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KOREAN VILLAGE, Iraq — When a Navy hospital corpsman becomes “green,” he is placed on the front lines with the trust of the Marine Corps infantryman. He runs through the trenches, engaging the enemy, all while putting his own life on the line providing medical care for the wounded. After four tours in two separate conflicts, Chief Petty Officer Truman A. Gartman, chief petty officer of the Battalion Aid Station, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, has been a part of that trust for 14 years and counting. “What I love most about being with the Marines...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military on Wednesday denied reports it is holding Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, the number two under Saddam Hussein. "We are aware of media reports that Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri has been captured," the military told AFP in an email. "At this point, we can say that he is not in coalition custody and we have no reports that he was captured by Iraqi security forces either."

At the National Theatre, a new play by the former radical playwright Howard Brenton, Never So Good, paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Sixties Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who as a young man opposed Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Chamberlain's claim that he could talk Germany out of war and produce "peace for our time" is, of course, a byword for craven weakness and earns only contempt. But in the very week the play opened, a second Chamberlain was revealed in the form of our Defence Secretary, Des Browne. In an interview on Saturday, Mr Browne said he thought...

WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers — possibly including Rep. Jim McDermott — during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution. Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam's regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid...

The Zionist Organization of America has “called upon Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to quit his racist, anti-American, anti-Israel church and repudiate his pastor, Jeremiah Wright.” Noting that the National Jewish Democratic Council condemned Mitt Romney for appearing at the museum of a long-dead EX-antisemite, we are confident that NJDC will support ZOA’s request. Henry Ford retracted and repudiated The International Jew, but Jeremiah Wright has never retracted, repudiated, or apologized for his own hate speech, his publication of a manifesto from a genuine Hamas terrorist, or his placement of quote marks around “state” of Israel, as if...

March 5, 2008: Britain's MI-5 (domestic intelligence service) has expanded its operations in the neighboring Irish Republic, after increased al Qaeda, and Islamic radical, activity was detected. Three Afghan men were recently arrested, in a room full of bomb making materials. There are dozens of similar suspects under surveillance. For the last three decades, Ireland and Britain have cooperated on domestic security issues, initially because of a mutual need to keep an eye on the IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorists. The IRA has devolved into a criminal gang, but al Qaeda, and other Islamic radical groups have found Ireland a...

The following was an exchange between two persons on opposite sides of the aisle. As Rod Serling would quip, "Presented for your perusal... from the Midnight Zone." **************************** Ron, I agree that there are some fundamental problems with social security, but I still think that it’s a sound idea that needs updating because of the change in demographics. When social security was in its infancy in the 1930s, the life expectancy of an adult was much lower than it is now. I truly believe that it was a great idea, but with no concern about future generations. It was a...

SARITA — U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested a man Monday at the Sarita checkpoint who fled a Northern Irish prison in an infamous escape 24 years ago, the agency said. The man, whose name Border Patrol refused to release late Wednesday night, is expected to soon be transferred to British custody. Reportedly a member of the Irish Republican Army, the man is accused of making a violent escape from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland in September 1983 along with 38 other IRA members. He was arrested at the Sarita checkpoint outside of Brownsville on Monday after he was unable...

Question: My employer offers a 401(k), but no match. Given that I'm already maxing out my Roth IRA, would I be better off investing in a taxable account rather than contributing to my no-match 401(k)? - Luis Gonzalez, Denver, Colorado Answer: Life would indeed be a sweeter if your 401(k) plan came with a matching employer contribution, as most plans do. But remember: A 401(k) offers a nifty tax break in that the funds you contribute, as well as all of your account's earnings, aren't taxed as long as they stay within the account. And that tax-deferred compounding is a...

The body of Edward Burns, 36, - who was shot in the head - was found near Falls Road and the beaten body of Joe Jones, 38, was discovered in Ardoyne. Irish police said that three men and a woman had been arrested by detectives in Dublin and Dundalk on Sunday. The Police Service of Northern Ireland said three men and a woman were being questioned in Antrim over the killings. Police said the killings took place against the backdrop of tension within dissident republicanism.

One of the many tragic consequences of the Iraq war is that it has made it harder to act against Iran. The geographical and alphabetical proximity of the two countries tempts us into false comparisons. Look at the mess the neo-cons made in Iraq, we think. We surely can't let those clots try the same failed strategy against Iran. Nor do you hear this argument only from tousled students. Mohammed El-Baradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, says that Iraq should serve as a warning to those who want a forward policy against Teheran. Well, I am no neo-con....

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 2007 – Coalition forces detained 12 suspects during operations early today targeting al Qaeda networks in central and northern Iraq. Surveillance elements led coalition forces to a location in Mosul, where they captured a wanted individual and three suspected terrorists. The wanted individual reportedly is an associate of al Qaeda members involved in foreign terrorist facilitation, to include one who was captured in a coalition operation in Bayji on Oct. 26. Reports indicate one of the suspect's associates, a senior facilitator residing outside of Iraq, is attempting to communicate with terrorist leaders in the country. During the...

Former United Nations' chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has challenged U.S. President George Bush's assertion that Iran poses a nuclear threat and the world should take pre-emptive action. Bush has recently renewed calls for a missile defence shield in Europe, issuing grim warnings that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe and the U.S. by 2015. Blix, who is the executive chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and headed the search for WMDs in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion, acknowledged Iran has a nuclear enrichment program and has long-range missile capability. But he told...

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States were "not that terrible" when compared to attacks by the IRA in Britain. "September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," the Nobel Literature Prize winner told the leading Spanish daily El Pais. "Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be,"...

Madrid - Nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing said in an interview published on Sunday that the September 11 attacks had not been "so bad" when compared to Irish Republican Army action. "September 11 was terrible, but if one re-examines the history of the IRA, what happened in the United States wasn't so bad," Lessing - who captured this year's Nobel literature prize - told Spain's leading El Pais daily. The IRA waged a lengthy armed struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland. It declared an end to its armed campaign in 2005. "Some Americans believe I'm crazy. Many people...

London, Sep. 26 – The Iraqi army confiscated Iranian mortars in an operation in central-southern Iraq on Tuesday, the Multi-National Corps – Iraq (MNC-I) said in a statement on Wednesday. Scouts from the 8th Iraqi army division confiscated and destroyed the mortars along with roadside bombs which were part of a large weapons cache following an intelligence driven operation September 25 in Diwaniyah “Iraqi forces learned that criminal elements were hiding the cache of explosively formed penetrators and mortars in a secret storage facility. The deadly weapons are responsible for many Iraqi and Coalition fatalities”, the MNC-I said. The forces...

BELFAST (Reuters) - British police had information that renegade republicans were planning to attack the Northern Irish town of Omagh 11 days before a bomb in 1998 killed 29 people in the province's worst guerrilla atrocity, the BBC has reported. An investigation by the Police Ombudsman found that days before the August 15 bombing, police had been warned by an informant that an attack by republican dissidents was imminent, while another warning had mentioned Omagh and the planned date, the BBC said. A police detective was said to have spoken to an anonymous caller on August 4 for more than ...

<...snip...> ... do you think the Democratic Left really wishes us to lose in Iraq? ......I think the answers are something like the following. The liberal Democratic leadership believes that Iraq can fail, thereby repudiating the Bush doctrine and the current war on terror, discrediting conservative candidates at large, teaching the American people about the limits of empire and foreign adventurism, restoring humility to foreign policy, ushering in a Democratic renaissance under which higher taxes, more entitlements, and greater government intervention promote egalitarianism and "correct" the past mistakes of the unenlightened electorate—and do so without serious or lasting harm to...

N Ireland SAS hero looks back  The Falls Road then ... In the summer of 1969, a young soldier warily patrols the troubled area of Belfast - the start of the Army's 38-year operation     August 01, 2007       SAS hero Andy McNab learnt his Army trade on the streets of Northern Ireland. During the 1970s it was one of the most dangerous places in the world.Today British troops officially pull out of Northern Ireland after 38 years.Operation Banner was the longest-running continuous campaign in Army history, with 300,000 soldiers serving and 763 killed by paramilitary terrorists.Here, as...

What can the West offer the Islamic Republic of Iran in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions and kenneling its puppies of war? The problem calls to mind the question regarding what to give a man who has everything: cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, diabetes, kidney failure, and so forth. Iran's economy is so damaged that it is impossible to tell how bad things are. Except perhaps for the oilfields of southern Iraq, and perhaps also northern Saudi Arabia, there is nothing the West can give Iran to forestall an internal breakdown

The echo from the shots which rang out some twenty-six years ago near the intersection of Locust Street and 12th Street in Philadelphia can still be heard today. In fact, on Sunday, March 18th they will be especially loud. Exactly 85.9 miles from the spot where Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner fell, masses will be gathering and preparing to march in the Newark St. Patrick's Day Parade. However, for the first time in many years a deeply entrenched tradition will be broken: there will be no police officers among the participants. To serve as this year's parade honoree, organizers chose...

Tehran, 26 April (IPS) As the Law enforcement Forces continue the widely unpopular crackdown on women and young men wearing dresses not conform with Islamic dress code, more voices are heard calling on the Police to be more tolerant and more equitable in imposing the hejab, or the Islamic dress code. According to the latest figures offered by the Police, hundreds of women have been detained on what is generally called as “bad hejabi”, or wearing loose headscarves or tight coats, prompting warnings in the press that the authorities should be focusing on other more pressing issues. At the same...

See the video linked.

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2007 – The success of combat outposts and joint security stations within the Baghdad area have been so successful that there is talk of increasing the number of combined Iraqi and coalition force stations, according to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell IV, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman. Fifty-four of the 75 outposts and stations are operating in the capital, and the number could rise to 102, Caldwell said today during a combined press briefing in Baghdad with Iraqi Army Brig. Gen Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Baghdad Security Plan. “Together we are making progress but it’s...

This morning on Fox, a strategist mentioned that the Democratic Party wants to levy a 15% tax on IRAs and pensions as well as return tax rates to pre-Reagan years. This means a return to 70% marginal tax rates! Did anyone see the story and have a link to it? I am writing an article on the damaging effects of taxation and REALLY need a reference to this story. Or even a link to the video if anyone recorded Fox News. Thanks. Sorry, it isn't breaking news per se. But it IS if the Democrats plan to destroy the U.S.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was re-elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly as Sinn Fein appeared on course to remain the major Catholic-backed party in the British territory, according to results Thursday. Adams, 58, topped the voting in his longtime power base of Catholic west Belfast. He was among the first declared winners for the 108-member assembly following Wednesday's election to find out which Protestant and Catholic parties will control the assembly and hold the key to revived power-sharing in the territory. Sinn Fein activists cheered wildly in the major ballot-counting center, the King's Hall conference center in south Belfast,...

"Striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, absent from the Swedish national side in recent months, will be available for selection for their Euro 2008 championships qualifier against Northern Ireland, the Swedish football association said on Friday. Sweden were without the striker for their Group F Euro 2008 championships qualifying matches against Iceland and group favourites Spain in October. The 25-year-old Inter Milan forward has not played for his country since Lagerbäck cut him from the selection against Liechtenstein, after he went out partying on the eve of the September 6 Euro qualifier. Sweden face Northern Ireland on March 28 in Belfast."

There is a cold hour just before dawn, when the light is the colour of lead, when the past seems a little closer and a lot more real than it does in the clearer light that comes later in the day. --SNIP-- On that day, IRA gunmen burst into a string of houses that lay along my route to the conference centre and shot dead 14 British officers and intelligence officials. The Ireland of those days was inured to brutality on all sides but there was something about these killings that shocked the Dublin public. Maybe it was the curiously...

Deep inside the heart of the "Green Zone", the heavily fortified administrative compound in Baghdad, lies one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the war in Iraq. It is a cell from a small and anonymous British Army unit that goes by the deliberately meaningless name of the Joint Support Group (JSG), and it has proved to be one of the Coalition's most effective and deadly weapons in the fight against terror. Its members - servicemen and women of all ranks recruited from all three of the Armed Forces - are trained to turn hardened terrorists into coalition spies...

The IRA has abandoned terrorism and violence, including shootings, assaults or intelligence gathering and a number of its members have taken the political path within Sinn Féin, the latest report of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) has said. The Irish Government said following the latest assessment that there should now be no further delay in the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland. The Government further welcomes the report's conclusion that PIRA as an organisation continues not to be involved in criminality Government statement In the IMC's 13 th report, covering the period from September 1 st 2006 to November...

HAS peace finally broken out in Northern Ireland? Yesterday a conference of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA, voted to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and to join its governing authority by a lopsided majority of 9-1. It sounds an odd sort of achievement. But it was in fact the final step needed before Sinn Fein could be admitted to the "power-sharing" government of Northern Ireland under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Elections will be held on March 7th for the Northern Ireland Assembly. If all goes as expected, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness will...

Add Keith Olbermann to the list of congressmen, intelligence officials and others to manifest an embarrassing ignorance of the players in the civil strife in Iraq. On tonight's Countdown, Olbermann was trying to make the case that "recent claims from the president that Iran is providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq, something he's expected to repeat tonight in the State of the Union, is proving . . . suspect . . . No matter what the intentions of Iranian President Ahmadinejad . . . the Bush administration is providing scant evidence to support the claims."...

British police colluded with paramilitaries behind at least 10 murders in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, a damning report said, triggering outrage in Dublin and Belfast and remorse in London. The report about Protestant militants threatens to cloud current efforts to restore self-rule in the long-troubled British-run province, in which Catholic lack of confidence in policing is a key stumbling block. "Today's ombudsman's report is deeply disturbing," said Irish premier Bertie Ahern. "Its findings are of the utmost gravity. It paints a picture of despicable past behaviour." "This was a war of terror that was inflicted on Republican and nationalist...

Politicians not welcome at massacre memorial service [Published: Saturday 6, January 2007 - 09:21]By Claire McNeilly Ulster politicians were yesterday absent from an annual memorial service after victims' group FAIR asked them to stay away. More than 30 relatives of the victims gathered at the site of the IRA Kingsmill massacre in order to commemorate those who perished 31 years ago. The short 15-minute service took place at 11am at the site of the 10 killings, half-a-mile from the village of Whitecross, Co Armagh. FAIR spokesman Willie Frazer said that both the prospect of Sinn Fein in government and...

Ancient Babylon flourished in Iraq's real "green zone" -- the Mesopotamian canals connecting the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Babylon, even in its current state of ruin, reflects Iraq's splendid history: the Eden of city-states, the consolidator and exporter of the Agricultural Revolution. The modern mound above old Babylon's grand decay is another matter. At a distance, the white stone edifice on the hill isn't so hideous. But approach it, on foot or in a Humvee, and you'll see Saddam Hussein's Babylonian palace for the cruel marble kitsch it is. Saddam's marble mound begs comparison to the poet Percy Shelley's trunkless...

'Today' invited John Murtha in for a victory lap this morning, and the Dem congressman from PA responded with breathtaking megalomania seasoned with anti-Americanism. Calling America "the enemy" in Iraq, he preened over having been "way ahead" and demanded the US now "take my advice." NBC's invitation came in the wake of the leak of a Donald Rumsfeld memo floating the idea of redeploying American troops from Baghdad and other cities to safer areas in Iraq or Kuwait, where they would act as a “quick reaction force.”Matt Lauer, claiming he wasn't "putting words in your mouth," proceeded to do...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Belfast's most infamous militant stormed into the Northern Ireland Assembly headquarters Friday with a bagful of pipe bombs, forcing an evacuation that overshadowed the politicians' failure to meet a deadline for forming a new Catholic-Protestant administration. Two security guards trapped Michael Stone — an icon of Protestant extremism because of his grenade-and-gun attack on an Irish Republican Army funeral in 1988 — halfway inside the brass revolving door of Stormont Parliamentary Building. Stone, a long-feared figure who boasts of his desire to kill Sinn Fein leaders, repeatedly screamed "No surrender!" as one guard twisted Stone's arm...

Two Republican terror groups opposed to the Good Friday Agreement have denied they are involved in any plot to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. The Irish National Liberation Army and the Continuity IRA said this weekend there are no plans to assassinate Sinn Fein leaders. They also condemned any threats to the two Sinn Fein MPs even though they were political enemies. The INLA and its political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, described claims by Adams that he and Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly were under threat as 'nonsense'. An INLA spokesman told The Observer that the allegation...

McDowell accuses Sinn F?in over Bellenaboy violence The Minister for Justice has said Sinn F?in is playing a significant role in prompting trouble at the Shell gas terminal site in Co Mayo. Speaking after this morning's violence at Bellanaboy, Michael McDowell said the garda? there have his full backing. He hit out at key figures in Sinn F?in saying: "I want to say to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and Caoimhin O?Caolain that this tactic of confronting the Garda? and of breaking the law to achieve political notoriety won?t succeed. "We've gone through all forms of due process and we?ve...

Omagh bombing trial gets started DNA evidence links man to 1998 massacre, court is told By Jonathan McCambridge 25 September 2006 The trial of the man accused of murdering 29 people in the 1998 Omagh bomb massacre finally got under way today. Belfast Crown Court was told that DNA and fibre evidence could connect 37-year-old Sean Hoey to the no-warning Real IRA explosion and a number of other dissident republican attacks. Hoey, from Molly Rd, Jonesborough, who denies a total of 58 terrorist offences, sat in the dock in Court 12, guarded by two court officials, as the Diplock trial...

Sinn Fein accuse McDowell of 'posing' as tough on crime Sinn Féin spokesperson Aengus O Snodaigh TD today accused Minister for Justice Michael McDowell of "headline grabbing" and posing by adopting a tough stance on crime. In his statement Mr O Snodaigh supported suggestions that overcrowding at Mountjoy contributed to the death of Gary Douch in July adding: "More prisons and bigger prisons is not the answer." The Dublin south-central TD said: “After the tragic death of Gary Douch in Mountjoy Prison at the end of July, the Irish Prison Service rejected suggestions that Mountjoy was overcrowded, or that overcrowding...

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams announced plans Sunday for his first trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including a visit with leaders of Hamas. Adams, whose Irish Republican Army-linked party has grown in recent years to become the major representative of Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, said he hoped his visit Tuesday through Thursday would encourage compromise between Israel and Hamas. "It is imperative that genuine negotiation and dialogue between the representatives of the Palestinian and Israeli people commences as quickly as possible," Adams said. "While no two conflicts are identical, there are key conflict resolution principles which can be...

IRA killer attacked by gay pub 'pals' Monday, 21st August 2006, 13:08 Category: Crime and Punishment IRA killer Sean O'Callaghan was tied up by two men he met in a gay pub and held at knifepoint while they ransacked the house he was meant to be looking after, a court heard today. The former IRA hardman turned informer had invited the pair back to the home he was looking after for his friend, author Ruth Edwards, following an evening drinking with them in the nearby West Five gay pub. The 52-year old had selected the bar "only because it was...

Around 50 petrol bombs were thrown at police on patrol in Londonderry last night as sectarian tensions rose ahead of one of the main events of the marching season. Two cars were stolen in the disturbances, one of which was forcibly hijacked. They were both later found burnt out in the nationalist neighbourhood of Bogside. It is estimated that around 10,000 members of the Protestant group the Apprentice Boys will be participating in a parade in the city of Derry today with other smaller processions taking place elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Despite the trouble that stretched into the early hours...

The dissident republican Real IRA has claimed responsibility for the firebomb attacks on stores in Newry this week. Firebombs destroyed JJB Sports and CarpetRight stores in the town whilst a TK Maxx store and MFI outlet were among those badly damaged on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the cross-border railway line between Newry and Dundalk has been closed while police carry out a search. It follows the Real IRA's warning in its statement that there may be unexploded devices on the line. The firebomb attacks earlier this week are estimated to have caused damage worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Newry's SDLP mayor...

IRA 'has ceased its criminality' The IRA is no longer involved in any centrally organised criminality, the British and Irish governments believe. Speaking after meeting Irish ministers, NI Secretary Peter Hain said cross-border intelligence indicated the IRA was living up to its commitments. Mr Hain said individual IRA members may still be involved in criminal activities, but that should not prevent political progress from being made. However, the DUP's Nigel Dodds said Mr Hain was "living in fantasy land". "This latest assessment from the secretary of state lacks credibility and will be treated by the vast majority of people in...

GARY MULGREW, David Bermingham, Giles Darby, Ken Lay, Eliot Spitzer, Hank Greenberg — the list goes on. The first three, now known as “the NatWest Three”, are awaiting extradition to the United States to face charges in connection with the collapse of Enron. Lay, of course, is — was — the founder of Enron, and a former client and friend. Found guilty of a variety of crimes, his death in Aspen last week ends the probability that he would be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail. Spitzer and Greenberg, the New York attorney general and the...

IRA murdered mother 'not an informer' 07/07/2006 - 12:34:40 A mother of 10 who was abducted and shot dead by the IRA nearly 34 years ago was officially cleared today of allegations that she was an informer. Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan said her investigators had found no evidence Jean McConville passed information to the security services. The IRA claimed Mrs McConville, who was seized as she went to the aid of a fatally wounded British soldier outside her front door in December 1972, worked for the intelligence’s agencies. Public pressure forced them into making an apology for the...

Man jailed for five years for IRA membership 28/06/2006 - 13:50:34 A Dublin man who a top garda said had been a member of the IRA since he was 15 years old, has been jailed for five years at the Special Criminal Court. Vincent Kelly, who was arrested wearing an Oglaigh na hEireann t-shirt, was found guilty by the three-judge court earlier this month of being a member of the IRA on June 7 last year. Kelly, who is now 21, of Empress Place, Ballybough, Dublin was arrested when gardaí found a handgun hidden inside a van on the Malahide...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran is not considering a halt to its nuclear fuel program even after any negotiations with major powers, a senior Iranian official said on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT The Iranian Embassy in Vienna said Tehran's deputy nuclear negotiator had been misquoted in a German translation of a speech he gave on Thursday that raised the possibility of Iran stopping uranium enrichment as a result of negotiations. "Iran considers a suspension of uranium enrichment neither as a precondition for talks nor as a result of such talks," Javad Vaeedi told an Austrian think-tank, according to a corrected text of his...