Published on Tuesday, July 13, 2004 by http://www.CommonDreams.org
Depleted Uranium: America's Silent Weapon of Mass Destruction
by Sally Carless
American troops are coming home poisoned -- not by Saddam -- but by
their own government's weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction.
The first reports from soldiers returning from Iraq have come in, and
they are testing positive for depleted uranium (DU) in their systems.
And these are not just random soldiers many are police officers and fire
fighters from New York who serve in the NY Army National Guard. These
are the very symbols of what this war was supposedly about.
Depleted uranium is a component of toxic nuclear waste. As such, it is
extremely cheap. It is also very effective -- the densest material
available on the market, it can smash through tanks as if they were
butter. When DU weapons explode, a fine aerosol of radioactive dust
(uranium oxide) is formed. This dust -- which remains radioactive for
billions of years -- is small enough to be inhaled. Once inhaled,
uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely. The
U.S. military has used hundreds of tons of these weapons - not just in
the Iraqi conflict, but also in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, and
in the first Gulf War. This dust attaches itself to tanks, clothing and
equipment, becomes absorbed in the soil, plants, and water, and is
propelled around every time the wind blows. DU powder does not
discriminate; it gets into the lungs of Iraqi men, women, and children,
as well as in the lungs of American service people. The recently tested
soldiers from New York were not even in combat - imagine the amounts of
DU waiting to be found in those who were in the midst of fighting and
deploying these weapons. Many of the troops currently in Iraq are
suffering from "mysterious" symptoms.
Why is it that so many of the troops do not even know what depleted
uranium is? Why were they told to camp in areas where DU weapons were
used? Why weren't they told that the destroyed Iraqi tanks they pass on
their patrols are highly radioactive?
The rates of birth defects and cancer in Iraq have skyrocketed since
the first Gulf War. Thousands of veterans from that war have fallen ill
with a range of symptoms that have come to be known as Gulf War
Syndrome. Common complaints include chronic fatigue, multiple cancers,
musculoskeletal pain, neurological damage, signs and symptoms involving
skin (including skin rashes and unusual hair loss), sleep disturbances,
menstrual disorders, gastrointestinal problems, abnormal weight loss,
upper and lower respiratory problems, memory loss, and chemical
sensitivities. Veterans' children suffer increased rates of sickness as
well.
Babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf War are 50 percent more
likely to have physical abnormalities than those born to soldiers who
were not sent to that region, according to a recent study funded by the
UK's Ministry of Defense. The study cited increased risks of genital,
urinary and renal abnormalities, deformed limbs, bones and muscles. The
Gulf War Veterans Association reports that at least 300,000 Gulf War
vets have developed incapacitating illnesses. This is the fallout from
the supposedly "quick and easy" war that lasted only a few weeks.
While the U.S. military claims Gulf War Syndrome is a mystery, many
vets -- and scientists -- believe that depleted uranium is one of the
major causes of their ailments. It took the U.S. thirty years to admit
that Agent Orange actually did harm our Vietnam vets, so perhaps the
military believes it can put off admitting what is already known about
DU for many years to come. In the meantime, service people are denied
proper care.
Major Doug Rokke (Ret.) led the Pentagon's depleted uranium assessment
team, which spent several months in the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 involved
in DU cleanup, research, and follow-up medical care for U.S. personnel
exposed to DU. Rokke has since become seriously ill, and many on his
team have already died. He published his research in an Army pamphlet
which, according to Rokke, was never distributed to NATO troops
operating in the Balkans or to civilians living in areas bombarded by DU
shells. Rokke's research concluded that anyone who comes in contact with
DU must get medical attention, including those who fired the weapons, as
well as anyone who has been near equipment or structures struck with DU
shells.
In 1999 a United Nations subcommittee called for an initiative banning
the use of DU worldwide. The initiative died in committee where it was
blocked by the U.S. In 2003 the European Parliament called for a
moratorium on the use of depleted uranium. Despite the fact that the
U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards of DU in a training manual, the
Pentagon continues to deny that DU is dangerous.
Saddam's WMDs were not found. But, America's DU weapons continue to
contaminate our soldiers and are likely to contaminate the planet for
billions of years to come. Our troops have not been informed of the
danger they face from DU. The American corporate media remains silent.
The politicians are looking the other way. These weapons are being used
in our name; these are our tax dollars at work. Who is keeping watch here?
Sally Carless is the founder and director of Global Village School for
Peace and Diversity Studies, an international K-12 distance-learning
diploma program dedicated to teaching about peace and justice. She can
be reached at sally@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Additional resources as
well as articles documenting the facts stated in this article can be
found at www.globalvillageschool.org/resources.html and
www.globalvillageschool.org/troops.html.
Jan Straathof wrote on 7/14/04, 10:52 AM:
> Radiation in Iraq equals 250,000 Nagasaki bombs
>
> By Bob Nichols <bobnichols@xxxxxxx>
>
> July 13, 2004. As a writer I do not have a set of
> words to describe what 142 degrees in the shade is
> like. I've seen 120 degrees in Phoenix and 110
> degrees in the spa's sauna I use. One hundred
> forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try to
> imagine 142 D temperature while wearing a helmet,
> long sleeve shirt, long pants, a bulletproof vest,
> boots, and carrying a 70-pound pack. ..........
>
> But, this story is not about the temperature in
> Iraq. You can bet, though, the weather will be
> really important for those Americans unfortunate
> enough to still be in Iraq this summer. This story
> is about American weapons built with uranium
> components for the business end of things. Just
> about all American bullets, tank shells, missiles,
> dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000-pound
> bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else
> engineered to help our side in the war of us
> against them has uranium in it. Lots of uranium.
> In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800
> pounds of the stuff. This article is about how
> much radioactive uranium our guys, representing
> us, the citizens of the United States, let fly in
> Iraq. Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds
> of the stuff, give or take, according to the
> Pentagon and the United Nations. That is a bunch.
> Now, most people have no idea how much Four
> Million Pounds of anything is, much less of
> uranium oxide dust (UOD), which this stuff turns
> into when it is shot or exploded. Suffice it to
> say it is about equal to 1,333 cars that weigh
> 3,000 pounds apiece. That is a lot of cars; but we
> can imagine what a parking lot with 1,333 is like.
> The point is this was and is an industrial
> strength operation. It is still going on, too. No
> sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of Radioactive
> Uranium Dust (RUD) on the ground in Iraq was a
> definitely "on-purpose" kind of thing. It was not
> "just an accident." We, the citizens of the United
> States, through our kids in the Army, did this on
> purpose. When the uranium bullets, missiles, or
> bombs hit something or explode most of the
> radioactive uranium turns instantly into very,
> very small dust particles, too fine to even see
> (they call it: uranium oxide, that's the really
> bad stuff). When US troops or Iraqis breathe even
> a tiny amount into their lungs, as little as one
> gram, it is the same as getting an X-Ray every
> hour for the rest of their shortened life. The
> uranium cannot be removed, there is no treatment,
> there is no cure. The uranium will long outlast
> the veterans' and the Iraqis' bodies though; for,
> you see, it lasts virtually forever. But, it gets
> worse. Seems an admiral who is the former chief of
> the naval staff of India wanted to know how much
> radiation this represented. He also wanted to
> express the amount in a figure that the world,
> especially the non-American world, could easily
> understand. The admiral decided to figure out how
> many Nagasaki plutonium bombs it would take to
> include the equivalent of the total amount of
> radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003 in the Four
> Million Pounds of uranium. The admiral also wanted
> to figure out how much radiation the United States
> Military Forces have deployed in the last five
> American wars, the so-called Five Nuclear
> Radiation Wars. That is a simple enough task for
> somebody like the naval chief of staff for a
> country that is a member of the Nuclear Club.
> Using the Nagasaki bomb for the measuring stick is
> a particularly gruesome twist, though. For those
> of you in the States who do not know it, United
> States military forces dropped two nuclear bombs
> on Japan at the close of World War II. The rest of
> the world remembers that. One atom bomb was
> dropped by Americans on the city of Hiroshima, the
> other bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days
> later. About 170,000 to 250,000 people were
> vaporized or incinerated immediately. It was a
> really big deal. It is a measuring stick that
> plays very well in the rest of the world; but, not
> very well on American Fox News (Fair & Balanced)©
> channel or the rest of the Fox-like American
> media. The Department of Energy still lists the
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations as "tests". The
> admiral released the data months ago at a
> scientific conference in India. This article is
> the first report of the data in the United States.
> It will first be released on the Internet. The
> admiral in India calculated the amount of
> radiation in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it
> with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium
> left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me,
> it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is
> essentially what the experts in India did. How
> many Nagasaki bombs equal the radiation in the
> 2003 Iraq war? Answer: about 250,000 Nagasaki
> bombs. How many Nagasaki bombs equal the radiation
> in the last Five American Nuclear Radiation Wars?
> Answer: about 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Who would do
> something like this? We would. The only people in
> the history of the world to engage in nuclear wars
> are Americans, citizens of the United States.
> Allegedly, the Germans and Japanese of WWII also
> wanted to engage in nuclear wars, except the
> American military beat them to the draw, so to
> speak. Respected academic scholars could debate
> forever whether or not Herr Hitler, Fuhrer of
> Germany, would have deployed uranium munitions in
> the Sudetenland if the weapons had been available.
> Certainly the Germans knew just as much about
> uranium wars as we did at the time. It seems
> doubtful that Adolph Hitler would have ordered the
> use of uranium munitions there because the
> Sudetenland was so close to the Fatherland, Nazi
> Germany. An American general named Leslie Groves
> was in charge of the bomb making operation called
> The Manhattan Project. In 1943 The War Department
> knew exactly what uranium bullets and bombs were
> good for. If the nuclear weapons did not detonate
> in Japan, the use of uranium bullets and bombs
> were the fall back position. It was not 'til
> Ronald Reagan was president in 1981 did the
> re-named Defense Department resurrect the deadly
> radioactive uranium bullets, shells, bombs, and
> missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was
> Ronnie Ray-Gun. The American military knew the
> symptoms of radiation poisoning in 1943, too;
> starting with the irritated sore throat through to
> an agonizing death from being cooked from the
> inside out. President sic Bush promised to invade
> and attack many countries in the 2003 State of the
> Union speech. I believe the man. For some reason,
> some misguided Americans do not believe him, or
> think he was "exaggerating." The rest of the world
> has every reason to believe him and fear him,
> though. Not to worry, Americans, the president sic
> has plenty of raw material for radioactive uranium
> munitions left. There are more than 77,000 tons
> stored at the 103 nuclear waste plants and a
> stunning 1.5 billion pounds at the several nuclear
> weapons labs and related facilities in the US.
> Each nuke waste generating plant makes another 250
> pounds of radioactive material a day for
> radioactive bullets, shells, bombs, and missiles.
> Not to put too fine a point on it; but that is
> enough for 288 more gloriously successful
> campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear Radiation War in
> Iraq. Who's next? Every year about this time the
> southern winds leave a fine desert sand on the
> windshields of cars parked outside in Africa then
> Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this sand
> dust will carry a surprise. Thanks to the
> Americans. Thanks to us. We did this to the world.
> And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so.
> These uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing
> effect gives a whole new meaning to the age old
> term: cannon fodder. In Iraq, what goes around,
> comes around. If not the uranium munitions
> themselves, the uranium dust will be in the bodies
> of our returning armed forces, time bombs slowly
> ticking away the lives of the gullible and the
> ignorant with their very own personal internal
> radiation source, the cannon fodder of the 21st
> Century American Nuclear Radiation Wars. .......
>
>
>
>
>
> --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
Depleted Uranium: America's Silent Weapon of Mass Destruction
by Sally Carless
American troops are coming home poisoned -- not by Saddam -- but by
their own government's weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction.
The first reports from soldiers returning from Iraq have come in, and
they are testing positive for depleted uranium (DU) in their systems.
And these are not just random soldiers many are police officers and fire
fighters from New York who serve in the NY Army National Guard. These
are the very symbols of what this war was supposedly about.
Depleted uranium is a component of toxic nuclear waste. As such, it is
extremely cheap. It is also very effective -- the densest material
available on the market, it can smash through tanks as if they were
butter. When DU weapons explode, a fine aerosol of radioactive dust
(uranium oxide) is formed. This dust -- which remains radioactive for
billions of years -- is small enough to be inhaled. Once inhaled,
uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely. The
U.S. military has used hundreds of tons of these weapons - not just in
the Iraqi conflict, but also in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, and
in the first Gulf War. This dust attaches itself to tanks, clothing and
equipment, becomes absorbed in the soil, plants, and water, and is
propelled around every time the wind blows. DU powder does not
discriminate; it gets into the lungs of Iraqi men, women, and children,
as well as in the lungs of American service people. The recently tested
soldiers from New York were not even in combat - imagine the amounts of
DU waiting to be found in those who were in the midst of fighting and
deploying these weapons. Many of the troops currently in Iraq are
suffering from "mysterious" symptoms.
Why is it that so many of the troops do not even know what depleted
uranium is? Why were they told to camp in areas where DU weapons were
used? Why weren't they told that the destroyed Iraqi tanks they pass on
their patrols are highly radioactive?
The rates of birth defects and cancer in Iraq have skyrocketed since
the first Gulf War. Thousands of veterans from that war have fallen ill
with a range of symptoms that have come to be known as Gulf War
Syndrome. Common complaints include chronic fatigue, multiple cancers,
musculoskeletal pain, neurological damage, signs and symptoms involving
skin (including skin rashes and unusual hair loss), sleep disturbances,
menstrual disorders, gastrointestinal problems, abnormal weight loss,
upper and lower respiratory problems, memory loss, and chemical
sensitivities. Veterans' children suffer increased rates of sickness as
well.
Babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf War are 50 percent more
likely to have physical abnormalities than those born to soldiers who
were not sent to that region, according to a recent study funded by the
UK's Ministry of Defense. The study cited increased risks of genital,
urinary and renal abnormalities, deformed limbs, bones and muscles. The
Gulf War Veterans Association reports that at least 300,000 Gulf War
vets have developed incapacitating illnesses. This is the fallout from
the supposedly "quick and easy" war that lasted only a few weeks.
While the U.S. military claims Gulf War Syndrome is a mystery, many
vets -- and scientists -- believe that depleted uranium is one of the
major causes of their ailments. It took the U.S. thirty years to admit
that Agent Orange actually did harm our Vietnam vets, so perhaps the
military believes it can put off admitting what is already known about
DU for many years to come. In the meantime, service people are denied
proper care.
Major Doug Rokke (Ret.) led the Pentagon's depleted uranium assessment
team, which spent several months in the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 involved
in DU cleanup, research, and follow-up medical care for U.S. personnel
exposed to DU. Rokke has since become seriously ill, and many on his
team have already died. He published his research in an Army pamphlet
which, according to Rokke, was never distributed to NATO troops
operating in the Balkans or to civilians living in areas bombarded by DU
shells. Rokke's research concluded that anyone who comes in contact with
DU must get medical attention, including those who fired the weapons, as
well as anyone who has been near equipment or structures struck with DU
shells.
In 1999 a United Nations subcommittee called for an initiative banning
the use of DU worldwide. The initiative died in committee where it was
blocked by the U.S. In 2003 the European Parliament called for a
moratorium on the use of depleted uranium. Despite the fact that the
U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards of DU in a training manual, the
Pentagon continues to deny that DU is dangerous.
Saddam's WMDs were not found. But, America's DU weapons continue to
contaminate our soldiers and are likely to contaminate the planet for
billions of years to come. Our troops have not been informed of the
danger they face from DU. The American corporate media remains silent.
The politicians are looking the other way. These weapons are being used
in our name; these are our tax dollars at work. Who is keeping watch here?
Sally Carless is the founder and director of Global Village School for
Peace and Diversity Studies, an international K-12 distance-learning
diploma program dedicated to teaching about peace and justice. She can
be reached at sally@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Additional resources as
well as articles documenting the facts stated in this article can be
found at www.globalvillageschool.org/resources.html and
www.globalvillageschool.org/troops.html.
Jan Straathof wrote on 7/14/04, 10:52 AM:
> Radiation in Iraq equals 250,000 Nagasaki bombs
>
> By Bob Nichols <bobnichols@xxxxxxx>
>
> July 13, 2004. As a writer I do not have a set of
> words to describe what 142 degrees in the shade is
> like. I've seen 120 degrees in Phoenix and 110
> degrees in the spa's sauna I use. One hundred
> forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try to
> imagine 142 D temperature while wearing a helmet,
> long sleeve shirt, long pants, a bulletproof vest,
> boots, and carrying a 70-pound pack. ..........
>
> But, this story is not about the temperature in
> Iraq. You can bet, though, the weather will be
> really important for those Americans unfortunate
> enough to still be in Iraq this summer. This story
> is about American weapons built with uranium
> components for the business end of things. Just
> about all American bullets, tank shells, missiles,
> dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000-pound
> bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else
> engineered to help our side in the war of us
> against them has uranium in it. Lots of uranium.
> In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800
> pounds of the stuff. This article is about how
> much radioactive uranium our guys, representing
> us, the citizens of the United States, let fly in
> Iraq. Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds
> of the stuff, give or take, according to the
> Pentagon and the United Nations. That is a bunch.
> Now, most people have no idea how much Four
> Million Pounds of anything is, much less of
> uranium oxide dust (UOD), which this stuff turns
> into when it is shot or exploded. Suffice it to
> say it is about equal to 1,333 cars that weigh
> 3,000 pounds apiece. That is a lot of cars; but we
> can imagine what a parking lot with 1,333 is like.
> The point is this was and is an industrial
> strength operation. It is still going on, too. No
> sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of Radioactive
> Uranium Dust (RUD) on the ground in Iraq was a
> definitely "on-purpose" kind of thing. It was not
> "just an accident." We, the citizens of the United
> States, through our kids in the Army, did this on
> purpose. When the uranium bullets, missiles, or
> bombs hit something or explode most of the
> radioactive uranium turns instantly into very,
> very small dust particles, too fine to even see
> (they call it: uranium oxide, that's the really
> bad stuff). When US troops or Iraqis breathe even
> a tiny amount into their lungs, as little as one
> gram, it is the same as getting an X-Ray every
> hour for the rest of their shortened life. The
> uranium cannot be removed, there is no treatment,
> there is no cure. The uranium will long outlast
> the veterans' and the Iraqis' bodies though; for,
> you see, it lasts virtually forever. But, it gets
> worse. Seems an admiral who is the former chief of
> the naval staff of India wanted to know how much
> radiation this represented. He also wanted to
> express the amount in a figure that the world,
> especially the non-American world, could easily
> understand. The admiral decided to figure out how
> many Nagasaki plutonium bombs it would take to
> include the equivalent of the total amount of
> radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003 in the Four
> Million Pounds of uranium. The admiral also wanted
> to figure out how much radiation the United States
> Military Forces have deployed in the last five
> American wars, the so-called Five Nuclear
> Radiation Wars. That is a simple enough task for
> somebody like the naval chief of staff for a
> country that is a member of the Nuclear Club.
> Using the Nagasaki bomb for the measuring stick is
> a particularly gruesome twist, though. For those
> of you in the States who do not know it, United
> States military forces dropped two nuclear bombs
> on Japan at the close of World War II. The rest of
> the world remembers that. One atom bomb was
> dropped by Americans on the city of Hiroshima, the
> other bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days
> later. About 170,000 to 250,000 people were
> vaporized or incinerated immediately. It was a
> really big deal. It is a measuring stick that
> plays very well in the rest of the world; but, not
> very well on American Fox News (Fair & Balanced)©
> channel or the rest of the Fox-like American
> media. The Department of Energy still lists the
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations as "tests". The
> admiral released the data months ago at a
> scientific conference in India. This article is
> the first report of the data in the United States.
> It will first be released on the Internet. The
> admiral in India calculated the amount of
> radiation in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it
> with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium
> left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me,
> it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is
> essentially what the experts in India did. How
> many Nagasaki bombs equal the radiation in the
> 2003 Iraq war? Answer: about 250,000 Nagasaki
> bombs. How many Nagasaki bombs equal the radiation
> in the last Five American Nuclear Radiation Wars?
> Answer: about 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Who would do
> something like this? We would. The only people in
> the history of the world to engage in nuclear wars
> are Americans, citizens of the United States.
> Allegedly, the Germans and Japanese of WWII also
> wanted to engage in nuclear wars, except the
> American military beat them to the draw, so to
> speak. Respected academic scholars could debate
> forever whether or not Herr Hitler, Fuhrer of
> Germany, would have deployed uranium munitions in
> the Sudetenland if the weapons had been available.
> Certainly the Germans knew just as much about
> uranium wars as we did at the time. It seems
> doubtful that Adolph Hitler would have ordered the
> use of uranium munitions there because the
> Sudetenland was so close to the Fatherland, Nazi
> Germany. An American general named Leslie Groves
> was in charge of the bomb making operation called
> The Manhattan Project. In 1943 The War Department
> knew exactly what uranium bullets and bombs were
> good for. If the nuclear weapons did not detonate
> in Japan, the use of uranium bullets and bombs
> were the fall back position. It was not 'til
> Ronald Reagan was president in 1981 did the
> re-named Defense Department resurrect the deadly
> radioactive uranium bullets, shells, bombs, and
> missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was
> Ronnie Ray-Gun. The American military knew the
> symptoms of radiation poisoning in 1943, too;
> starting with the irritated sore throat through to
> an agonizing death from being cooked from the
> inside out. President sic Bush promised to invade
> and attack many countries in the 2003 State of the
> Union speech. I believe the man. For some reason,
> some misguided Americans do not believe him, or
> think he was "exaggerating." The rest of the world
> has every reason to believe him and fear him,
> though. Not to worry, Americans, the president sic
> has plenty of raw material for radioactive uranium
> munitions left. There are more than 77,000 tons
> stored at the 103 nuclear waste plants and a
> stunning 1.5 billion pounds at the several nuclear
> weapons labs and related facilities in the US.
> Each nuke waste generating plant makes another 250
> pounds of radioactive material a day for
> radioactive bullets, shells, bombs, and missiles.
> Not to put too fine a point on it; but that is
> enough for 288 more gloriously successful
> campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear Radiation War in
> Iraq. Who's next? Every year about this time the
> southern winds leave a fine desert sand on the
> windshields of cars parked outside in Africa then
> Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this sand
> dust will carry a surprise. Thanks to the
> Americans. Thanks to us. We did this to the world.
> And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so.
> These uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing
> effect gives a whole new meaning to the age old
> term: cannon fodder. In Iraq, what goes around,
> comes around. If not the uranium munitions
> themselves, the uranium dust will be in the bodies
> of our returning armed forces, time bombs slowly
> ticking away the lives of the gullible and the
> ignorant with their very own personal internal
> radiation source, the cannon fodder of the 21st
> Century American Nuclear Radiation Wars. .......
>
>
>
>
>
> --- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---