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#Post#: 32982--------------------------------------------------
President of Haiti assassinated last night
By: guest125 Date: July 7, 2021, 4:57 pm
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Things have escalated in Haiti--
HTML https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haitian-president-shot-dead-home-overnight-pm-2021-07-07/
#Post#: 32988--------------------------------------------------
Re: President of Haiti assassinated last night
By: patrick jane Date: July 7, 2021, 7:39 pm
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Trained Mercenaries
#Post#: 33271--------------------------------------------------
Re: President of Haiti assassinated last night
By: patrick jane Date: July 13, 2021, 1:24 am
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[img]
HTML https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/07/10/ap21190813571396-9943803dd7987e1627942f1312cf70962fe87ef4-s800-c85.webp[/img]
A Haitian police officer asks a woman to move away from a gate
at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince on Friday.
HTML https://www.npr.org/2021/07/10/1014936971/haiti-asks-for-us-troops-after-president-assassination
Haiti's Interim Leader Is Asking For U.S. Troops To Help With
Security
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti's interim government said it
asked the U.S. to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure as
it tries to stabilize the country and prepare for elections in
the aftermath of President Jovenel Moïse's assassination.
Amid the confusion, hundreds of Haitians gathered outside the
U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince pleading for a way out of the
country. Women carried babies and young men waved passports and
ID cards as they cried out, "Refuge!" and "Help!"
"We definitely need assistance and we've asked our international
partners for help," Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph told
The Associated Press in a phone interview late Friday. "We
believe our partners can assist the national police in resolving
the situation."
The stunning request for U.S. military support recalled the
tumult following Haiti's last presidential assassination, in
1915, when an angry mob dragged President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam
out of the French Embassy and beat him to death. In response,
President Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines into Haiti, justifying
the American military occupation — which lasted nearly two
decades — as a way to avert anarchy.
But the Biden administration has so far given no indication it
will provide military assistance. For now, it only plans to send
FBI officials to help investigate a crime that has plunged
Haiti, a country already wracked by gaping poverty and gang
violence, into a destabilizing battle for power and
constitutional standoff.
On Friday, a group of lawmakers announced they had recognized
Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti's dismantled senate, as
provisional president in a direct challenge to the interim
government's authority. They also recognized as prime minister
Ariel Henry, whom Moïse had selected to replace Joseph a day
before he was killed but who had not yet taken office or formed
a government.
One of those lawmakers, Rosemond Pradel, a former secretary
general of Haiti's provisional electoral commission, told the AP
that Joseph "is neither qualified nor has the legal right" to
lead the country.
Joseph expressed dismay that others would try to take advantage
of Moïse's murder for political gain.
"I'm not interested in a power struggle," said Joseph, who
assumed leadership with the backing of police and the military.
"There's only one way people can become president in Haiti. And
that's through elections."
More details emerge of President Jovenel Moïse's assassination
Meanwhile, more details emerged of a killing that increasingly
has taken the air of an murky, international conspiracy
involving a shootout with gunmen holed up in a foreign embassy,
a private security firm operating out of a cavernous warehouse
in Miami and a cameo sighting of a Hollywood star.
Among those arrested are two Haitian Americans, including one
who worked alongside Sean Penn following the nation's
devastating 2010 earthquake. Police have also detained or killed
what they described as more than a dozen "mercenaries" who were
former members of Colombia's military.
Some of the suspects were seized in a raid on Taiwan's Embassy
where they are believed to have sought refuge. National Police
Chief Léon Charles said another eight suspects were still at
large and being sought.
The attack, which took place at Moïse's home before dawn
Wednesday, also seriously wounded his wife, who was flown to
Miami for surgery. Joseph said he has spoken to the first lady
but out of respect for her mourning has not inquired about the
attack.
Colombian officials said the men were recruited by four
companies and traveled to the Caribbean nation in two groups via
the Dominican Republic. U.S.-trained Colombian soldiers are
heavily sought after by private security firms and mercenary
armies in global conflict zones because of their experience in a
decades-long war against leftist rebels and powerful drug
cartels.
Some of the men had posted on Facebook photos of themselves
visiting the presidential palace and other tourist spots in the
Dominican Republic, which shares Hispaniola Island with Haiti.
The sister of one of the dead suspects, Duberney Capador, told
the AP that she last spoke to her brother late Wednesday — hours
after Moïse's murder — when the men, holed up in a home and
surrounded, were desperately trying to negotiate their way out
of a shootout.
"He told me not to tell our mother, so she wouldn't worry," said
Yenny Capador, fighting back tears.
It's not known who masterminded the attack. And numerous
questions remain about how the perpetrators were able to
penetrate the president's residence posing as U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents, meeting little resistance
from those charged with protecting the president.
Capador said her brother, who retired from the Colombian army in
2019 with the rank of sergeant, was hired by a private security
firm with the understanding he would be providing protection for
powerful individuals in Haiti.
Capador said she knew almost nothing about the employer but
shared a picture of her brother in a uniform emblazoned with the
logo of CTU Security — a company based in Doral, a Miami suburb
popular with Colombian migrants.
The wife of Francisco Uribe, who was among those arrested, told
Colombia's W Radio that CTU offered to pay the men about $2,700
a month — a paltry sum for a dangerous international mission but
far more than what most of the men, nonommissioned officers and
professional soldiers, earned from their pensions.
Uribe is under investigation in the alleged murder of an unarmed
civilian in 2008 who was presented as someone killed in combat,
one of thousands of extrajudicial killings that rocked
Colombia's U.S.-trained army more than a decade ago.
CTU Security was registered in 2008 and lists as its president
Antonio Intriago, who is also affiliated with several other
Florida-registered entities, some of them since dissolved,
including the Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy, the
Venezuelan American National Council and Doral Food Corp.
CTU's website lists two addresses, one of which is a
gray-colored warehouse that was shuttered Friday with no sign
indicating who it belonged to. The other is a small suite under
a different company's name in a modern office building a few
blocks away. A receptionist at the office said Intriago stops by
every few days to collect mail and hold meetings. Intriago, who
is Venezuelan, did not return phone calls and an email seeking
comment.
"We are the ones who are most interested in clarifying what
happened, so that my brother's reputation does not remain like
it is," said Capador. "He was a humble, hard-working man. He had
honors and decorations."
Besides the Colombians, among those detained by police were two
Haitian Americans.
Investigative Judge Clément Noël told Le Nouvelliste that the
arrested Americans, James Solages and Joseph Vincent, said the
attackers originally planned only to arrest Moïse, not kill him.
Noël said Solages and Vincent were acting as translators for the
attackers, the newspaper reported Friday.
Solages, 35, described himself as a "certified diplomatic
agent," an advocate for children and budding politician on a
now-removed website for a charity he started in 2019 in south
Florida to assist resident of his home town of Jacmel, on
Haiti's southern coast.
He worked briefly as a driver and bodyguard for a relief
organization set up by Penn following a magnitude 7.0 earthquake
that killed 300,000 Haitians and left tens of thousands
homeless. He also lists as past employers the Canadian Embassy
in Haiti. His Facebook page, which was also taken down following
news of his arrest, features photos of armored military vehicles
and a shot of himself standing in front of an American flag.
Calls to the charity and Solages' associates went unanswered.
However, a relative in south Florida said Solages doesn't have
any military training and doesn't believe he was involved in the
killing.
Prime minister says Moïse had earned numerous enemies
Joseph refused to specify who was behind the attack, but said
that Moïse had earned numerous enemies while attacking powerful
oligarchs who for years profited from overly generous state
contracts.
Some of those elite insiders are now the focus of investigators,
with authorities asking that presidential candidate and
well-known businessman Reginald Boulos and former Senate
President Youri Latortue meet with prosecutors next week for
questioning. No further details were provided and none of the
men have been charged.
Analysts say whoever plotted the brazen attack likely had ties
to a criminal underworld that has flourished in recent years as
corruption and drug trafficking have become entrenched. The
growing power of gangs displaced more than 14,700 people in
Haiti last month alone as they torched and ransacked homes in a
fight over territory.
"This country has nothing to offer," said 36-year-old Thermidor
Joam, one of those thronged outside the U.S. Embassy on Friday.
"If the president can be killed with his own security, I have no
protection whatsoever if someone wants to kill me."
Prosecutors also want to interrogate members of Moïse's security
detail, including the president's security coordinator, Jean
Laguel Civil, and Dimitri Hérard, the head of the General
Security Unit of the National Palace.
"If you are responsible for the president's security, where have
you been?," Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude was quoted
as telling French-language newspaper Le Nouvelliste. "What did
you do to avoid this fate for the president?"
#Post#: 35398--------------------------------------------------
Re: President of Haiti assassinated last night
By: patrick jane Date: October 21, 2021, 8:03 am
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[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/126056.jpg?w=700[/img]
HTML https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/october/haiti-missionaries-kidnapped-cam-gang-1-million-ransom.html
Haiti Negotiates with Gang over $1 Million Ransom for Each
Kidnapped Missionary
Christian Aid Ministries requests prayer for 17 captive
Christians, including five children ages 15 to 8 months.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Negotiations stretched into a fifth day
seeking the return of 17 members of a US-based missionary group
kidnapped over the weekend by a violent gang that is demanding
$1 million ransom per person.
The group includes five children whose ages range from 8 months
to 15 years, although authorities were not clear whether the
ransom amount included them, a top Haitian official said
Tuesday. Sixteen of the abductees are Americans and one
Canadian.
The abduction is one of at least 119 kidnappings recorded in
Haiti for the first half of October, according to the Center of
Analysis and Research of Human Rights, a local nonprofit group.
It said a Haitian driver was abducted along with the
missionaries, bringing the total to 18 people taken by the gang.
The Haitian official, who was not authorized to speak to the
press, told The Associated Press that someone from the 400
Mawozo gang made the ransom demand Saturday in a call to a
leader of the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries (CAM) shortly
after the abduction.
“This group of workers has been committed to minister throughout
poverty-stricken Haiti,” the Ohio group said, adding that the
missionaries—who were returning from visiting an orphanage when
they were abducted—worked most recently on a project to help
rebuild homes lost in a magnitude-7.2 earthquake that struck
southwestern Haiti on August 14.
[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/126091.jpg?h=683&w=1024[/img]
Yesterday, CAM asked for prayer, stating:
Today, we again commit our workers to God’s care. “For He shall
give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways”
(Psalm 91:11). Pray that our workers could respond to hatred
with Jesus’ love, overcome the spirit of fear with faith, and
face violence with a genuine desire to bless their oppressors.
We request prayers for the Haitian and American civil
authorities who are working to resolve this situation. We
believe the command of the Bible in I Timothy 2:2-3—“Therefore I
exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who
are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in
all godliness and reverence.”
Responding to the recent wave of kidnappings, workers staged a
protest strike that shuttered businesses, schools, and public
transportation starting Monday. The work stoppage was a new blow
to Haiti’s anemic economy. Unions and other groups vowed to
continue the shutdown indefinitely.
In a peaceful demonstration Tuesday north of Port-au-Prince,
dozens of people walked through the streets of Titanyen
demanding the release of the missionaries. Some carried signs
that read “Free the Americans” and “No to Kidnapping!” and
explained that the missionaries helped pay bills and build roads
and schools.
“They do a lot for us,” said Beatrice Jean.
Meanwhile, the country’s fuel shortage worsened, with businesses
blaming gangs for blocking roads and gas distribution terminals.
Hundreds of motorcycles zoomed through the streets of
Port-au-Prince on Tuesday as the drivers yelled, “If there’s no
fuel, we’re going to burn it all down!”
One protest took place near the prime minister’s residence,
where police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd demanding fuel.
In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said
Tuesday that the FBI was “part of a coordinated US government
effort” to free the missionaries. The US Embassy in
Port-au-Prince was coordinating with local officials and the
hostages’ families.
“We know these groups target US citizens who they assume have
the resources and finances to pay ransoms, even if that is not
the case,” Psaki said, noting that the government has urged US
citizens not to visit Haiti.
It is longstanding US policy not to negotiate with hostage
takers, and Psaki declined to discuss details of the operation.
The kidnapping was the largest of its kind reported in recent
years. Haitian gangs have grown more brazen as the country tries
to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel
Moïse and the earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people.
Christian Aid Ministries said the kidnapped group included six
women, six men, and five children. “Their heart-felt desire is
to share the love of Jesus,” it stated. “Before the kidnapping,
their work throughout Haiti included supporting thousands of
needy school children, distributing Bibles and Christian
literature, supplying medicines for numerous clinics, teaching
Haitian pastors, and providing food for the elderly and
vulnerable.”
A sign on the door at the organization’s headquarters in Berlin,
Ohio, said it was closed due to the kidnapping situation.
News of the kidnappings spread swiftly in and around Holmes
County, Ohio, hub of one of the largest populations of Amish and
conservative Mennonites in the United States, said Marcus Yoder,
executive director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in
nearby Millersburg, Ohio.
Christian Aid Ministries is supported by conservative Mennonite,
Amish, and related groups that are part of the Anabaptist
tradition.
The organization was founded in the early 1980s and began
working in Haiti later that decade, said Steven Nolt, professor
of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in
Pennsylvania. The group has year-round mission staff in Haiti
and several countries, he said, and it ships religious, school
and medical supplies throughout the world.
“We greatly appreciate the prayers of believers around the
world, including our many Amish and Mennonite supporters,” said
CAM. “The Bible says, ‘The effective, fervent prayer of a
righteous man avails much’ (James 5:16).
It continued:
Join us in prayer that God’s grace would sustain the men, women,
and children who are being held hostage. In a world where
violence and force are seen as the solution to problems, we
believe in God’s call to Christians to “…not be overcome by
evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Pray that
those being held hostage could find strength to demonstrate
God’s love. The kidnappers, like all people, are created in the
image of God and can be changed if they turn to Him. While we
desire the safe release of our workers, we also desire that the
kidnappers be transformed by the love of Jesus, the only true
source of peace, joy, and forgiveness.
Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press
journalists Matías Delacroix in Port-au-Prince, Matthew Lee in
Washington, Peter Smith in Pittsburgh, John Seewer in Toledo,
Ohio, and Julie Carr Smyth in Berlin, Ohio, contributed to this
report. Additional reporting by CT.
#Post#: 35440--------------------------------------------------
Re: President of Haiti assassinated last night
By: patrick jane Date: October 24, 2021, 9:35 am
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[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/126109.jpg?w=700[/img]
The sign outside Christian Aid Ministries in Titanyen, Haiti, on
Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021.
HTML https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/october/haiti-missionaries-kidnapped-christian-aid-ministries-threa.html
Haiti Gang Threatens to Kill Kidnapped Missionaries over Million
Dollar Ransoms
Christian Aid Ministries asks for prayer as the families of the
16 Americans and one Canadian detained state, “God has given our
loved ones the unique opportunity to live out our Lord’s command
to love your enemies.”
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A US religious organization whose 17
members were kidnapped in Haiti asked supporters on Friday to
pray and share stories with the victims’ families of how their
faith helped them through difficult times as efforts to recover
them entered a sixth day.
Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries issued the statement a day
after a video was released showing the leader of the 400 Mawozo
gang threatening to kill those abducted if his demands are not
met. Haitian officials have said the gang is seeking $1 million
ransom per person, although they said it wasn’t clear if that
includes the five children in the group, the youngest being 8
months old.
“You may wonder why our workers chose to live in a difficult and
dangerous context, despite the apparent risks,” the organization
said. "Before leaving for Haiti, our workers who are now being
held hostage expressed a desire to faithfully serve God in
Haiti."
The FBI is helping Haitian authorities recover the 16 Americans
and one Canadian. A local human rights group said their Haitian
driver also was kidnapped.
“Pray that their commitment to God could become even stronger
during this difficult experience,” Christian Aid Ministries
said.
The video posted on social media shows 400 Mawozo leader Wilson
Joseph dressed in a blue suit, carrying a blue hat and wearing a
large cross around his neck.
“I swear by thunder that if I don’t get what I’m asking for, I
will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans,” he said in
the video.
He also threatened Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Haiti’s
national police chief as he spoke in front of the open coffins
that apparently held several members of his gang who were
recently killed.
“You guys make me cry. I cry water. But I’m going to make you
guys cry blood,” he said.
[img]
HTML https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/126110.jpg?h=683&w=1024[/img]
An aerial view of Christian Aid Ministries headquarters in
Titanyen, Haiti, on Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021.
At the White House on Friday, US press secretary Jen Psaki
sidestepped questions about whether the Biden administration
would look to halt deportations of Haitians to their home
country or consider adding a US military presence on the ground
in response to the missionaries’ kidnappings.
“We are working around the clock to bring these people home,”
she said. “They are US citizens, and there has been targeting
over the course of the last few years of US citizens in Haiti
and other countries too … for kidnapping for ransom. That is one
of the reasons that the State Department issued the warning they
did in August about the risk of kidnapping for ransom.”
Psaki spoke a day after a couple hundred protestors shut down
one neighborhood in Haiti’s capital to decry the country’s
deepening insecurity and lack of fuel blamed on gangs, with some
demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
The streets of Port-au-Prince were largely quiet and empty on
Friday, although hundreds of supporters of Jimmy Cherizier,
leader of “G9 Family and Allies,” a federation of nine gangs,
marched through the seaside slum of Cité Soleil.
“We are not involved in kidnapping. We will never be involved in
kidnapping,” Cherizier, known as Barbecue, claimed during a
speech to supporters.
As they marched, the supporters sang and chanted that G9 is not
involved in kidnappings. Some of them were carrying high caliber
automatic weapons.
“This is the way they are running the country,” Cherizier, who
is implicated in several massacres, said as he pointed to trash
lining the streets with his assault weapon.
Amid the worsening insecurity, the prime minister’s office
announced late Thursday that Léon Charles had resigned as head
of Haiti's National Police and was replaced by Frantz Elbé. The
newspaper Le Nouvelliste said Elbé was director of the police
departments of the South East and Nippes and previously served
as general security coordinator at the National Palace when
Jocelerme Privert was provisional president.
“We would like for public peace to be restored, that we return
to normal life and that we regain our way to democracy,” Henry
said.
Weston Showalter, spokesman for the religious group, has said
the families of those kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite, and
other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Ontario, Canada.
He read a letter from the families, who weren’t identified by
name, in which they said, “God has given our loved ones the
unique opportunity to live out our Lord’s command to love your
enemies.”
The group invited people to join them in prayer for the
kidnappers as well as those kidnapped and expressed gratitude
for help from “people that are knowledgeable and experienced in
dealing with” such situations.
“Pray for these families,” Showalter said. “They are in a
difficult spot.”
The organization later issued a statement saying it would not
comment on the video “until those directly involved in obtaining
the release of the hostages have determined that comments will
not jeopardize the safety and well-being of our staff and family
members.”
The gang leader’s death threat added to the already intense
concern in and around Holmes County, Ohio, where Christian Aid
Ministries is based and which has one of the nation’s largest
concentrations of Amish, conservative Mennonite, and related
groups. Many members of those groups have supported the
organization through donations or by volunteering at its
warehouse.
“These kinds of things erase some of the boundaries that exist
within our circles,” said Marcus Yoder, executive director of
the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in Millersburg.
“Many people in the community feel helpless, but they also
realize the power of prayer and the power of our historic
theology,” he said, including the Anabaptist belief in
nonresistance to violence.
The same day that the missionaries were kidnapped, a gang also
abducted a Haiti university professor, according to a statement
that Haiti’s ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection issued
on Tuesday. It also noted that a Haitian pastor abducted earlier
this month has not been released despite a ransom being paid.
“The criminals … operate with complete impunity, attacking all
members of society,” the organization said.
UNICEF said Thursday that 71 women and 30 children have been
kidnapped so far this year — surpassing the 59 women and 37
children abducted in all of last year. “They represent one third
of the 455 kidnappings reported this year,” the agency said.
“Nowhere is safe for children in Haiti anymore,” Jean Gough,
UNICEF regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean,
said in a statement. “Whether on their way to school, at home or
even at church, girls and boys are at risk of being kidnapped
anywhere, at any time of the day or night.”
Kidnappers in Haiti usually demand “an exorbitant sum of money”
as ransom and “quote unreasonably high amounts, knowing that the
family of the hostage will negotiate down,” Dieumeme Noelliste,
professor of theological ethics at Denver Seminary, told CT,
citing local sources. “Ransoms are normally paid.”
He said while hostages have lost their lives in past
kidnappings, in recent incidents gangs “seem to elect not to
harm their victims, preferring to wait until a settlement is
reached with the hostage’s family and friends.”
Noelliste, who recently advised CT on how Haitian Christians
were impacted by the recent earthquake and assassination, has
not heard of a “slowdown in missionary activity and presence in
Haiti” following the dual crises. Meanwhile, he said, “Haiti has
been reeling under this gang violence and the kidnapping problem
for months now.
“They have posed violent acts and mayhem even to churches all
over the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. Just a couple of
weeks ago, they attacked the iconic first Baptist Church of
Port-au-Prince which is located a stone’s throw from the
presidential palace, killing one of its deacons and taking his
wife hostage,” he told CT. “I serve on the board of one of the
leading seminaries in Haiti. The gangs have forced the school to
flee its 70-year-old campus. They have been occupying it for
months.
“But none of this made the news here [in the US]. This week’s
attack makes the news because it is perpetrated against US
citizens,” he said. “My hope is that this incident will result
in the tackling of a problem that has caused so much suffering
to the already stressed Haitian people.”
“The kidnapping of 17 Christian volunteers is a high-profile
story,” Edner Jeanty, executive director of the Barnabas
Christian Leadership Center, told CT. “It is unfortunate that it
is also presented as the kidnapping of American citizens, as if
American Christian lives mattered more than lives of Haitian
Christians or the life of any human being created in the image
of God.”
Noelliste also noted the lack of a “prophetic voice” in Haiti.
“The church, by and large, thought that as long as it had the
‘freedom’ to preach a truncated gospel, it could remain quiet
from the political domain,” he told CT. “Yes, it did a lot of
work in social services, and this did much good. But the
so-called apolitical stance allowed injustice and corruption to
permeate the structures, the institutions, and the social
systems of the country unchecked.
“Now not even what the church thought it had under wrap—the
freedom to operate unrestrained in the spiritual domain—is
guaranteed. Christians are afraid to go to church because they
fear for their lives.”
Associated Press writers Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico,
Aamer Madhani in Washington, D.C., Kantele Franko in Columbus,
Ohio, and Peter Smith in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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