Government path on Kashmir is perilous, “We are losing Kashmir” Indian Congress MP
Indian Congress MP, P Chidambaram said the path taken by the central and state governments on Kashmir was “perilous” and asked them to “reverse course”; the answer was not a “muscular Kashmir policy”, he said, but engagement with all stakeholders. “The fact that there has been lowest polling in 30 years [Srinagar bypoll] and people are coming out on the streets to chase away polling officers… all this portends that we are going to face even more difficult times in Kashmir,” the former home minister told journalists on the Parliament complex.“The first provocation was the formation of the PDP-BJP government,” he said. “The very formation of that government was regarded as an unholy alliance and the people rejected it. Second is the PDP’s forgetfulness or the PDP ignoring its own promise that the way forward is to engage all stakeholders. The path that the government of Jammu and Kashmir and the central government has taken is a perilous path. This path will not lead to any kind of peace or any kind of engagement of the people.”Asking the government to reverse course, Chidambaram said he had been arguing that “we are losing Kashmir”. The former finance minister called the budget session unsatisfactory. “The state of the economy is poor… Between January 2015 and January 2017, gross bank credit to all industries increased by a meagre Rs 7,413 crore or 0.29 per cent. In the same period, the IIP increased by a mere 1.1 per cent from 189.2 to 191.3. Growth of Gross Fixed Capital Formation was 6.11 per cent in 2015-16. In 2016-17, growth of GFCF plummeted to 0.57 per cent,” he said. The actual rate of growth of the economy, he said, is moderate.
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Indian army uses Kashmiri youth as human shield Outrage in Kashmir as videos of youth tied up with army vehicle
SRINAGAR: (14 April,2017) With the internet services restored in the Valley, three videos filmed during by polls to Srinagar parliamentary seat have gone viral and caused outrage across the Valley. In one of video, a youth is tied in front of an army vehicle as a human shield while in second video a young boy is being shot dead by paramilitary CRPF men during minor clashes. In the third video, a CRPF man is being manhandled by a group of youth but he quietly walks away. All the videos are from central Kashmir’s Budgam district, where eight people were killed and over 100 injured in security forces firing on protestors during bypolls to Srinagar parliamentary seat. A video in which a youth was tied to a moving army jeep as a human shield against stone pelting has gone viral on social media sites in Valley since yesterday, when internet ban was lifted. The video has caused outrage with former Chief Minister and opposition National Conference working president Omar Abdullah demanding an inquiry.Posting picture and video on his twitter account, Omar said, “This young man was tied to front of an army jeep to make sure no stones were thrown at the jeep. This is just so shocking”. “Let’s see channels going ballistic and having discussions with outraged panelists now. Probably not since ‘Kashmir is ours’ hell with Kashmiris,” he said. “I understand the outrage the CRPF video generated. I am also outraged that the video of the youth on the jeep won’t generate the same anger,” Omar said. He was referring to the video that has also gone viral in which a group of youth are manhandling the CRPF jawan.
ISIS in Afghanistan: US special forces soldier is killed
8 April 2017| An American special forces soldier has been killed while carrying out operations against the group known as Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan, the US military has said. It says the soldier was killed while fighting IS in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. Nangarhar province borders Pakistan and has a reputation for being a centre of IS militancy. IS announced the establishment of its Khorasan branch – an old name for Afghanistan and surrounding areas – in January 2015. It was the first time that IS had officially spread outside the Arab world.
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US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan
By Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne, CNN
April 13, 2017 | Washington (CNN)The US military has dropped an enormous bomb in Afghanistan, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission. A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), nicknamed the “mother of all bombs,” was dropped at 7:32 pm local time Thursday, the sources said. A MOAB is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition that is America’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb. The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, stationed in Afghanistan and operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told CNN. Officials said the target was an ISIS cave and tunnel complex and personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province. “The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space, which we did,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said later Thursday. The strike “targeted a system of tunnels and cave that ISIS fighters use to move around freely.” Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb, according to the sources. This is the first time a MOAB has been used in the battlefield, according to the US officials. This munition was developed during the Iraq War.
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Taliban kill ‘more than 140’ Afghan troops in army base attack
21 April : Mazar-i-Sharif: Taliban militants wearing Afghan army uniforms killed at least 140 soldiers in a gun and suicide attack at a base in northern Afghanistan, the US military said, as the extremists ramp up their campaign against beleaguered government forces. Two of the attackers blew themselves up and seven were killed in the assault near Mazar-i-Sharif city on Friday which lasted several hours and targeted soldiers at a mosque and dining facility, the Afghan defence ministry said. General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, praised Afghan commandos for bringing the “atrocity to an end”.The latest deadly attack against an Afghan military site underscores rising insecurity in the war-torn country as it braces for an intense fighting season in the spring. According to US watchdog SIGAR, casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 per cent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed. Nicholson in February told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that he needed “a few thousand” more troops to help train and assist the Afghan forces. The US has around 8,400 troops in the country with about another 5,000 from NATO allies assisting a much larger Afghan force in the war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.
US strike ob Syria Air Base, at least four dead
7 April: At least four Syrian soldiers have been killed and an airbase almost destroyed by an American missile attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says. The attack against an air base in the west of the country comes in response to more than 80 civilian deaths from chemical weapons in a rebel-held town. The Pentagon said it fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at 4.40am from destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. Russia reacts : According to reports out of the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin believed the US attack broke international law and seriously hurt US-Russia relations. The Russian leader, who is a staunch ally of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, regarded the strike as “aggression against a sovereign nation” on a “made-up pretext” and as a cynical attempt to distract the world from civilian deaths in Iraq. The Kremlin said the Syrians did not possess chemical weapons and the US move would inevitably create a serious obstacle to creating an international coalition to fight terrorism. (Reuters)
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Assad Claims Chemical Attack Was Fabricated By The West
In regards to the recent allegations that Assad’s troops were responsible for the latest massive chemical attack, Assad explained that he thought the attack was “100% fabrication.” Assad also questioned whether or not the children photographed were even dead. Assad explains that it was “not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now.” This was brought to light earlier this year when when the pentagon paid a PR firm over 500 million to create fake terrorists videos. Putin was one of the first leaders to refer to the attack as false-flag, and now, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is claiming the same thing.
Only 23 missiles from US destroyers reached the targeted
As this footage from a Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) drone shows, only 23 missiles from US destroyers reached the targeted Syrian airfield and it is still unclear where the other 36 missiles landed, according to Russian MoD spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov. “On April 7, at the time between 3:42 and 3:56 a.m. Moscow time, a massive missile attack by 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles was carried out from two destroyers of the US Navy [Ross and Porter], from the Mediterranean Sea, near the island of Crete, targeting the Syrian airfield Ash Sha’irat [in Homs Province]…The strike did destroy many facilities and equipment, including six planes.” Konashenkov continued, “According to the information from the leadership of the Syrian airbase, two Syrian servicemen went missing, four were killed and six received burn injuries while fighting the fire at the base.” The Russian Defense Ministry further concluded that the US missile attack on a Syrian airbase has been in preparation for a long time. “A large system of measures of reconnaissance, planning, preparation of flight tasks and bringing the missiles to launch-readiness was required to carry out such an attack.” Konashenkov continued, the Idlib chemical attack “Served only as a formal pretext, while the emonstration of military force took place exclusively due to domestic political reasons.”Russian President Vladimir Putin described the attack as an “Aggression against a sovereign state,” with Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov stating, “We assess such actions of the US side as a gross violations of the memorandum on incident prevention and ensuring security in operations in the Syrian airspace signed in 2015. The Russian Defense Ministry is suspending cooperation with the Pentagon within the framework of this memorandum.”
The Russian Defense Ministry added, “The administrations of the United States have changed but the methods of unleashing wars have remained the same since Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya. And again, the pretext of aggression is not an objective investigation, but allegations, fact-manipulation, showing photos and pseudo-vials at international organizations.”
The Russian Defense Ministry further concluded that the US missile attack on a Syrian airbase has been in preparation for a long time. “A large system of measures of reconnaissance, planning, preparation of flight tasks and bringing the missiles to launch-readiness was required to carry out such an attack.” Konashenkov continued, the Idlib chemical attack. “Served only as a formal pretext, while the demonstration of military force took place exclusively due to domestic political reasons.”Russian President Vladimir Putin described the attack as an “Aggression against a sovereign state,” with Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov stating, “We assess such actions of the US side as a gross violations of the memorandum on incident prevention and ensuring security in operations in the Syrian airspace signed in 2015. The Russian Defense Ministry is suspending cooperation with the Pentagon within the framework of this memorandum.”
A Trump-Putin deal on S-400 not firing in Syria?
After President Donald Trump ordered an air strike on the Syrian Shayrat Air Force Base in retaliation for the Syrian chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Shiekhoun, one of the biggest concerns for the USAF ops planners was the presence in the area of the deadly Russian S-400 air defence system. Well, the slow-moving, low flying Tomahawk cruise missiles could have been shot out of the sky by the S-400. the question is why weren’t they fired? One can speculate that there was a deal struck between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that permitted the US to carry out the strikes by 59 Tomahawks unmolested by the S-400 anti-aircraft missiles so long as the cruise missiles did not target the tarmac nor overly inconvenience the Syrian Air Force. Sure enough, as the Independent newspaper of London reports, Syrian attack aircraft, parked in hardened shelters dotting the air field, or flown out for the duration of the US attack, began staging out of this base the day after the cruise strikes. In fact Trump lamely explained that other than the runways were targeted because modern technology facilitated very fast repairs and recovery and, implicitly, that the cruise missiles would be wasted. This raises the question: What exactly did the Tomahawks take out?
‘Courtesy On Times United Stat’
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Syria: 126 killed as bomb hits buses with evacuees, group says
April 16, 2017: The blast hit a convoy of buses Saturday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reported the higher death toll. The blast struck buses of people leaving their towns as part of a rebel-regime swap. At least 68 children were among those killed in the attack. In addition to the deaths, it also injured 55 others in Rashidin, a suburb of Aleppo, according to Syria Civil Defense.
Russia Subway blast
ST PETERSBURG – 4 April,2017| A Russian suicide bomber originally from mainly Muslim Kyrgyzstan detonated the explosives in a St Petersburg train carriage that killed 14 people and wounded 50, authorities said. The suspect had radical Islamist links, Russian media cited law enforcement officials as saying, raising the possibility Monday’s attack could have been inspired by Islamic State, which has not struck a major city in Russia before. So far, no-one has claimed responsibility for the blast.Kyrgyz officials identified the suspect as Akbarzhon Jalilov, born in the city of Osh in 1995, and Russian officials confirmed his identity, saying he had also left a bomb found at another metro station before it went off.
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The Saint Petersburg attack is a reminder that sophisticated terror plots are still a real threat
By : RAFFAELLO PANTUCCI : The attack on St Petersburg in some ways resembles a throwback to an earlier time. With the recent spate of low-tech incidents involving knife-wielding and car driving extremists, the perception was that the nature of the terrorist threat had evolved. The as of yet unclaimed atrocity in St Petersburg is a reminder of how terrorists continue to deploy explosives to advance their causes, and how Russia remains a priority target for international terrorist networks. It is not yet clear who is responsible for the attack in Russia, though initial indicators suggest that it was by an individual of Central Asian origin who may have previously been radicalised. This comes after an arrest earlier in March at Moscow airport of a Tajik citizen who had reportedly been sent by Isil to launch an attack in Russia.
Egypt : Attacks on two Christian churches killed 43 ISIS Proves Its Strength in Egypt With Slaughter of Coptic Christians
April 9, 2017 | ISIS claimed responsibility for bombings that killed 43 at two Coptic churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday — brazen strikes against a vulnerable minority on one of the most important days on the Christian calendar. The terror group’s Amaq media wing said “a security detachment” of the Islamic State carried out the attacks on churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria. The bombings also left scores wounded. The first blast was in the northern city of Tanta, where a powerful explosion ripped through a Palm Sunday service at St. George’s Church, killing 27 people and wounding 78 others, state TV reported. The explosive device was planted under a seat in the main prayer hall, it said. Alexandria sits on the Mediterranean and has a large Christian population. Downtown is usually busy but was relatively quiet on Sunday because of the holiday. “This is usually a very busy area, but thank God it is a Sunday, and many shops are closed,” he said.
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Four killed as hijacked truck crashes into Stockholm store
April 7th 2017 : STOCKHOLM: A truck ploughed into a crowd on a shopping street and crashed into a department store in central Stockholm, killing four people and wounding 15 in what the Swedish prime minister said appeared to be a terrorist attack. Police said they had arrested one person after earlier circulating a picture of a man wearing a grey hoodie.
TRUCK AS WEAPON: Several attacks in which trucks or cars have driven into crowds have taken place in Europe in the past year. Al Qaeda had urged its followers in 2010 to use trucks as a weapon. The militant Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack in Nice, France, last July, when a truck killed 86 people celebrating Bastille Day, and one in Berlin in December, when a truck smashed through a Christmas market, killing 12 people. Magnus Ranstorp, head of terrorism research at the Swedish Defence University, said the attacker’s approach was similar to those in Berlin and Nice. “Hijacking a truck, that has happened before. And this is a pretty cunning modus operandi,” he said.
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G7 fails to agree on Russia sanctions
The G7 was meant to be an insipid forum that unfailingly followed the US diktat, but the worm is apparently turning. The G7 foreign ministers meeting today in Lucca failed to fall in line with the British-American proposal to impose more sanctions against Russia over the Syrian crisis. The host country, Italy, up front disagreed with adopting any hard line toward Russia “we must not push Russia into a corner”, as foreign minister Angelino Alfano put it. Interestingly, Germany supported the Italian stance. Equally, the G7 agreed on the importance of a independent inquiry being conducted on the chemical attack in Idlib on April 4 (which had ostensibly triggered the US missile strike). The zig zag in the US policy toward Syria blowing hot and cold is eroding Trump’s credibility in Europe, which is already low. The secretary of state Rex Tillerson had told the ABC, that ‘regime change’ in Syria is not the priority for the US, but in Lucca, he sang a different tune saying the Assad regime’s days in power are numbered. Tillerson advocated an interventionist approach, saying, “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.
China launches first domestically-built aircraft carrier
26 April, 2017: China has launched a new aircraft carrier, boosting its military presence amid rising tensions in the region. It is the country’s second aircraft carrier, after the Liaoning, and the first to be made domestically. State media said the unnamed ship was “transferred from dry dock into the water” in the north east port of Dalian. Previous reports said it would be operational by 2020. It comes amid heated rhetoric between the US and North Korea in recent days.
Chinese state news agency Xinhua said work had started on their latest aircraft carrier in 2013. The launch was attended by the vice-president of China’s central military commission Fan Changlong. Officials smashed a bottle of champagne on the ship’s hull as “magnificent patriotic songs” played on loudspeakers and nearby ships sounded their horns in celebration, reported Xinhua. The new conventionally powered carrier has a displacement of 50,000 tons and will be able to operate China’s Shenyang J-15 fighter jets, along with other planes, and that it would use conventional rather than nuclear propulsion.
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China launches first unmanned cargo carrier on mission to space station
AP : APR 21, 2017 : BEIJING – The Tianzhou 1 blasted off at 7:41 p.m. atop a latest-generation Long March 7 rocket from China’s newest spacecraft launch site, Wenchang, in the southern island province of Hainan. It is programmed to conduct scientific experiments after reaching the now-crewless Tiangong 2, China’s second space station. A pair of Chinese astronauts spent 30 days on board the station last year. China launched the Tiangong 2 precursor facility in September and the station’s 20-ton core module will be launched next year. The completed 60-ton station is set to come into full service in 2022 and operate for at least a decade.
North Korea launches ballistic missile into Sea of Japan
SEOUL: (5 May,2017) | South Korea’s defence ministry said the missile had flown some 60 kilometres (about 40 miles). “The military is keeping a close watch over North Korea s provocative moves and maintaining a high defence posture”, it said. The US military said it was a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile which they had determined posed no threat to America.
Korean official: Ready for war if Trump wants it
By : Eric Talmadge | THE CANADIAN PRESS
PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People’s Republic Of President Donald Trump’s tweets are adding fuel to a “vicious cycle” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s vice foreign minister told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Friday. The official added that if the U.S. shows any sign of “reckless” military aggression, Pyongyang is ready to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own. Vice Minister Han Song Ryol said Pyongyang has determined the Trump administration is “more vicious and more aggressive” than that of Barack Obama. He added that North Korea will keep building up its nuclear arsenal in “quality and quantity” and said Pyongyang is ready to go to war if that’s what Trump wants. Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington go back to President Harry Truman and the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. But the heat has been rising rapidly since Trump took office in January.
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Delhi, Dhaka exchange 22 deals
8 April, 2017 | Stepping up cooperation in the fields of connectivity, energy and defence, India extended lines of credit worth $5 billion to Bangladesh after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as the two countries exchanged 22 . However, despite the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the ceremony that included the inauguration of a trans-border rail line, the two sides were unable to make any progress on the contentious Teesta water sharing agreement that Ms. Banerjee has opposed. “This (Teesta) is important for India, for Bangladesh and for India-Bangladesh relationship,” Mr. Modi said after the meeting. He added, “I firmly believe that it is only my government and Excellency Sheikh Hasina, your government, that can and will find an early solution to Teesta Water Sharing.”
Talks on trade
A major aspect of the visit has been the defence component which includes an MoU on defence framework, and a $500 million Line of Credit for defence procurement for the Bangladesh military forces. Explaining the military Line of Credit extended by India, Bangladeshi foreign secretary Shahidul Haq said, “The line of credit for military procurement is friendly, flexible and liberal and we are not bound to use it to source our supplies only from Indian companies.”A highpoint of the bilateral talks held on Saturday was the Line of Credit. “This time around, the LoC is for the amount of $4.5 billion. It is the largest, or perhaps among the largest we have done for a country on a single occasion,” informed foreign secretary S. Jaishankar explaining that the LoC would be used to build 17 projects including port upgradation work in Mongla, Chittagong and Paira ports.
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Sukma Maoist rebels kill 26 Central Reserve Police Force in central India
24 Apr, 2017 : Intelligence, SOP failures led to massacre in (Burkapal) Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. This is the second Naxal attack in just over one month in the same district. The last was on 11 March, when 12 were killed. Despite having sophisticated weapons and training to combat guerrilla warfare, each attack by the Left-wing extremists leaves the forces and general public helpless. This has exposed loopholes and failures in the functioning of the security forces, including the state police, in the Red Corridor. This is the fourth attack on such a large scale in the last six years.
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Bus crash in South Africa kills 19 children, driver
JOHANNESBURG (21 Apr, 2017) – The minibus collided with a truck on a road between the towns of Bronkhorstspruit and Verena, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) from Pretoria.Earlier the country s transport minister Joe Maswanganyi had called for greater caution on the roads as he announced that the Easter weekend death toll had increased by 51 percent to 235 compared to same period last year. Despite sophisticated road networks, South Africa battles with a high rate of road fatalities blamed mostly on speeding, reckless driving, unroadworthy vehicles and failure to use seat belts. (AFP)
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T20 Series & Result/Score
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Mar 26, Sun, 1st T20
West Indies 111/8(20)
Pakistan 115/4 (17.1)
Pakistan won by 6 wickets
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Mar 30, Thu, 2nd T20
Pakistan 132/10 (20)
West Indies 129/8(20)
Pakistan won by 3 runs
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Apr 01, Sat, 3rd T20
Pakistan 137/8 (20)
West Indies 138/3(14.5)
West Indies won by 7 wkts
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Apr 02, Sun, 4th T20
West Indies 124/8(20)
Pakistan 127/3 (19)
Pakistan won by 7 wkts
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ODI Series & Result
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Apr 07, Fri, 1st ODI
Pakistan 308/5 (50)
West Indies 309/6(49)
West Indies won by 4 wkts
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Apr 09, Sun , 2nd ODI
Pakistan 282/5 (50)
West Indies 208/10(44.5)
Pakistan won by 74 runs
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Apr 11, Tue , 3rd ODI
West Indies 233/9(50)
Pakistan 236/4 (43.1)
Pakistan won by 6 wkts
3-match Test series
1st Test Friday, 21 April
Pakistan won Jamaica Test by 7 wickets to go 1-0 up in the three-match Test series. Riding on Yasir Shah’s 6/63 and Misbah-ul-Haq’s first innings heroics, Pakistan defeated West Indies by seven wickets.
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West Indies
1st Innings – 286/10 (95)
2nd Innings – 152/10 (52.4)
Pakistan
1st Innings – 407/10 (138.4)
2nd Innings – 36/3 (10.5)
In the 24 Tests that Yasir Shah has played till now he has picked up 132 wickets and has to his credit 9 five-wicket hauls and 2 ten wickets hauls.
Man of the Match: Yasir Shah
Apr 30, Sun – May 04, Thu 2nd Test
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May 10, Wed – May 14, Sun 3rd Test
