Pictures: Wildfires Scorch Australia Amid Record Heat

Photograph by Jo Giuliani, European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke from a wildfire mushrooms over a beach in Forcett, Tasmania, on January 4. (See more wildfire pictures.)

Wildfires have engulfed southeastern Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, in recent days, fueled by dry conditions and temperatures as high as 113ºF (45ºC), the Associated Press reported. (Read "Australia's Dry Run" inNational Geographic magazine.)

No deaths have been reported, though a hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Dunalley, where the blazes destroyed 90 homes.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the AP.

"We are at the catastrophic level, and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Published January 8, 2013

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CIA Nominee May Have 'Zero Dark Thirty' Problem

Navy SEALs are seen fighting through a dust storm in the new thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, "Zero Dark Thirty." (Columbia Pictures/AP Photo)

There’s only one White House staffer portrayed in the new movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” and it is someone described in the credits as “National Security Advisor.”

It’s a position that’s possibly filled in real life by John Brennan, the president’s counterterrorism advisor, who President Obama nominated Jan. 7 to be director of C.I.A.. The character in the movie, with references to the C.I.A’s involvement in the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that led the U.S. into war in Iraq, explains to a frustrated agency representative the difficulty of the president’s decision in acting on partial intelligence.

Spoiler alert: The president does ultimately act on that partial intelligence and Osama bin Laden is nabbed.

The character in real life – Brennan – has been opposed by some for his work at the C.I.A. under President Bush and the “enhanced interrogation” policies like waterboarding that also play a prominent role in the movie.

President Obama makes a cameo in the movie in the form of a “60 Minutes” interview in which he declares that, “America doesn’t torture, and I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture.”

That declaration is viewed, in the film, by a table full of CIA agents in Pakistan who have been involved in “enhanced” interrogations.

The U.S. used waterboarding on three al Qaeda detainees at secret prisons run by the CIA.  It  ended the practice of using secret prisons in September of 2006 under President Bush and in 2009 President Obama signed executive orders in his first days in office that banned of the use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

But that was after the techniques had already scuttled Brennan’s first chance to head the CIA.  Brennan wasn’t nominated to be CIA director back in the early days of the Obama administration, but he was widely considered to be a front-runner for the job. ABC’s Jake Tapper reported at the time that Brennan withdrew his name for consideration and most of the opposition came as a result of his work at the C.I.A. when those techniques were in use.

And there is indication that they will make his nomination difficult this year.

“I appreciate John Brennan’s long record of service to our nation, but I have many questions and concerns about his nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the last administration, as well as his public defense of those programs,” said Sen. John McCain after Brennan was nominated Monday.  ”I plan to examine this aspect of Mr. Brennan’s record very closely as I consider his nomination.”

The movie has certainly brought “enhanced interrogation” – it’s critics call it torture – back into the conversation about the war on terror, as ABC’s Lee Ferran reported Monday:

Last week three high-powered senators, Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) and 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain (R.-Ariz.), revealed they had written two letters to Morell in December demanding to know what impact the CIA may have had on the depiction of enhanced interrogation in the film and whether the agency “misled” the filmmakers into thinking the tactic was effective.

“As you know, the film depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees. The film then credits CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques as providing critical lead information on the courier that led to the [bin Laden] compound,” one letter says. “The CIA cannot be held accountable for how the Agency and its activities are portrayed in film, but we are nonetheless concerned, given the CIA’s cooperation with the filmmakers and the narrative’s consistency with past public misstatements by former senior CIA officials, that the filmmakers could have been misled by information they were provided by the CIA.”

Brennan, for his part, has said he opposed torture techniques, as Jake Tapper reported back in 2008 when Brennan removed his name from consideration for the C.I.A. job in 2008.

In a letter released to the media, apparently by Brennan or someone operating on Brennan’s behalf, the former CIA official wrote, “It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush Administration such as the preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, too include waterboarding. The fact that I was not involved in the decision making process for any of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored. Indeed, my criticism of these policies within government circles why I was twice considered for more senior-level positions in the current Administration only to be rebuffed by the White House.”

But Brennan did defend the practice in news media interviews when he described the actions of C.I.A. director George Tenet. This is what Brennan told CBS’s Harry Smith about enhanced interrogation in 2007: “The CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics, and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures….There have been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hard-core terrorists. It has saved lives. And let’s not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.”

Brennan has also spoken out in support of “rendition” – the practice where the U.S. government captures terror suspects in one country and relocates them to another. That’s a practice still employed by the Obama administration, according to a recent Washington Post investigation.

Related: Watch Martha Raddatz’s Nightline interview with ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Director Kathryn Bigelow:

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Court considers limits on class-action suits

The Supreme Court on Monday considered what limitations could be placed on class-action lawsuits, an increasingly active battleground for consumer advocates and corporate interests.

The issue is whether plaintiff lawyers offer low-ball estimates of the damages they seek or take advantage of procedural loopholes to keep their cases in state courts, where Justice Antonin Scalia said “generous juries” and “very favorable judges” can be common.

Cases that seek less than $5 million and deal with state law and regulatory issues generally remain in state courts. If a lawsuit seeks $5 million or more, a 2005 law requires that the case be transferred to federal courts, where conditions are more favorable for the corporate defendants.

Corporations and their trade associations are asking the court to interpret the Class Action Fairness Act to keep plaintiff lawyers from either underestimating the damages or breaking the litigation into less-than-$5-million pieces. Even with such stipulations, businesses say, lawyers can use the suits to demand higher settlements in lieu of years of legal wrangling.

This viewpoint found support even among justices normally protective of class-action suits. “This is just a loophole that swallows up all of Congress’s statute,” said Justice Stephen G. Breyer.

The arguments came on the court’s first public gathering after its extended holiday break. The justices disposed of several cases by deciding not to review them and officially announced that their highly anticipated hearings on issues surrounding same-sex marriage would take place in late March.

The court on March 26 will consider Proposition 8, the voter-approved referendum that amended California’s constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman. A district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco overturned the referendum.

The next day, the court will consider the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that withholds federal benefits from same-sex couples legally married in the states where they live. The law affects things such as health insurance, taxes and medical leave, and has been struck down as unconstitutional by two of the nation’s appeals courts.

The class-action case considered Monday by the justices came from Arkansas, where homeowner Greg Knowles accused Standard Fire Insurance of not covering all the costs of repairing hail damage. He sought to represent other Arkansans with similar complaints.

Standard Fire tried to move the case to federal court and out of Miller County, Ark., which the insurer and other business interests have identified as a “magnet” for class actions.

To do so, the company tried to prove that if Knowles were successful, the suit would be worth more than $5 million, even though he and his lawyers said it would not.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told Standard’s lawyer, Theodore Boutrous, that his client was in the “perverse position” of arguing that “you know, they are seeking less than $5 million, but we’re responsible for a lot more damage than that.”

But Roberts and Breyer had tough questions for lawyer David Frederick, representing Knowles. They envisioned ways to break up a massive class-action suit into pieces that each sought less than $5 million, but collectively would demand far more than that.

“All that is required is a few extra pieces of paper that will soon become standardized, and a lot of postage stamps,” Breyer said.

The case is Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles.

In other action Monday, the justices announced that they would not review an appeals court ruling that upheld the Obama administration’s policy of expanding government funding of stem-cell research. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had reversed a district judge’s ruling that threatened the National Institutes of Health research.

The court also decided not to get involved in how the Federal Election Commission decides which organizations must register as political action committees and are thus required to reveal their donors.

The challenge was brought by a group called The Real Truth About Abortion, an organization known previously as The Real Truth About Obama.

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AIM deal begs questions: Tan Cheng Bock

SINGAPORE: Former long-time PAP backbencher Tan Cheng Bock has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the sale of computer systems used by town councils, raising several questions in a post on his Facebook page on Monday, including whether it was right and beneficial to give up ownership of software developed using public funds.

Dr Tan, who was chairman of West Coast-Ayer Rajah Town Council from 2001 to 2004, also questioned whether the town councils, as "public institutions" - a description that was disputed by Tampines GRC MP Baey Yam Keng, who said they were "political organisations" - did the right thing selling the system to Action Information Management (AIM), "a company owned by a political party with its own agenda".

The sale of the systems to a company that is wholly-owned by the PAP "begs a few questions", said Dr Tan, "especially when the company may not serve, 'due to material change', an opposition ward".

"This software is developed using public funds by town councils. Is it right for the TCs to give up ownership in this manner?" he asked.

"So did the town councils as public institutions do the right thing, selling (the system) to a company owned by a political party with its own agenda?"

Dr Tan also questioned the need to introduce AIM as a "middle man" between the town councils and the software developers. He asked if this arrangement raised the town councils' costs, which will eventually be borne by constituents.

"As AIM is now the owner, is it going to pay the costs for any upgrade or new software development? How much is AIM then going to charge the town councils, which now is at the mercy of AIM?" he wrote.

"As town councils are public institutions, citizens are certainly uncomfortable with political party-owned companies transacting with the town councils.

"Much more clarity and transparency are needed."

In response to TODAY's queries, Dr Tan said he "had no problem" with the town councils harmonising the systems in 2003, but added that he was not around when a consultancy was engaged to review the systems -it later recommended that the systems be sold to a third party.

The episode was sparked by Workers' Party (WP) Chairman Sylvia Lim attributing Aljunied-Hougang Town Council's less-than-stellar performance in the Dec 14 Town Council Management Report to AIM's sudden termination of its contract.

It led to a war of words between WP and the PAP town councils.

But Mr Baey, who had to field several questions on the same issue during his regular Facebook chats on Sunday, felt the matter had been unnecessarily politicised.

Noting that town councils are run by political parties, Mr Baey, who is the vice-chairman of Tampines Town Council, added: "I feel that we may be reading too much into the political association. Because in the first place it's a political organisation."

Although town councils provide a public service, Mr Baey felt that "they're not public institutions; they're not a public service company".

"They do not belong to the government. They're governed by government regulations, but they're definitely not run by civil servants; and they're not a public agency," he told TODAY.

Questions on whether the tender process was properly done and if there was a conflict of interest regarding the sale were also directed at Mr Baey during his Facebook chat.

He responded that the focus should instead be on whether AIM had failed in its commitment to the town councils and whether its fees have been unreasonable.

- TODAY/jc

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Abu Jundal's bail plea dismissed

NEW DELHI: A trial court has dismissed the bail plea of LeT terrorist and 26/11 Mumbai attack key handler Abu Jundal, arrested for his alleged role in conspiring to launch terror strikes across the country. It also gave NIA up to 180 days time to complete its probe into the case.

In an in court proceeding, District Judge (DJ) I S Mehta allowed the application of National Investigation Agency (NIA), which sought extension of probe time up to 180 days, saying the articles alleged to have been recovered from Jundal is sensitive to "the issue of national security," the court sources said.

"Looking into the facts and circumstances and the articles alleged to be recovered from respondent/accused (Abu Jundal)... I allow the application of NIA and the accused is remanded to judicial custody for further period of 13 days and Jundal's application under section 167(2) of the CrPC is dismissed," the court said, while fixing the matter for further proceeding on January 17.

During the hearing, Jundal's counsel M S Khan moved the court for bail saying the NIA is delaying the filing of the charge sheet in the case and this does not entitle it to seek more time to complete the probe.

The NIA had also sought extension of Jundal's judicial custody saying its investigation is in progress and it could not disclose its details due to security reasons and the court could see the same in the case diary.

The NIA had lodged an FIR against Jundal following the unearthing of a Lashkar-e-Toiba's (LeT) conspiracy for terror strikes across the country.

During the hearing, Jundal's counsel Khan opposed the NIA's plea for extension of judicial custody saying no efforts have been made by the agency to collect evidence from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia against his client.

Khan argued that there was no circumstance under which the extension of time could be granted to the NIA and Jundal was entitled to be released on bail.

The NIA, however, told the court that its probe into the case is going on.

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Billions of Earthlike Planets Found in Milky Way

Tens of billions of Earthlike worlds are strewn across the Milky Way, many of them circling stars very much like our own sun, astronomers said today.

Earlier research suggested that rocky planets might be much more abundant around small stars than sunlike ones. (Also see "New 'Super Earth' Found at Right Distance for Life.")

But a fresh analysis of data from NASA's Kepler mission, which launched in 2009, suggests this is not the case, according to new research presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California.

"We found that the occurrence of small planets around large stars was underestimated," said astronomer Francois Fressin, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A Starry Night ... Full of Planets

To find planets, Kepler stares at a patch of sky in the constellation Cygnus, made up of about 150,000 stars. The space telescope detects potential alien worlds by watching for telltale dips in starlight created when planets pass in front of, or "transit," their parent stars.

Using their own independent software for analyzing Kepler's potential planet detections, Fressin and his colleagues estimate that about 17 percent, or one in six, of all the sunlike stars in the Milky Way host a rocky planet that orbits closer than the distance at which Mercury orbits our own sun.

Since the Milky Way is home to about a hundred billion stars, that means there are at least 17 billion rocky worlds out there. (See Milky Way pictures.)

When the team expanded their search to Earth-size orbits or larger, they found that half of all sunlike stars may host rocky planets.

"Every time you look up on a starry night, [nearly] each star you're looking at has a planetary system," Fressin said.

A Hundred Billion Planets?

Rocky planets are just a fraction of the total number of planets in our Milky Way, however.

A study of the number of potential worlds orbiting M-dwarfs—faint stars smaller than our sun that make up the vast majority of the stellar population—suggests our galaxy may be home to at least a hundred billion planets overall. (See "Four White Dwarfs Found Eating Earthlike Planets.")

"Based on our calculations, which are very complimentary to those of [Fressin] ... we are showing that there is about one planet per star, and that gives us a total of about a hundred billion planets throughout our galaxy," said Caltech planetary astronomer John Johnson.

"The vast majority of those planets are orbiting stars that are very much different from our sun."

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Cops Break Down as They Describe Aurora Horror

Two veteran police officers broke down on the stand today during a preliminary hearing for accused movie theater gunman James Holmes, with one officer choking up when he described finding the body of a 6-year-old girl inside the theater.

Sgt. Gerald Jonsgaard needed a moment to compose himself as he described finding the little girl, Veronica Moser Sullivan, in the blood splattered theater in Aurora, Colo.

An officer felt for a pulse and thought Veronica was still alive, Jonsgaard said, but the officer then realized he was feeling his own pulse.

A preliminary hearing for Holmes began today in Colorado, with victims and families present. He is accused of killing 12 people and wounded dozens more in the movie theater massacre. One of Veronica's relatives likened attending the hearing to having to "face the devil."

The officers wiped away tears as they described the horror they found inside of theater nine.

Officer Justin Grizzle recounted seeing bodies lying motionless on the floor, surrounded by so much blood he nearly slipped and fell.

Grizzle, a former paramedic, says ambulances had not yet made it to the theater, so he began loading victims into his patrol car and driving to the hospital.

"I knew I needed to get them to the hospital now, " Grizzle said, tearing up. "I didn't want anyone else to die."

Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo

James Holmes Tries to Harm Himself, Sources Say Watch Video

Aurora, Colorado Gunman: Neuroscience PhD Student Watch Video

Grizzle drove six victims in four trips, saying that by the end there was so much blood in his patrol car he could hear it "sloshing around."

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

An officer who took the stand earlier today described Holmes as "relaxed" and "detached" when police confronted him just moments after the shooting stopped.

The first two officers to testify today described responding to the theater and spotting Holmes standing by his car at the rear of the theater on July 20, 2012. He allegedly opened fire in the crowded theater during the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Officer Jason Oviatt said he first thought Holmes was a cop because he was wearing a gas mask and helmet, but as he got closer realized he was not an officer and held Holmes at gunpoint.

Throughout the search and arrest, Holes was extremely compliant, the officer said.

"He was very, very relaxed," Oviatt said. "These were not normal reactions to anything. He seemed very detached from it all."

Oviatt said Holmes had extremely dilated pupils and smelled badly when he was arrested.

Officer Aaron Blue testified that Holmes volunteered that he had four guns and that there were "improvised explosive devices" in his apartment and that they would go off if the police triggered them.

Holmes was dressed for the court hearing in a red jumpsuit and has brown hair and a full beard. He did not show any reaction when the officers pointed him out in the courtroom.

This is the most important court hearing in the case so far, essentially a mini-trial as prosecutors present witness testimony and evidence—some never before heard—to outline their case against the former neuroscience student.

The hearing at the Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo., could last all week. At the end, Judge William Sylvester will decide whether the case will go to trial.

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Lines drawn in gun-control debate

Lawmakers kept up the renewed debate over the nation’s gun laws Sunday, with the Senate’s leading Republican arguing that the matter must wait until pressing fiscal issues are addressed in Congress and one Senate Democrat warning against “extreme” restrictions on guns.

“The biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “That’s going to dominate the Congress between now and the end of March. None of these issues, I think, will have the kind of priority that spending and debt are going to have over the next two or three months.”

An Obama administration task force led by Vice President Biden plans to offer recommendations this month on how to curb gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. The working group is weighing measures broader and more comprehensive than simply reinstating the expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. President Obama has said he favors reinstating such a ban.

Other measures under consideration include regulations that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, strengthen mental health checks, and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors.

Freshman Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) expressed concern that the Obama administration was considering such a sweeping gun-control approach.

“That’s way, way in extreme of what I think is necessary or even should be talked about. And it’s not going to pass,” Heitkamp said on “This Week.”

Heitkamp received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, the nation’s largest gun-rights group. She said that addressing mental-health issues should be an important part of curbing mass shootings.

“To me, one of the issues that I think comes — screams out of this — is the issue of mental health and the care for the mentally ill in our country, especially the dangerously mentally ill. And so we need to have a broad discussion before we start talking about gun control,” Heitkamp said.

On Capitol Hill, members on both sides of the debate introduced a handful of measures last week involving guns. Most of the measures were aimed at stepping up gun control, though a couple of the bills proposed turning back the federal regulation designating school zones as gun-free areas.

New York Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand sent a letter to Biden on Sunday urging his task force to include a pair of measures they authored in its final recommendations. The measures would create a federal law defining gun trafficking, require states and the federal government to send records on felons, drug abusers, the seriously mentally ill and other dangerous individuals to the FBI-run system for background checks on gun buyers, and close a loophole that allows background checks to be waved in purchases of firearms at gun shows. 

“As you move forward on developing recommendations with the newly formed Interagency Task Force to Reduce Gun Violence, we urge you to consider both the role that illegal guns play in gun crimes committed across America and the failures of the current federal background check system in preventing illegal gun sales,” the senators wrote.

The renewed debate has revealed a stark divide between those who favor tightening restrictions and those, such as officials at the NRA, who have said that arming qualified Americans is the best way to reduce violent outbreaks.

On Sunday, two former members of the House who returned to Congress after being elected again last November, disagreed about the need for a renewed ban on assault weapons.

“I’m a hunter, believe in Second Amendment rights. But you know what? I don’t need an assault weapon to shoot a duck,” said Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “And I think they ought to be banned, and I think we need to put a ban on the amount of shells you can carry in a magazine and I think we have to strengthen our background checks.”

Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) said on the same program, “I do not support the assault-weapon ban.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who said he spent most of the past month with the families affected by the Newtown shooting, said he disagreed with McConnell’s call to put off a debate in Congress about guns until after the nation’s spending and debt issues have been addressed.

“I don’t think we should wait three months to get this done. I think we should get it done now, and I frankly think that if we did that it would save lives,” Murphy said on “Face The Nation.”

Philip Rucker contributed to this report.

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New highs for SGX's derivatives & commodities markets in 2012

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Exchange's derivatives and commodities markets achieved record highs in 2012.

However as in most global markets, trading activities declined.

Turnover dropped 12 per cent in 2012 to S$321.5 billion.

However securities market performance, as measured by the Straits Times Index, was up 20 per cent last year.

In December, turnover was up 39 per cent from a year earlier at S$23.2 billion.

Meanwhile, derivatives volume in 2012 reached a new high of 80.2 million contracts, up 11 per cent.

The volume of agri-commodity futures also grew 56 per cent in 2012 to 255,815 contracts.

- CNA/jc

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Aadhaar must deliver all subsidy perks: Montek

NEW DELHI: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, wants to deliver all welfare and subsidy benefits through Aadhaar-based cash transfer scheme, which is touted as UPA's "game-changer" for 2014 parliamentary polls.

Ahluwalia said that it would be left to the discretion of state governments to implement it as was done for FDI in multi-brand retail.

However, he maintained that the proposal to bring the entire gamut of benefits and subsidies, including those provided through the public distribution system (PDS) on Aadhaar platform, as his personal opinion.

The comment came at a time many Opposition-ruled states, including Chhattisgarh, have refused to bring PDS under Aadhar-based cash transfer scheme. Many social activists have also voiced concern over cash transfer in lieu of commodity subsidy that include food and fertilizer scheme.

Ahluwalia argued that while some CMs are opposed to bring commodity subsidy under the scheme, there are many like Delhi chief ministerSheila Dikshit who wants cash transfer to the beneficiaries instead of commodity.

Adopting a cautious approach, the UPA government launched its ambitious direct cash transfer scheme in 20 districts, instead of 43 as was announced earlier, on January 1.

The programme is covering a select 26 schemes such as educational scholarship for SC/ST and OBC, and widow pension.

It has also kept LPG also out of its ambit for now. The government has also kept out food, fertilizers, diesel and kerosene from the scheme's ambit.

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