command of NSTP, Kali brought with him that corporate opulence that reflects his social bearings: he converted one executive editor room the NST editorial floor at the 4th floor for his personal use and lavishly renovated it with high-toned furnishing and wall, a flat screen computer screen, and an exorbitantly gleaming wood floor panelling, only to abandon the room and directed Zainul Ariffin to occupy it.
    Weeks after taking over the NSTP, he treated executives to fine food, red wine and cigars at the old Bangsar Seafood Restaurant in Bangsar Baru, his favourite haunt managed by his business partners.
    When Vincenzo, his Italian restaurant that opened in the new Bangsar Seafood Restaurant at Jalan Ara, he pitched/bragged that business was so rollicking that patrons need a three-day reservation.
    Sorry, Kali, the exorbitantly-priced cuisine isn’t as great as you exhorted. Bangsar Village’s Bakerzin does a better serving of spaghetti vongole. I suggest you poach their chefs as you did with your current crop of chefs.
    While Kali is able to rattle off the names of the latest suits from Saville Row or Milan, or prattle specs on the sporty-type Mercedes Benz SLK (I’m delirious my Malaysian-made beat-up car still moves with grudging reliability after years of faithful service), from bonnet to extras, he is bedevilled to explain the editorially shaky stance he wobbles into since assuming the NSTP office, which is our primary beef since we can only yawn and suspire at his conspicuously materialist parade, which is consistent with someone suffering from maturity constraints.
    For all of Material Boy’s high fashion, high concept cars and corporate manoeuvring savviness, Kali executed inane editorial decisions, especially in his fawning but disastrous prop up of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, his dismal mishandling of the Prophet Muhammad cartoon controversy and the spin that turned out to be an outright fib on the “who-met-who first” debacle.
    Knowing Kali, Sufi Yusoff should spawn grandkids before Kali will even begin to acknowledge that his spin spectacularly backfired. I am actually anxious, no, thrilled at the prospect of seeing Kali spin his bedraggled spin that Dr Mahathir Mohamad initiated that meeting with Abdullah, seeing that it was the Prime Minister who inadvertently nailed the fib cold. Perhaps the old man forgot to synchronise his thoughts to Kali’s wavelength.
    Kali’s editorship is so fraught with political landmines which he himself trodden and triggered, both exploding in his face and imploding within a public spectacle as the issues threatened and continues to threaten to sink the New Straits Times.
    From now, nothing he does will escape the tenacious attention of bloggers, political analysts and other corporate types, seeing that he has been woven intricately and controversially into the politico-corporate fabric that powers Malaysian business and politics.
    Interestingly, the ECM-Libra gobbling of Avenue Capital has suddenly come under the Public Audit Committee’s glare, thanks to a jolt in Shahrir Samad’s senses. Should we hold our breath? Will Shahrir be as gung ho on ECM-Libra as he was on Samy Vellu?
    The hardest part now is for Kali to maintain and accumulate more of that yellow brick road wealth, especially after he became an essential cog in the nation’s political civil strife. And what an operative he has been, deserving of prime stature and perhaps book and movie rights. We’ll get Amir Muhammad to produce and direct it as a surety that it will flip and flop!
    For many fallen and surviving NST brethren, what I have characterised in Kali is his common but subterranean mode of operations that seemed to drop off any regulatory radar, the Finance Ministry included, but even when the radar homed in, nothing was done as the Special Branch found out. How could that be?
    How does one deal with Kali’s flagrant sycophancy and enmity? How could Kali hold two or more contrasting politico-corporate ideologies and not get institutionalised? Apparently Kali can and does it with ease and impunity.
    To be kind, Kali does compensate his flaws by giving away a lot of cash to charity and buying dinners for the hard working journalists and sub-editors. He may have other glowing attributes but we’ll stick to two for today.
    If Kali ever employed a political/media consultant, this would be the advice: “Don’t write anymore, keep a very low profile, don’t try to be too clever, don’t edit or rewrite any more stories, get rid of that stupid NST gig and stay away from that KJ fella and don’t do him anymore favours.”
    If the same consultant was hired to advice Abdullah, the Prime Minister would be strongly advised to ditch Kali, who has become a liability to the administration, not because of his immaculate connections to the cabal and Singapore but because of his ignoble irascibility and puerile obsession with pretentious materialism.
    And this can never be an adroit characteristic for a newspaper editor-cum-adviser to the Prime Minister caught in a morass of his own making.

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  10. Anonymous11:47 am

    Talking about demons, did you guys see Khairy Jamaluddin on TV last night - with the Prime Minister in Jakarta. He is only the vice-head of Umno Youth. What is he doing there with the PM's entourage? It's really hard to believe that he has nothing to do with the PM's office when he is trailing the PM here, there and everywhere!

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  11. Anonymous3:19 pm

    Was at Kementerian Keselamatan Dalam Negeri media conference in Putrajaya. Zam lambasted NST and BH but did not mention name. In short, he said NST and BH are foreign tools. Showed NST and BH cuttings to the audience.

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  12. Anonymous10:15 pm

    Hi Bro,

    It's wishful thinking to expect Kali to reply to Sufi's letter. He's got better things to do. Look, he runs a business empire that requires close attention. He's got deals to close; dinners to attend; the PM to advice; family members to counsel, etc.

    But don't discount some kind of reference by one of the editors within the NSTP stable. If he remembers where the letter is kept, that is. The best bet would be for Hishamudin Aun to make some reference to it.

    Bro, when a man like Kali have tons of money, he's passed the stage of replying to letters. Unless the letters have dollar signs on it. No letter is going to be the cause of Kali's fall from grace. He's got none in the first place!

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  13. Anonymous8:56 am

    Bru, where're u?

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  14. Anonymous9:17 am

    Bru, you and other bloggers, and your visitors like me can celebrate. We have been recognized. Officially, at the same time. And by no less than the PM himself.
    So, on behalf of everybody who have been ejected from the Kali Yuga mainstream media (read pro-Abdullah media)I officially welcome the PM and his media handlers and spinners to the blogspere.
    The PM may not have visited a blog but must have been told about us. Kali and all members of his Yuga have not only known our existence but may even be influenced what we say here.
    Thus the PM felt recessary to warn them not to be influenced by us.
    This is what he said at the media conference in Putrajaya on Tuesday (Yesterday).
    (Ironically, editors-in-chief and mainstream media topguns were not there to listen to the PM's message. These guys are so special that they don't have to show respect to the Man.)
    "Mainstream media in the country need not compete with websites and "bloggers" on the Internet to publish speculative and sensational materials and news, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Tuesday.
    "Instead, they should bear the heavy responsibility of conveying information to the people with the realisation not to report on anything that could invite adverse reactions or create unhealthy situation, the Prime Minister said.
    "People will still refer to what is reported by mainstream newspapers. Therefore, it is important for newspapers to be mindful of their role, don't be swayed to publish sensational news posted by this website and that," he told reporters after opening the Mass Media Conference 2006 themed "Media and Globalisation Era Challenges".
    Thank You Mr Prime Minister

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  15. Anonymous10:10 am

    Kali will show Sufi his middle finger and ask him to fly kite. Kali is untouchable so long as Khairy is in power. Remember the case where NST published the controvesial cartoon, at the end, it was left off the hook by Pak Lah.

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  16. Anonymous11:07 am

    hey rocky,

    u know something? nst's reporters at the bureau level definitely like what u write. they love to read Lord Kali and Sadhu Brendan getting wacked. We are so fed up having these two morons that we don't even bother to read what they write. Brendan thinks his ABCs and 123s are stylish ways of writing quality pieces.... wanna make most of us puke... keep up the bru flowing bro...:)

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  17. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  18. Kaliyuga!
    I drove down to JB for some work first thing yesterday. There I was met with news of a death in a bro's family in Plentong, thus extending my stay.
    Btw, while I was there the Johoreans told me to put it on blog record that they want the bridge.
    "Kalau Pak Lah kata rakyat tak mau jambatan tu, maka maksud Pak Lah kita orang Johor bukanlah rakyat," said one.
    Casually interpreted, the average Johorean thinks that if Pak Lah had really said that the people did not want the bridge, then what he meant to say was that Johoreans are not part of the Malaysian people.

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  19. Anonymous11:21 am

    sonicwall said...
    Kali will show Sufi his middle finger and ask him to fly kite.

    ==================================

    Knowing Kali, in all probability, he would.

    Arrogant bastard!!!

    Jay

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  20. Anonymous12:28 pm

    Dear Rocky Bru,
    Actually, they are right. If I am a Johorean, I would want the brdge. Even if the bridge serves no purpose, the construction activities will benefit a lot of local critizen. At the end, everyone will want to see the bridge and listen to trained tourist guides speak on her fascinating history and feud. That can bring in lots of tourism and macroeconomy, outweighting the microeconomy cost.

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  21. Anonymous1:59 pm

    Collapse of the crooked/scenic bridge long before it was built

    Bro,
    For the 24 hours that you suddenly went MIA from the blogosphere, I feared for your existence, imagining that you were abducted by cabal thugs and subjected to the torture of having the gall to rake them through one embarrassing revelation/exposé after another. It wasn’t you to abandon Rocky’s Bru for more time than it takes to listen through Van Morrison’s entire discography. (Not a bad idea though!)
    I was also imagining how the cabal thugs would torture you. There were three ways they could have easily broken you:
    ► You were tied to a chair and forced to view the painfully puerile Akademi Fantasia’s 1, 2 & 3 non-stop with a certain androgynous-like metrosexual host prattling like a Frankenstein version of a cross between a badly-incarnated Sudirman, Ryan Seacrest and Boy George,
    ► Still tied to the chair, they forced you to listen to every tune by the Beatles: each number corruptly remixed in mind numbing techno by the DJ Beatlejuice; and,
    ► You were deprived of your favourite brew while force fed with Ribena and Heinz baby food.
    Now that you are back in action, you must strictly remind yourself that Rocky’s Bru is as essential as the daily marketing that puts food on the table, as crucial as the petrol we pump into our cars to get around and as pleasurable as the brew you consume every day to ease any dreariness.
    ******
    AS for the whole crooked/scenic bridge fiasco, here is my understanding of its sordid collapse long before it could be constructed.
    It’s natural why Johoreans want the bridge: finally, the environmental pollution and stink they endured for two generations the Causeway caused at the Tebrau Strait would finally vanish.
    I also understood, albeit belatedly, the animated fuss Dr Mahathir Mohamad kicked in his bitterly scathing attack against the Government’s abandonment of the bridge project: Abdullah had absolutely no reason to stop it.
    This is because the bridge, besides complementing the environment, would have:
    ► been built within Malaysian soil while construction would be a wholly-owned Malaysian gig
    ► it would been constructed beginning at the new CIQ building, then rise steadily to soar spectacularly in its crooked/scenic glory before curving handsomely downwards towards the Causeway that is within Malaysian soil;
    ► allowed tankers, freighters, even warships, of any width or height to pass through uninhibited, and,
    ► hyper-propped port activity very much the northern side of Singapore, which the Republic must have wetted sandbags at the prospects of losing their much-vaunted port business to the likes of Tanjung Pelepas and Pasir Gudang.
    Yes, now we all can see why the bridge had to be scuppered.
    Singapore could hiss like a mad cobra or scrape their hoofs like a Spanish bull but the bridge was Malaysia’s to build, and not Singapore to protest or interdict.
    Even if they did scream and shout, it was all directed to a stoutly unmoveable object called Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who would rather MM and SM jump off a Pulau Sentosa cable car midway before he caves into their Israel-type demands.
    But then came the opportunity to scupper the bridge project. As soon as Dr Mahathir announced plans to officially retire, Singapore began to prep sleepers that had already within a whisker’s breath can control of the media and the Government for the covert operations to open up the gateway for the coming politico-corporate assaults.
    And when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ascended to the political throne, the elaborate plan that was conceived earlier was silently activated and in 24-months, the Government announced the bridge’s deferment despite spending millions for the bridge’s preparatory and supplementary projects, but within that time, they also created a plausible scenario to quash anyone who had the temerity to inquire.
    The elaborate plan was at the outset simple: quietly insert provisions in one of the post-Mahathir bilateral meetings that for the bridge to be built; sand the hectarage of Bangsar or more must be supplied to Singapore and Malaysia’s airspace should be opened to Singapore’s jetfighters for so-called pilot training when it was to mask reconnaissance missions.
    It doesn’t matter if these sudden bilateral meeting concoctions were surreptitiously messy or made as if that Dr Mahathir was its prime mover as long as Singapore achieves the objective of NO BRIDGE. Period!
    So the sleepers in the Abdullah administration, the First Family and the NSTP all began to synchronously whisper into the wheedle-proned Prime Minister that the bridge was deviously untenable because:
    ► Johor was distressed at the lost of the billion cubic metres of sand (which Singapore would have loved to get but realistically knew that it was a non-starter), and,
    ► In a swirl of confusing statements, the cabal stringing Abdullah came out with various pronouncements, trying to make it appear as if Dr Mahathir was to be blamed for turning the “viable” bridge project into a “runaway failure.” Yowsah!
    Plan executed and Singapore appeased, you can imagine the cabal/sleepers panic when Dr Mahathir launched a swift Rambo-like counter attack against Abdullah (half-past six, not the first choice, yadda, yadda). So cowed were the cabal by Dr Mahathir’s ferocious remonstration that they committed a series of sophomoric mistakes in their hasty defence of the scuppered bridge and their bid to demonise the ex-PM.
    Syed Hamid Albar blamed the ex-PM for allowing the sand/airspace provisions but was immediately blasted for either cribbing non-existent facts or an inability to read. Nazri Aziz assumed the Rottweiler-from-hell, attack dog position, snarling at Dr Mahathir and barking denunciations that pissed off perhaps the bulk of Umno.
    Kalimullah Hassan fibbed and fudged the facts against Dr Mahathir that spectacularly backfired in a series of columns and commentaries.
    Brendan Pereira, fresh from spinning everything the ex-PM wrote or said, blatantly authored the so-called declassified documents that exposed the whole superficial, Israel-styled setting while laughably exposing his journalistic hucksterism.
    It’s a terrible era to work as a journalist in the NST, knowing that your work is stained and tainted by a media/Government cabal that strives to appease a Singapore with no compunction to conceal that one way or the other, the politico-corporate buyout they subtly stoked in Malaysia has the signature of a Mossad-like ops.
    We weep tragically with Lebanon.

    P.S: Please extend my and fellow posters’ condolences to the bro and his family for their bereavement.

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