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Ruth King

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Facebook’s Little Ethics Problem by Ruthie Blum

By on June 7th, 2017

Facebook has been aiding abusers of human-rights — such as China, Turkey, Russia and Pakistan — to curb the freedom of expression of their people.

“On the same day that we filed the report, the ‘Stop Palestinians’ page that incited against Palestinians was removed by Facebook… for ‘containing credible threat of violence’ which ‘violated our community standards.’ On the other hand, the ‘Stop Israelis’ page that incited against Israelis, was not removed. We received a response from Facebook stating that the page was ‘not in violation of Facebook’s rules.'” — Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, head of The Israel Law Center.

According to Darshan-Leitner, Facebook’s insistence that it cannot control all the content on its pages is disingenuous, if not an outright lie. After all, its algorithms are perfectly accurate when it comes to detecting users’ shopping habits.

There is a problem at Facebook. On May 8, the social media platform blocked and then shut down the pages of two popular moderate Muslim groups — on the grounds that their content was “in violation of community standards” — without explanation.

Had these pages belonged to the radicals who incite followers to violence, however, the move would have been welcome, and would have corresponded to Facebook’s Online Civil Courage Initiative, founded in Berlin in January 2016, to “challeng[e] hate speech and extremism online,” in the effort to prevent the use of social media as a platform for recruiting terrorists.

The pages that Facebook shut down, however — Ex-Muslims of North America, which has 24,000 followers; and Atheist Republic, with 1.6 million — do nothing of the sort. In fact, they are managed and followed by Arabs across the world who reject not only violence and terrorism, but Islam as a religion.

This, it turns out, is precisely the problem.

Angry Islamists, bent on silencing such “blasphemers” and “apostates,” troll social media and abuse Facebook’s complaint system. It’s a tactic that works like a charm every time, as conservative and pro-Israel individuals and groups — whose posts are disproportionately targeted by political opponents and removed by Facebook for “violating community standards” — can attest. As in most of those cases, the pages of the former Muslims were reinstated the next day, after their administrators demonstrated that the charges against them were false.

The president of Ex-Muslims of North America, Muhammad Syed, who is originally from Pakistan, complained about the practice in an open letter to Facebook, and demanded that the company do more to protect former Muslims from online harassment by Islamists:

“Ironically, the same social media which empowers religious minorities is susceptible to abuse by religious fundamentalists to enforce what are essentially the equivalent of online blasphemy laws. A simple English-language search reveals hundreds of public groups and pages on Facebook explicitly dedicated to this purpose [enforcing blasphemy laws online] — giving their members easy-to-follow instructions on how to report public groups and infiltrate private ones.”

Syed also started a Change.org petition, calling on Facebook to “prevent religious extremists from censoring atheists and secularists.” According to the website Heat Street, which broke the story, there are many other secular Arab groups that have been similarly flagged by religious Muslims on social media.

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Sweden’s Multicultural Apartheid by Nima Gholam Ali Pour

By on June 7th, 2017

Swedish politicians keep trying to portray Sweden as a liberal and tolerant paradise. Experience from the suburbs, however, where most of the migrants are, shows that a large part of Sweden’s population is not part of Sweden’s liberals and feminists. They, in fact get harassed by Islamists every day. In those communities, there is a lack of tolerance.

These women are not some right-wing pundits who criticize Islam. Instead, they are simply Muslim women who are denied fundamental rights in Sweden because they are women and happen to live in communities where parallel Islamic social structures have been created.

The problem is that those who govern Sweden do not originate from, or have any deeper knowledge about, the immigrant suburbs, where people cannot live as free citizens, and clearly have no interest in these suburbs. The LGBT movement and the feminist movement prefer to silence those who protest Islamic oppression in Sweden’s immigrant suburbs.

In Sweden, as in many other suburbs throughout Europe, the repression from which many refugees are fleeing, instead seems to be following them there. Nalin Pekgul, who defines herself as a practicing Muslim and has served as a politician in the Social Democrat Party, stated that in immigrant-settled areas, such as Stockholm’s Tensta suburb, where she lives, the self-appointed “morality police” gather outside assembly rooms to prevent young people from entering if they try to organize parties with music. Islamist organizations in Sweden, Pekgul says, have strengthened their position through support from Saudi Arabia and Sweden’s government agencies, media, political parties and so on.According to Pekgul, there are many Muslims in in Sweden who have become fundamentalists. For calling public attention to these changes, Pekgul has been called an “Islamophobe”. When, in protest against the extremist Muslims, she began wearing short skirts in Tensta, she was harassed.

Another Muslim, Zeliha Dagli, who came to Sweden from Turkey in 1985 and was an elected representative of the Left Party in Sweden, has fought for women’s rights in Stockholm’s immigrant suburbs for 25 years. In 2015, she wrote:

“Once upon a time I ran away, terrified of my childhood imams in our former homeland. Some of them controlled the girls in the village. Older girls were not allowed to pass through the square in the village, but had to sneak and take detours and make themselves ‘invisible’.

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Au Revoir, Paris Climate Accord A Michael Bloomberg–led group has announced that America will still adhere to the climate-change pact. By Julie Kelly

By on June 6th, 2017

A few days after President Trump said the U.S. would pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, a group of political and corporate heavy-hitters announced that they are still in.

The climate flank of the Trump resistance is being led by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. On June 5, Bloomberg — the United Nations secretary general’s special envoy on cities and climate change — published a letter to the U.N. signed by more than 1,200 “mayors, governors, college and university leaders, businesses, and investors” who are “joining forces for the first time to declare that we will continue to support climate action to meet the Paris Agreement.” The group’s new website is called WeAreStillIn.com and immodestly claims to represent the collective interest of 120 million Americans and one-third of the nearly $18 trillion U.S. economy.

Bloomberg says the group will

formally quantify these sectors’ aggregate climate actions and submit a report to the UN as “America’s Pledge” to the world under the Paris Agreement. America’s Pledge intends to eventually submit a “Societal Nationally Determined Contribution” to the United Nations, accounting for the efforts of U.S. cities, states, businesses and other subnational actors.

Among the signatories signaling their fealty to a poorly run international organization hostile to American interests are nine states (all of which voted for Hillary Clinton except for North Carolina), 19 state attorneys general, a few hundred university presidents, and a roster of American businesses including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla. In a bit of shade-throwing, the mayor of Pittsburgh also signed the letter. (Trump said during his Rose Garden announcement last week that he was elected to represent the “citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”)

This should be an interesting exercise not just in political posturing and global boot-licking, but also to see how this group will appease its many members opposed to two technologies — nuclear energy and agricultural biotechnology (or GMOs) — that are proven to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

One of the key organizers is the Sierra Club, which called Trump’s move a “historic mistake which our grandchildren will look back on with stunned dismay at how a world leader could be so divorced from reality and morality.” But while the Sierra Club pushes for clean energy options to end fossil-fuel use, it remains “unequivocally opposed” to nuclear energy: “Nuclear is no solution to Climate Change and every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on truly safe, affordable and renewable energy sources.” The Sierra Club even wants your help to “phase out nuclear as quickly as possible.”

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Inspiration in a Blue Blazer: The Joy of DECA, Part II By Jay Nordlinger

By on June 6th, 2017

Editor’s Note: In our May 29 issue, we published a piece by Jay Nordlinger about DECA. The organization held its big international conference in late April. This week, Mr. Nordlinger has expanded his piece in his Impromptus. For Part I, go here. The series concludes today.

As I’ve mentioned, there are 16,000 kids here in Anaheim — 16,000 DECA-ites, doing their thing. And they reflect a great diversity. They come from every corner of America, and in every flavor, pretty much.

I meet Italian-American kids from New Jersey — right out of Central Casting. And Mexican-American kids from Albuquerque. And black kids from the Deep South — and from the Rust Belt cities.

In the DECA throng, there are many, many South Asian kids: the sons and daughters of immigrants from India. No doubt the fathers of a good number of them are motel owners, pharmacists, and engineers. No doubt these kids have been instilled with the values of hard work, entrepreneurship, and upward mobility.

One of the things that students here at the Anaheim conference do is run for office — the various offices of the wide DECA network. On an exhibition floor, there is a booth promoting the candidacy of one Vishwesh Ravva. He lives in Memphis and is running for vice-president of DECA’s southern region. Campaign slogan: “Wish for Vish.”

When I look at these kids in their blue blazers, with the DECA patch; when I see them planning for their future, and thinking about their place in the economy, and dreaming of what they might contribute — I think they are as American as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer ever were.

The 200,000 DECA high-school students across the nation mirror the general high-school population: in the male-female ratio, for instance. But they differ in one respect: They tend to come from poorer families. They may have an unfortunate cycle to break out of. They may be hungry to get ahead and prove themselves.

There is a young woman here who has never been out of her hometown (in Pennsylvania). Neither have members of her family. She is here thanks to a scholarship from AT&T. Her world has been vastly widened.

When competing, DECA students must wear their blue blazers. Why? Well, the blazer looks kind of sharp. But also, it’s an equalizer. Rich kids, poor kids: They all look the same, essentially. No one need worry about the vexing question of dress.

On the exhibition floor, there are many booths, booths galore. Near the front are two branches of the military: the Army and the Navy. The Army features a slogan that goes, “Lead Faster.” I think what that means is: “Assume a leadership position faster in the Army than you would elsewhere.” But I’m not sure.

There are also booths representing business schools and institutes — including a hotel school in Lausanne. That sounds desirable, if you’re inclined toward the hotel business.

And there are all sorts of businesses, with booths. Take Sparkling Ice, a beverage line: “Never Too Busy to Get Fizzy.”

On this exhibition floor, businesspeople meet potential future employees. And students meet potential future employers. It’s win-win, in that capitalist way.

There is a gift shop, selling a variety of “spirit wear.” (In fact, I learn this term.) Many shirts and hoodies and so on have the DECA logo on them. There are also teddy bears, decked out in DECA shirts. I’m told that students and teachers love the “brand”: the DECA brand. There is a DECA culture, a DECA family feeling, and the spirit wear is part of it.

You can also buy flip cards, which are learning aids. Here is one from the “Marketing” pack: “Cost-Plus Pricing.” And on the back: “This type of pricing includes the variable costs associated with goods, as well as a portion of the fixed costs of operating the business.”

Here is one from the pack marked “Business Management + Administration”: “Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).” “A process improvement technique for evaluating how efficiently a company is able to deliver technology products to its customers.”

I got a million of ’em. Or rather, DECA does.

In one patch of the exhibition floor, students are engaged in madly intense video games. Now, what I have called “games” are actually VBCs, or “Virtual Business Challenges.” These challenges are divided into several categories, including restaurants, hotels, retailing, and sports management.

Consider the restaurant challenge: Students have to figure out menu pricing, purchasing, staffing, a dining layout, a kitchen layout, etc. Moreover, they have to do it under the gun — on the clock — competing against others. They are zealously focused.

Later on, thousands of DECA kids will sit in front of hundreds of judges, participating in an array of competitions. There is an introductory level, which involves role-playing: How do you train a new employee? How do you deal with an angry customer? And at the top level, you submit a 30-page business prospectus. These kids like Shark Tank, the TV show? Now they’re really in a shark tank.

Some of the kids have businesses already. Horse-grooming, for example. I hear about a student from last year who started a business online. He sells vintage and limited-edition sneakers. And he has made a lot of money. This is an advance beyond the old lemonade stand (though kids still create and man those).

As for the judges, they come from myriad sectors of the business world. They may be with well-known companies, such as Marriott, Men’s Wearhouse, or Otis Spunkmeyer. They may be dot-com whizzes. Or franchisees. Or bankers. Or even officials of the Small Business Administration. Many are DECA alumni.

That’s the way it goes in DECA: one generation helping another.

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During Historic Upcoming Israel Trip, Indian PM Modi Won’t Visit Palestinian Authority by Barney Breen-Portnoy

By on June 6th, 2017

Planning is in full swing ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Israel next month, the Hebrew news site Walla reported on Tuesday.

When Modi lands at Ben-Gurion International Airport on July 5, he will become the first sitting Indian prime minister to set foot in Israel.

During his two-day stay, Walla reported, the 66-year-old Modi — who took office in 2014 — will not travel to Ramallah or any other part of the Palestinian Authority, unlike most foreign leaders who visit Israel.

A rare collection of Nazi propaganda posters that was forgotten for decades will now be restored, housed for research and displayed…

However, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did fly to New Delhi last month and met with Modi. At that meeting, Modi reiterated India’s commitment to the establishment of a “sovereign, independent, united and viable” Palestinians state “coexisting peacefully with Israel.”

Modi’s trip comes as Israel and India mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. As of late, the relationship between the two countries has flourished, particularly in the defense field.

This February, for example, it was reported that Modi had approved a $2.5 billion deal to acquire an Israeli aerial defense system for the Indian military.

Last November, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin traveled to India, just over a year after his Indian counterpart, President Pranab Mukherjee, visited Israel.

In January, Israel’s envoy in New Delhi, Daniel Carmon, expressed appreciation for recent changes in India’s voting patterns at international institutions.

“In the last couple of years, we have seen a shift in various votes (by India) which reflects the present improvement in relations,” Carmon told The Hindu. “I would not over exaggerate this as a trend, each side has their declared positions and it is not a zero-sum game. India says they are committed to the Palestinian cause, to the Arab cause, and they have good relations with Israel that they intend to pursue. We appreciate this stand, and at the UN, we can see it too.”

It is expected that, while in Israel, Modi will officially invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a reciprocal visit to India later this year. In 2003, the late Ariel Sharon became the first and so far only sitting Israeli prime minister to travel to India.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

We’ll Never Have Paris The climate change agreement was designed as a feel-good, do-nothing program. Oren Cass

By on June 6th, 2017

Even before President Trump had completed his announcement that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Accord on climate change, howls of disbelief and outrage went up from proponents of the agreement. But the critical dynamic underlying the 2015 Accord, willfully ignored by its advocates, is that major developing countries offered “commitments” for emissions reduction that only mirrored their economies’ existing trajectories. Thus, for instance, China committed to reaching peak emissions by 2030 — in line with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s prior analysis. India committed to improving its emissions per unit of GDP — at a rate slower than that metric was already improving. President Obama, meanwhile, pledged America to concrete and aggressive emissions cuts that would require genuine and costly change.

As I wrote in NATIONAL REVIEW at the conclusion of the Paris conference in December 2015:

The full scope of the catastrophe will emerge only in the years to come. One of the agreement’s few binding provisions is a requirement for countries to gather and review their commitments and their adherence to them every five years. Given the caliber of the pledges, that promise of review has little value; countries that promised to proceed on their existing trajectories will pass with flying colors. But the United States, whose commitments far exceed what even the aggressive Obama agenda is expected to produce, will be the nation off track.

Sure enough, a recent headline from Inside Climate News blares, “China, India to Reach Climate Goals Years Early, as U.S. Likely to Fall Far Short.” That is, China and India are reaching the “goal” of proceeding along their unaltered course, while the U.S. is “falling short” of a very high bar.

One might think this prima facie evidence of the agreement’s folly, but Jonathan Chait of New York magazine instead links to it as proof that the Right’s criticism of Paris “has proven incontrovertibly false.” Citing data from Climate Action Tracker, he avers that “India, which had promised to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 33–35 percent by 2030, is now on track to reduce it by 42–45 percent by that date. China promised its total emissions would peak by 2030 — an ambitious goal for a rapidly industrializing economy. It is running at least a decade ahead of that goal.” Chait concludes, “The factual predicate upon which the American right based its opposition to Paris has melted away beneath its feet.”

However, Climate Action Tracker’s own analysis of India’s Paris commitment in December 2015 determined, “According to our analysis, with the policies it already has in place, India will achieve an emissions intensity reduction of around 41.5% below 2005 levels by 2030.” India committed to less than business-as-usual, has proceeded with business-as-usual, and now wins applause from Chait for beating its worthless commitment. It’s easy to slim down to 180 pounds, if you weigh 175 to begin with.

Likewise, in December 2015, it was Climate Action Tracker’s view that “under a scenario with currently implemented policies, Chinese CO2 emissions are likely to peak around 2025.” The New York Times reports that Chinese emissions may have peaked in 2014, just as the nation’s leaders were formulating their international pledge. Is it more likely that the Chinese inadvertently made a pledge they could meet without trying, or that Chait has fallen for a pledge that was formulated such that it would have to be met?

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It’s the Hypocrisy, Stupid Progressives go the full Jimmy Swaggart. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on June 6th, 2017

Some concerned Democrats are worried that their party may have lost the key blue-wall states because of its elitism, manifested as disdain for Americans between the coasts.

Perhaps emblematic of their worry is the strange metamorphosis of Hillary Clinton’s two presidential campaigns. In 2008, as Bill Clinton 2.0, she drank boilermakers, bragged about bowling and shooting, boasted about her resonance with the “white” working class, and clobbered Obama on his Pennsylvania clingers speech.

But after Obama’s win — and his assumed new formula of registering record numbers of minority voters and seeing them often vote in a bloc on the basis of racial solidarity — Clinton thought she too could follow this new pathway to Democratic victories. So she made the understandable political contortions

This time around, Clinton was bent on out-Obaming Obama’s “clingers” with her own “deplorables” and “irredeemables.” Her campaign was based on pandering to identity-politics groups — while she had cashed in on Wall Street in what can be fairly called a payola scheme with Bill to enrich the Clinton Foundation and thus indirectly themselves. The result was both a cultural and economic affront to what used to be the bedrock of the Democratic party.

Americans neither hate nor envy meritocratic elites. Here in one of the poorer areas of the nation in rural southwestern Fresno County, the poor admire the skilled surgeons who operate on their children. Most of the new agri-barons are up-by-their-bootstraps ethnics: Basques, Punjabis, and descendants of the Okie diaspora and the 1960s waves of immigrants from Mexico who may now farm more than 2,000 or 3,000 acres of orchards and vineyards and on paper be worth $10 or $15 million, though they dress in old clothes and drive run-down pickups. They are looked upon as success stories worthy of emulation because most talk and act like the people who work for and with them.

So perhaps what drives proverbially average Americans crazy is not the success and money of others, but the condescension and hypocrisy of what a particular elite says contrasted with how it lives: The disconnect recalls the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist who on Sunday mornings three decades ago used to break into tears as he loudly condemned the sins of the flesh, while he privately indulged his worldly appetites.

Elites, whose lifestyles lead them to burn lots of carbon, rail about the Paris accords to those who get by burning lots less. What is galling is to see how little the elites’ green rhetoric is backed up by their green behavior. Could Hollywood celebrities at least for a year swear off the use of their private jets that emit more carbon emissions in a year than entire small towns in Ohio?

Why do not college professors who are strident activists for climate change agree to limit their intercontinental jet trips to one a year? Could our pundits and politicians who warn Middle America to brace for radical changes in their lifestyles at least agree to live in houses smaller than 2,500 square feet?

How do our elites square the circle of identity politics and big money? The notion that reparatory admissions and hiring are based on race and gender presupposes that past endemic bias has led to oppression that in turn had hit hard the livelihoods of the Other. But what happens when after a half-century of affirmative action, many who receive preferences are richer than those whom they accuse of white privilege?

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EMP Commission Chair Warns on North Korean EMP By John R. Moore

By on June 6th, 2017

In April, PJMedia warned of an imminent threat to the US from North Korea – an electromagnetic pulse – EMP – attack from an orbiting satellite. We reported that North Korea already has two satellites orbiting the US and that a nuclear weapon detonated over the US from one could devastate our country, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions from the loss of critical infrastructure.

Shortly after our warning, the respected North Korea analysis site 38North published an article titled “A North Korean Nuclear EMP Attack? … Unlikely”. The author, relying on an incomplete and dated report, thought that North Korea would need a hydrogen bomb (thermonuclear weapon) in order to be a threat.

Now, 38North has a new piece on the topic – “North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack: An Existential Threat.” The author is the former head of the Congressional EMP Commission and is a foremost expert on EMP. This article adds to the PJMedia report by confirming that the yield of nuclear weapons already tested by North Korea is sufficient to be devastating. It refutes the prior article:

‘Thus, even if North Korea only has primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons, and if other states or terrorists acquire one or a few such weapons as well as the capability to detonate them at an altitude of 30 kilometers or higher over the United States. … the EMP Commission warned over a decade ago in its 2004 Report, “the damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack.”’

Nuclear EMP from a high altitude detonation – H-EMP E-1 pulse – is caused when a massive flux of gamma rays strikes the upper levels of the atmosphere. These strip off and accelerate electrons, creating a sudden powerful electromagnetic pulse, which travels to the surface and destroys electronics and can damage power transmission equipment. The result would be a months-long loss of the electrical grid, transportation, computers and communication systems, causing a rapid breakdown of our transportation, food, water and healthcare delivery systems.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES ON PROFESSOR BRET WEINSTEIN

By on June 6th, 2017

When the Left Turns on Its Own

Bari Weiss https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/when-the-left-turns-on-its-own.html?_r=1

Bret Weinstein is a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., who supported Bernie Sanders, admiringly retweets Glenn Greenwald and was an outspoken supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Weinstein, who identifies himself as “deeply progressive,” is just the kind of teacher that students at one of the most left-wing colleges in the country would admire. Instead, he has become a victim of an increasingly widespread campaign by leftist students against anyone who dares challenge ideological orthodoxy on campus.

This professor’s crime? He had the gall to challenge a day of racial segregation.

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‘Racist’ Evergreen State Professor Was Apparently Loved by Students By Tom Knighton

By on June 6th, 2017

Bret Weinstein probably didn’t intend to become a rallying point for conservatives and libertarians who take issue with the rampant political correctness that has infected American campuses. The self-described liberal probably finds himself in agreement with the typical SJW on most issues.

However, he dared to take issue with an event that kicked every white person off campus for the day, and that is all the evidence social justice jihadis needed to claim Weinstein is suddenly a white supremacist.

It’s hard to believe that a school offering feminist biology classes — yes, you read that correctly: check out “Reproduction: Gender, Race, and Power” and “Feminist Epistemologies: Critical Approaches to Biology and Psychology” — would have missed Weinstein’s intense hatred for everyone with a different amount of melanin, right?

Well, according to Rate My Professor, where reviews can get rather nasty, Weinstein had a rating of 4.2 out of 5, with 100 percent of students saying they would take a class from him again.

Sound like the record of a white supremacist on a progressive campus?

Not everyone loved him, such as the student who gave the following review:

I have a very different view of Bret’s teaching. He was very unorganized, and didnt know what he was going to teach until he came to class. I can honestly say that I learned nothing in this class, and was very disapointed with the content and quality. Instead of learning about adaptations of organisms, we played frisbee and watched movies.

Hmm. No white supremacy there.

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