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brad johnson august the 5th of 2020
00:03
we have done a couple of segments about
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the peculiar proxy war
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that appears to be taking place between
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a
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sort of turkish backed azerbaijan
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against a russian-backed
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armenia what are the developments last i
00:23
heard azerbaijan was threatening
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to bomb nuclear power plants in armenia
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which
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strikes me as a pretty harsh thing to do
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yeah they’re they’re looking for
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weaknesses and that’s that’s a huge
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both strategic and economic uh
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target and uh of course it’s a nuclear
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power plant that’s
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that presents other dangers as well by
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bombing that i don’t know what
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particular type it is but
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it’s probably the russian uh russian
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style
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nuclear power plant which are far more
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susceptible to being
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you know dirty if if destroyed so it
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would present a danger and
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that’s the source of almost not all but
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of the vast majority of
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the electricity in armenia so it is
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it would be you know do a great deal of
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damage so
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that’s posturing so far i don’t know
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however on that score
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this as what we talked about last time
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was that there now uh
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turkey and azerbaijan on the one side
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are doing military exercises and those
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military exercises are going from
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baku the capital of azerbaijan right up
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to the border of
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this area that’s known as
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nagorno-karabakh the disputed
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region now what has happened here as
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as we did mentioned before russia has a
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base in
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armenia and at that base they do have
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aircraft i don’t know the full
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array of aircraft that are available to
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the armenians or by
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by use of the russians to support
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armenia but so far there’s been
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quite a few little battles i mean it’s
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almost an everyday thing where they’re
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shooting back and forth and back and
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forth at each other sometimes it grows
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to be a little bit bigger of a of a
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battle where they’re using
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artillery and things like that but for
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the most part it’s standoff of
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of that thing shooting at each other
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over a distance artillery and those
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sorts of things
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however now turkey has just brought uh
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aircraft
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fighter jets f-16 which
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is not their best aircraft but it’s
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still a good aircraft
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uh into azerbaijan as part of these
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exercises
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oddly enough i mean this um azerbaijan
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has a russian
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fleet of aircraft too and they’re
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looking at
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updating some some aircraft buying it
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from russia
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and yet so now they’d be in a position
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where these russian aircraft and armenia
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would be possibly uh squaring off
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against azerbaijani
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russian aircraft uh probably the russian
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pilots would be superior having more
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time in the air with these sorts of
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things but don’t know
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uh at any rate the the important fact
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here now is this has again
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gone up another level because of these
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exercises that are taking place
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and the particularly the fighter jets
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that turkey has brought into the area
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uh it’s not a thing of whether conflict
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will take place or not
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or even really win because conflict is
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taking place now
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every day and so it’s just a question of
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how big will it grow and now you’ve got
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the belligerents facing off against each
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other with armenian
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azerbaijan and then now they’re backed
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by turkey and
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russia uh respectively and it’s kind of
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an interesting
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thing how this is going to play out and
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i will say
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these reports with the updates on turkey
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and azerbaijan get a lot of
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uh interesting comments on it on youtube
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and the different sites that this goes
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out on
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and a lot of argument back and forth on
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who uh owned
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the territory there of nagorno-karabakh
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first
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and of course the armenians say armenia
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did and the turks say the turks did and
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so on but
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i think that is a the perfect reflection
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of how this just
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is not going to be settled uh
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diplomatically or peacefully this i
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this is one of those places where it’s
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going to be a limited regional thing
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but i think there’s zero question that
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this is going to uh ex
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expand into a wider conflict where our
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armenia and azerbaijan are
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are essentially at war now how it goes
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which way i mean
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so difficult to predict based on
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leadership and equipment at the time and
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all of that but
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i think this is going to go to conflict
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and i think nagorno-kor carl baugh is
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going to be an
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absolute war zone and i wouldn’t be
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surprised if that doesn’t happen fairly
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quickly so
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that’s the update keep an eye on it it
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is a it is a hot spot in the world
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where it’s probably again regional
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doesn’t have that much impact on
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most of the west at least immediately if
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it doesn’t go much beyond where it’s
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where it looks like it’s going to head
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now just being regional
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uh but war of the world’s not good for
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anybody and i think that’s what’s
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that’s probably one of the foremost
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places that i think can turn really hot
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in the short term you know i have a
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really hard time thinking that the
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russians
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would sell aircraft to azerbaijan
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with the capability of matching their
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own
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i would like to think that also even the
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americans when they’re selling certain
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nato partners
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aircraft that they they’re limited in
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some way so that they can’t
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i i would imagine that that’d be the
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case wouldn’t you
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you know it’s a funny world excuse me in
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in those ways and of course
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the russians are always looking to make
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money and azerbaijan has oil so i’m sure
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they’ve got the hard currency to
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pay for these sorts of things so i think
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the russians are thinking about you know
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money and there are differences pilots
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mean everything in an aircraft if you’re
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fighting the same two aircraft against
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each other
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precisely the same two aircraft uh and
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one set of pilots is experienced and
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well trained and all that they’re going
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to win every time
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but there are also equipment packages
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that go in these aircraft and
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they’re probably i don’t know this but i
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wouldn’t think they would sell
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necessarily
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their frontline equipment package on
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aircraft to a place like azerbaijan
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azerbaijan doesn’t need that level which
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is a lot more expensive
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so probably even if the same aircraft
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were flying against each other the
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russians would have every advantage
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better pilots better trained pilots and
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also better equipment packages
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in those aircraft to take out the
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azerbaijani versions so
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i i don’t think it would be realistic
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for azerbaijan to go
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toe-to-toe without turkey’s backing then
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it would be a different thing
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turkey i think they’ve got some good
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pilots as well so it’d be
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it would be a far more dangerous
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war in the sense of being able to expand
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if turkey and russia
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both are directly involved which they
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appear to be
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now so uh we’ll see
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it’s a dangerous area
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you
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