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tv   NEWS LIVE - 30  Al Jazeera  October 20, 2018 10:00pm-10:34pm +03

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weapons of war and as he sat down to talk to defense contractors this is what mattered most even as saudi arabia admitted killing us resident and journalist jamal khashoggi they wanted four hundred fifty billion dollars there's never been anything like you know just the last thing i want to do is say we're not going to you know we're not going to supply you with those numbers are actually not true the white house cannot point to any evidence that saudi arabia is actually spending anywhere close to that amount of money for many members of congress they say it's not about the money they say the saudi story just doesn't add up their story doesn't pass the smell test and i think it's high time for congress to recalibrate our relationship with saudi arabia close advisor to the president to senator lindsey graham seemed to point the finger at mohammed bin solomon in this tweet writing first we were told mr khashoggi supposedly left the consulate and there was a blanket denial of any saudi involvement now
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a fight breaks out and he's killed in the consulate all without knowledge of crown prince the president has made clear he wants to talk to the crown prince he wants to wait for more facts many in congress say it's time to act and the outrage in the united states is mounting the circumstances here are horrifying and the pressure from congress is going to be very great particularly now with an election coming up members of congress going to fall over each other trying to be the toughest in the loudest in saying we have got to do something we've got to punish the saudis the president is reluctant to do that but he may be cornered the president has signaled that he wants to wait would rather not punish saudi arabia with severe sanctions but if congress disagrees it's likely the president will not have the final say political gain al-jazeera washington mike hanna is another of our correspondents in washington he's with me now live mike what's your take on all of this was this change in narrative by saudi arabia dreamt up in riyadh or by the u.s.
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secretary of state. well certainly there is a great division within the u.s. about the division between congress and the trump administration congressional leaders being utterly skeptical about the saudi explanation the saudi report president trump apparently satisfying saying he feels it's credible insisting though that he still wants to speak to the crown prince to find out more about the situation but very. intense criticism from congress they are not buying this story no discussion as to where that story originates from taking it at face value that it is a saudi report that the u.s. had no real import in it however there are those members of congress who will continue to press president trump to take some kind of action or so with congress applying pressure with. people right around the world expressing extreme skepticism over this saudi arabia line will the trumpet ministration continue to persist with
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it. well that's remains to be seen clearly that trumpet ministration is digging in its heels to an extent we've heard president trump already saying he does not believe in imposing sanctions you've heard from congress iran poll a republican senator staying bluntly that arms sales to saddam must stop immediately sanctions must be introduced immediately there's also a ticking clock of a kind here because the senate have invoked the make in ski act that is an act which provides for a comfortability for human rights violations around the world be it states or be it individuals now a letter under that act has already gone to trump from the senate a bipartisan group in the senate and that gives him essentially one hundred twenty days in which to decide whether or not to impose sanctions the senators will continue to press him under that particular act senators also saying that he should
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shorten this time frame that the imposition of sanctions now needs to be immediate can he hold out against this pressure well it's mid-term elections coming up at the last he wants to do is present a divided republican party because that is the way that it's beginning to look at the moment mike many thanks so deserves mike hanna live in washington well many of the world's leading newspapers also doubt that. doubt saudi arabia's version of events the new york times questions the various explanations given so far it points out that saudi arabia initially had said that her had left the consulate alive and well the washington post which herschel g worked for says the new account may do little to ease international demands for the kingdom to be held accountable in the u.k. the times describes the admission that her show she was killed in the consulate as the greatest embarrassment of saudi arabia's morton history and the guardian reporting on the alleged fights and arrests says that the saudi government appears
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to be trying to protect the crown prince well another publication. newsweek has released recordings from one of jamal khashoggi s final interviews the discussion was originally confidential he said that he feared for his life here is some of that recording where he's asked about his criticism of the saudi crown prince he wants to be ready for me when the evidence to the public opinion why not. transparent process. where you have pretty. good use the rule of law and due process and then defending the people who would be on his side if he would do that it could even fight him in an old fashion and i believe a leader like mohammed this can live. a good for because it was limited. it's a sort of a little. he didn't want that he doesn't see the need for that so sometime i see that he won't do. what most all
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alternate silicon valley and that is the thing i do want also to do more like how can the rules. doesn't work you can have a good way. and also have it both ways can you have it both ways can you call you can you. i don't think you can. but if but if they don't. all that is not because most but in soviet. russia have number one and all agree with him do you see anybody that many couples accept this kind of going in or. i'm sure the radicals are not going to block your pressure couple who have.
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a look at a true cricket have because saudi arabia. a british newspaper has revealed the scale of lobbying paid for by saudi arabia in the u.k. the guardian found that p.r. agencies and media companies are making millions of dollars working to improve the kingdom's image they include p.r. agency freud's which worked on saudi arabia's project to diversify its economy known as vision twenty thirty five is now distancing itself from the kingdom but tony blair institutes a nonprofit set up by the former prime minister has received money from a saudi publishing company in return for advice on the london office of the media company vice produced for motional videos for the kingdom let's get a view on all of this now from andreas krieg in london he's an assistant professor at the defense studies department at london's kings college good to have you with us once again and rest is this the beginning do you think of saudi arabia becoming toxic as far as western companies wanting to do business with it particularly in
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terms of its image. absolutely i mean these are all p.r. companies who have decided to work for saudi arabia which always had a very terrible human rights record nonetheless the current affair the current culture g of fear and the tragedy opposed the tragedy of this the horror and the outcry that you see across the spectrum by think tank is i could buy the media policymakers doesn't really allow any wiggle room right now or deniability and i think there i think richard branson was one of the first ones to basically drop out of the of the boys in the desert and he kind of that was a dom had a domino effect per you know bit by bit most companies are now basically withdrawn now the american government has withdrawn and that is america and now this wave is coming to europe and i think companies that we used to work directly for the crown prince. are under pressure at least to pull out and it might not be necessary the pressure to work for saudi arabia which has been always very critical but it is
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particularly critical when you are connected to mark been so man and he's running the show and he's also running these massive p.r. war across the western world you know in all dimensions the p.r. wars to defend the yemen war there's a p.r. war to basically get people to invest in saudi arabia there's a p.r. war for tourism that making people coming to saudi arabia showing that it's actually an open country which it is not so a lot of this has been a spin war anyway but spinning this spin away as somewhat spend out of our out of control because right now that all these narratives that have been invented and have been broadcast for the last eighteen months have now come suddenly collapsed and the entire house of cards that has cost millions and millions of dollars for the saudis is suddenly in ruin and i think it becomes very very difficult for any western credible western company to emerge with from this standing with their head held high as far as this change in saudi narrative is concerned though today
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concerning the death of jamal khashoggi it seems that the strategic communications focus is to somehow try to remove the blame from the crown prince mohammed bin solomon is it going to work. no i think it won't but here's the it depends on who your audience is really i mean if the audience is the wider public and the media then i think it's not going to work because the evidence is overwhelming as one of the reports already stated i mean the evidence is out there to such a massive degree that it doesn't leave any more rooms for lies but here's the thing and i think that was very critical i just came back from washington and it seems despite the fact that lobbyist over there and also bipartisan policy makers are not buying the story it's clear that the trump and mistress which has been the main facilitator for mama been salon in the main protector of mom been someone is still buying it and they went from pay went to saudi arabia to basically discuss how to move forward on this and how to keep him in power are also realizing that there is
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no attorney to him at the moment that's that's another problem but how to move forward coming up with a narrative that provides them with plausible deniability and it's not about what people are actually believing but it is what donald trump things is moral to get away with and as long as he sits in front of the camera and saying i don't care about this i buy this story and it's it's a tragedy but you know the saudis are taking and this will have consequences in the saudis are taking action as long as he can sell this to his voter base which he seems to be able to do at the moment that as long as this happens i think donald trump is not going to make a move so it's key here how is congress how congress and senate will keep the pressure on the same is true for britain britain right now the saudis know that post breaks it needs the money and you know they have thrown around a couple of dollars but have made massive promises that they would definitely not be able to keep if you're aware of the financial constraints saudi arabia is under but the british government here is very much hamstrung they need the investments they see the gulf as
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a market post breaks it and they can't afford just losing out on what seems to be very lucrative so they all again looking for a narrative that they can sell you know it is quite obvious that this what have been produced last night is a lie and it's not. it will not hold up in court and the evidence will come out eventually but those people particular british government and the trauma's duration they are looking for ways to basically keep the momentum going of deniability and i think the german government and the government in paris the french government have taken a different road they've said you know we don't need that money for them this whole economic interest of dealing with saudi arabia dealing with marmots on is not as important and they have they will come out quite on the other side and make a very stark statement saying we want more evidence anyway the turks have the evidence and the longer as this is moot going on this deniability and then salami tactics of releasing further evidence that as long as that is going on i think eventually the turks were released the tapes and that will bring this entire
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pressure mounting on the truck ministration of not being able to deny this anymore address goods to you but he thinks differing with us. thank you. in other news the first parliamentary elections in eight years in afghanistan have opened with a wave of attacks by the taliban on polling stations at least ten people have been killed in the capital kabul there's also been fighting and couldn't sneak taka helmand and how that issues with voting machines also causing problems with the taliban is at its strongest position since the us invaded in two thousand and one military analysts say that the armed group of the holds or is fighting to control over sixty percent of afghanistan's districts and it continues to carry out attacks back in july taliban fighters overran two districts in the southeastern province of paktika on the border with pakistan gosney afghanistan's twelfth largest city was
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targeted in august there were fears that the city would fall to the group but the government regained control after days of fighting meanwhile voting in the southern province of kandahar has been delayed for a week after the taliban killed two senior officials on thursday let's go live now to kabul i'm serious. is the polling day drawing to a close what is the security situation than now. it remains very tense in some areas across the country just a while ago there was there was a suicide bombing attack here in the capital kabul reports suggestions of which i've been talking to people who say that there was a suicide bomber when who was trying to get into a point station who was intercepted by security forces at the moment they were trying to open fire he did he blew himself up we're trying to get more update about the situation over there but he's been at tax classes by the taliban in different
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parts across across the country and the hope was basically to try to disrupt these elections however thousands of people showed up early in the morning across the country and they said it was worth it to take all the risks to cast their votes in this crucial elections as we're going to see in this report. an act of defiance despite the growing threats and tense security situation. afghans cast their votes across the country to elect a new parliament. the voting was marred by blasts and violence between the taliban and security forces in many provinces but people here in kabul showed up in the early hours at the polling stations despite the risks although. i will vote for someone who would work for afghanistan and serve the nation we need patriots who care about the country these people that deserve to be elected to parliament but i
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would call is a must have today i am exercising my democratic right i want to choose the right person who will fight for my rights in the rights of women and women vote in large numbers their voices will be heard. extraordinary security measures were in place in the capital kabul the authorities are taking no chances ten candidates were killed during election campaigning. the president suspended the election in kandahar province after the taliban killed two top officials there on thursday election was also delayed in gaza the province following ethnic disputes. will what happened in kandahar was a sad moment not only for the people of kandahar but for all of us the decision to suspend the election was taken in collaboration with different institutions of the state of also appointed a committee to investigate the problems we face in gaza this election was initially supposed to take place three years ago but was delayed because of
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a political impasse that has crippled the country the international community has been pushing for political reforms a clamp down on corruption and we conciliation this is not like election in any country it's a very special election for the afghan people so i buy their courage. their will to choose their future election officials are using by a metric voter verification device. for the first time to prevent vote rigging but technical glitches slowed down the voting. so some of the polling stations were closed today because of security concerns and also there's been some slowdown in different polling stations because of the technical glitches particularly knowing that the biometric voter verification devices were introduced for the first time here in afghanistan and it took people some time to get used to them and for this reason the afghan authorities have decided to extend the election to more in the
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areas where there were problems and joining me to talk more about elections in afghanistan is far easier coffee fawzia first question what do you think about the election today in general i think it was an important day in afghanistan because in the peak of insurgency and taliban warning to destruct the election and in the light of the ongoing peace negotiations with taliban people turned out in massive queues and nine's to demonstrate their willingness to participate in the future so this was a positive message for democracy in afghanistan however i think unfortunately the election commission failed to manage the crowd of people that were interested putting their lives at risk to go to the polling stations that there were serious problems actually a security almost all over afghanistan security problems polling stations were closed as the result of that in some places there were reports that the. that
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election stats were actually kidnapped by taliban especially the female staff. the suicide attack today just a few minutes ago in kabul. but the main problem was actually lack of capacity by d.e.c. direction complain commission to manage to come out where does it leave afghanistan and. results will be announced if you weeks from now are significant is this election what kind of task with the next parliament of afghanistan undertake i think the next parliament of afghanistan if we have one giving the problems that we have actually faced today the credibility of the lection and legitimacy of how many people participated what is the percentage of people participation all of these question if it everything goes well and we assume that. this election will actually have a result and there will be a new parliament did you parliament should actually to spect the people who lost their lives today and to speak to queue of people who are lined up to have their
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voices heard in the government thank you very much indeed fozia and this is exactly the same statements we've heard from people today when we went to different polling stations that despite of the rest they would like to make their voice heard and they say we've been dealing with corruption mismanagement inefficiency for many years it's about time with chains afghanistan this is just going to be the first step forward however as fozia said it is definitely going to be a very long political process adrian question many thanks so much as it was how should i hold out i live in kabul. just as in folks is with us it rained in doha today cats and dogs and camels unusual for the desert in fact the building we're in now is an island in an ankle deep lake somehow got a paddle to the car at a later it didn't offer a did it really threw it down didn't it we had rain of biblical proportions you
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talked about the animals there really was one to build the ark. so horrible conditions for emotions were that came from but we did actually have more than a year's worth of right in the six hours you can see from the satellite picture doesn't that keep out of the start of a sequence but just watch how this massive thunderhead just erupt bang over doha course a good part of cutter actually has a very heavy rain to the north of that so let's take a look at some of the numbers involved sixty one millimeters of rain in just over one hour it was about seventeen minutes that rainfall came down and we've seen around one hundred millimeters of rain in some parts compare that with the annual average we normally see around seventy seven millimeters of rain in the course of the entire year so little wonder that there has been widespread flooding not just here around our island which is al jazeera because take a look at this this is the kind of typical scenes that you will see when you head outside there people need a porta probably a little higher in places if the truth be known and there you go lots of things
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just floating around in that water even along the beautiful corniche. i'm not sure what we're actually looking at here i think the but the drains may well be overflowing but you can see the sort of awful weather that we are currently dealing with in places say it stopped raining at least for now we have got a few showers in the forecast as we go on into sunday hifi they will their names the possibility of some rain on monday but nowhere near as bad as to die a tree in. thank goodness for that ever so many things this is the new it's from al jazeera hello i'm adrian finnegan will return now to our top story saudi arabia's admission that jamal khashoggi was killed in its consulate in istanbul the statement is a stunning turnaround from previous claims by the kingdom the day after video of going into the consulate saudi officials confirmed his disappearance but insisted that he left the building two days later crown prince mohammed bin sama told bloomberg news the same thing and when asked if he was still inside the consulate the crown prince said no the next day the saudi consul general brought reporters
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into the building telling them that jamal is not at the consulate saudi media repeatedly to announced what they called baseless allegations that was inside the consulate but early on saturday saudi arabia's chief prosecutor finally admitted that he was killed inside the consulate but said that he died when a fight broke out well ahead of the turkish media association and a friend of the whole show cheese to run his life she called for justice for the journalist and his family. i would like to say to the saudi king in crown prince they will not be able to cover up the murder of jamal khashoggi god will always punish those who have not played fair and killed other people innocent people don't necessarily even our beliefs do not allow the killing of each other this is not fair nobody can deny that this is murder that's going to be from. the director of
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the center of a conflict and humanitarian studies of the doha institute he's with me as you can see here in the studio what's saudi arabia's motive here after all of these denials for so long and then we have this abrupt middle of the night change in narrative an admission that jamal khashoggi yes did die at the consulate in a brawl. well it does sound like they've managed to find any scapegoat for now and those are the officials that they pushed out but in fact this raises other questions that if the crown prince wasn't aware of this happening then it is a problem for a lot of his policy or of other policies both inside and outside the country he's involved in he has managed to involve saudi arabia in many complex issues including the war in yemen the relationship with qatar and many other international crises now if it is true that he wasn't aware of what was what was going on and it's being run by those sort of rogue elements within his office then it's
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a real issue and i think a lot of people would be worried looking at this both internally and externally so the change in there as it may have been designed to help take the heat if you like off of crown prince but he's not of the hook yet no no and i think he will never really be i think this is going to tarnish his the his reputation for a long time to come and to be honest i think it's very important that the king himself has tied his future to the crown prince buy in by coming up with this or by insisting on this kind of arrangement something something much more cynical as it's been going on do you think that mohammed bin salman still has the backing of his father king solomon. it does seem like it the fact that he's been appointed to reform the intelligence service does imply that he's still going to be in power and he is supported by his father because the intelligence apparatus is one of the most important institution exist that exist in saudi arabia but as i said earlier
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it doesn't really it means something went wrong the fact that they've invested so much in luring. into the consulate the team that flew in and out all of this adds up to some greater motive for wanting to silence and then to now we don't you know that motive and the only way to find out is when when the turkey releases the full tapes that they implied the folding what about turkey's role in all of this will it release the full tapes will it release the full details of its investigation or will there be a whitewash will it have done some sort of deal with the u.s. and saudi arabia that allows saudi arabia to bring a drop this debacles to a close without losing face i mean that's one possible scenario and the other i think is how they managed to get those tapes now at the beginning there was rumored that the apple watch was used and so on now some experts have claimed that this is
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not possible and the only explanation then is that maybe the turkish authorities have already infiltrated the consulate and this would have major consequences for their relationship with saudi arabia and this i think is probably could be one of the reasons why they're not been forthcoming with the full evidence right from day one always good so if you so many thanks indeed for being with us on baraka thank you very much. tens of thousands of people are marching in london right now to demand a so-called people's votes on the final brings that deal the u.k. is due to leave the european union in less than six months time but negotiations on a deal to leave the bloc of store needing to widespread concern about the future of the u.k. economy after briggs's o'brien is live for us in london paul a lot of people seem to be there is momentum building for a second referendum. i think it
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is and certainly based on the evidence of my own eyes what we can i can step out of the way and show you the numbers of people here the crowd was expected to be in the region of one hundred thousand people i haven't seen a estimate of exactly how many people turned up but let me tell you the length of the procession and the march was enormous one of the biggest that i've seen the speakers are on stage at the moment i step back into into camera and as you say that the pressure for a people's votes is definitely mounting there is concern that the government the u.k. government is making a bit of a mess of it negotiations that the deal that when it's when and if it is finally negotiated will bear almost no resemblance to what people originally voted for in june twenty sixth dean in the first referendum of the original the referendum and therefore the people here are insisting that this should be
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a vote that the government has actually managed to achieve through its negotiations and the people should be asked the question again whether they want to actually leave the leave the europe on those terms as much borgen as quite people who want to stay in the new but the country is pretty divided there are still plenty of people though keen to go ahead with any of them at this this march. not here but there is a rival event taking place in your check up in the northeast. of england where nigel farage one of the prime architects of the brics it movement is speaking i don't know what the attendance figures are for those for that event i haven't seen any attendance figures for that it actually starts at a little bit later than this one starts at seven i would expect it to be too off by the number of people who are out here today but sentiment is growing and the reason
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why is because so i wasn't sentiment for a people's vote and the reason why is because as the months and weeks pass and the no deal is apparent and the government is no closer to sealing the deal on the exact terms of practice people are growing very very concerned that come march twenty ninth next year britain will crash out of the european union with with no deal in place i mean that with the these people say to chaos chaos which has knock on effects not just for older generations but the generations that were moving born yes. many thanks officers paul brennan live in london the conservative government of australia has a new prime minister scott morrison has lost its power of entry majority votes has deserted the ruling party in a byelection held in the sydney electorate that was held by previous prime minister malcolm turnbull independent candidate karen phelps won a decisive victory it means that the government will now have to rely on deals with
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other independent n.p.c. in parliament to stay in power. police in the indian state of punjab are investigating whether a train that ran into a large crowd was breaking speed limits at least fifty nine people were killed and more than one hundred others injured when the train plowed into people who gathered for a religious festival there. paul shot a g.m. reports. police in india are calling this a freak accident a train plows into a large crowd watching the burning of an effigy at a religious celebration. the witnesses say the overflow of people pushed some on to the railway track the noise from fireworks prevented people from hearing the approaching train. it was a major hindu festival the railway track is close to it and the crowd was huge
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suddenly some movement happened and the train crossed at that time. survivors covered the body parts of their loved ones others waited for those injured to be treated at nearby hospitals thank you crowd was it a hindu festival called celebrating the triumph of good over evil they had just set ablaze the effigy of a ten headed demon from the hindu at the karama ya know i am at the moment not a radical either on his. being next to the invitation but the administration should have added a bit. when i go there tomorrow and as the investigation begins the chief minister of the state has declared a day of mourning he has ordered all stated situations to be closed in his real system has a record of safety. features one to three million people use the network the system was build during colonial rule but it is underfunded paul chatterjee on al-jazeera
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. thousands of refugees and migrants are stranded on the border between mexico and guatemala is a live pictures from that part of a so-called caravan of people from honduras el salvador and guatemala who've been walking north towards the united states on friday thousands of them tore down a fence in guatemala and stormed towards a bridge in mexico u.s. president donald trump says he may deploy the military to stop them from crossing into the u.s. . not much is known about the solar system smallest and least explored planet mercury scientists are hoping to change that key to their plan is a spacecraft which was launched on saturday it will take seven years to reach mercury the nearest planet to the sun as victoria gate b. explains. a successful start to a long and challenging mission. the unmanned bebee colomba.

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