Japan to increase police patrols of disputed Senkaku Islands

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The disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China in the East China Sea. Photo: Reuters

Tokyo: Responding to the prolonged friction between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands in Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, the National Police Agency has decided to boost security capabilities of the Okinawa prefectural police, sources said.

The Senkaku are known as the Diaoyu in Chinese. The NPA will increase the number of officers in the prefectural police headquarters by as early as fiscal 2015. The officers will be assigned to prevent illegal landing on the Senkakus and other related problems.

In August 2012, a Hong Kong-based private organisation that claims China's sovereignty over the Senkakus landed illegally on the islands. Since Japan's nationalisation of some of the islands in September the same year, Chinese government vessels have intruded into Japan's territorial waters around the islands at least 300 times.

Under the circumstances, the NPA has been beefing up security around the islands by continually dispatching officers from prefectures outside Okinawa, including those from the Metropolitan Police Department. Monitoring territorial waters around the Senkakus on Japan Coast Guard patrol boats, the dispatched officers keep a lookout for people trying to illegally land on the Senkakus, aiming to land ahead of the intruders and take them in custody.

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But those dispatched to Okinawa from other prefectural police headquarters usually leave Okinawa within about 10 days, as the patrol shifts require performing an around-the-clock watch aboard a vessel. As this creates a steady stream of police officers who are inexperienced at such work, cultivating police officers who are familiar with the site and have the appropriate problem-solving skills has emerged as a challenge.

Given these challenges, the NPA decided that increasing the number of police officers in Okinawa, who can regularly engage in such patrol duties, is more effective in enhancing the capability to cope with problems related to the Senkakus.

Washington Post

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Japan to increase police patrols of disputed Senkaku Islands

Riski in business as Finland outstrip Faroese

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Riku Riski strikes twice as Finland fight back Christian Holst gives Faroe Islands a half-time lead Faroes go close with scores level at 1-1 Roman Eremenko hits the game's best goal late on Next games: Finland v Greece, Northern Ireland v Faroe Islands (11 October)

Two Riku Riski goals helped Finland turn the tide as they came from behind to earn a 3-1 win against the Faroe Islands in their opening UEFA EURO 2016 Group F match.

An upset seemed to be possible when Christian Holst capitalised on a defensive mistake to put the home side ahead before the break, but Riski's double and a splendid third from Roman Eremenko gave Mixu Paatelainen's men all three points at Trsvllur.

Gunnar Nielsen made some outstanding saves to keep the Faroe Islands in the game in the first half, and on a rare foray forward, Lars Olsen's team took a shock lead, midfielder Holst producing a cool finish after Niklas Moisander's misplaced pass left him with a sight of the target. It was hard on the visitors, but they quickly made amends after the interval, Riski finishing from inside the box after Teemu Pukki's ball found its way to him.

The Faroe Islands might have had the advantage again, with a Finnish defender slicing the ball off the underside of his own crossbar under pressure from Hallur Hansson, but Rosenborg BK attacker Riski turned the course of the match on 78 minutes, scoring after Nielsen could only block Pukki's attempt. The Finns then added some gloss to the result, Eremenko's bullet shot making it 3-1 with eight minutes remaining.

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Riski in business as Finland outstrip Faroese

Granite State Debate, U.S. Senate: How cancer patients can get access to affordable health care – Video

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Granite State Debate, U.S. Senate: How cancer patients can get access to affordable health care
The Republican candidates for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire discuss how cancer patients can get access to affordable health care. Subscribe to WMUR on YouTube...

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Aberdeen Asset Sells Health-Care to Buy Industrial Stocks

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Aberdeen Asset Management Plc is betting that investors are too pessimistic about industrial companies, shifting money into those stocks and selling health-care shares, the worlds biggest gainers this year.

Uncertainty about the global economy has spurred cyclical equities to lag pharmaceutical shares and other defensive industries by a margin thats too wide to ignore, according to Martin Connaghan, senior investment manager for global equities. Some industrial companies, such as elevator and escalator makers, have stable income from maintenance contracts that make them less sensitive to global growth, Connaghan said in an interview in Hong Kong on Aug. 28. Aberdeen Asset managed about $551 billion as of June 30.

A measure of worldwide industrial shares is trading near the lowest valuation relative to health-care stocks in more than a decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Health-care shares have rallied the most among the MSCI World Indexs 10 industry groups this year, buoyed by dealmaking and demand for equities with a profit outlook thats less tied to the global economy.

Theyve done particularly well these last couple of years, said Connaghan. On the other side of that, some of the more cyclical companies, whether it be some of the industrial type of companies or materials and mining, have been relatively weak so there has been a slight reduction of some of that defensive exposure and increase into some of the more cyclical stocks.

The MSCI World Industrials Index, which includes companies from Airbus Group NV to elevator maker Zardoya Otis SA, traded at 18 times its trailing 12 month earnings yesterday, compared with 22 times for the global health-care gauge. The disparity widened last week to the most since October 2002.

Investors have poured $4.3 billion into U.S. exchange-traded funds tracking health-care shares this year, more than eight times the $530 million they added to industrial ETFs, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Global economic data the past few months have been mixed, with gauges of euro-region manufacturing and services industries unexpectedly falling in August, while Japans economy shrank the most in five years last quarter after a sales-tax increase. In the U.S., gains in factory activity last month contrasted with slower payrolls growth, while Chinese imports unexpectedly slid.

Were not necessarily saying the environment in the future will improve, said Connaghan. The outlook for cyclical stocks is tricky at this moment. We dont expect the outlook for these companies to necessarily change in the immediate future, we just think that there are a lot of bad news or low expectations.

Aberdeen is investing in industrial shares with stable revenue from services such as maintenance contracts, Connaghan said, while declining to name specific companies.

Some of the industrial companies arent as cyclical as they may appear when you first look at them, if you actually look at their revenues, Connaghan said. Demand for their actual product may decline but there is always a base level of income and revenues that are coming from areas that are more stable, regardless of the economic environment.

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Aberdeen Asset Sells Health-Care to Buy Industrial Stocks

Primary Health Care at the Grocery Store?

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((KNWA/NBC))-- The nation's largest retailer is making the move from urgent care and flu shots into primary care.

By the end of the year, primary care clinics will open in a dozen rural Walmart stores.

The retailer recently launched its newest health clinic with a marching band and fanfare. The company is looking to change the game in retail health, offering more services at a lower cost than its rivals.

"Price matters to our customers and associates. So the Walmart Care Clinic is really about establishing that new price point," says Jennifer Laperre, Walmart U.S. Sr. Dir. Health and Wellness.

At a time when more workers face higher out of pocket health costs, Walmart's clinics offer expanded in-store services like physicals and wellness check-ups, face to face with nurse practitioners for a total of $40.00. For its employees it's just $4.00.

While it is only a pilot program for now, analysts say if Walmart can make this level of pricing work, it will pose a challenge not just to other retail clinic rivals, but to other providers, doctors and hospitals.

"They are a real opportunity, they are a real threat in many different places, and if providers don't respond accordingly, they could see many of their most profitable channels disrupted," says Christopher Kerns, with the Advisory Board Company.

Walmart is facing its own higher health costs, as more of its associates are now enrolling in its health plan in the wake of the Affordable Care Act. That plays a big a part in the retailer's clinic equation.

"That's a pretty good way to handle that added enrollment and first-time health coverage consumers," says Neil Trautwein. with the National Retail Federation.

And it doesn't hurt that once they're all in the clinics, they'll likely shop in the store.

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Primary Health Care at the Grocery Store?

American Nobel: Screen Women for Cancer-Causing Genetic Mutations

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One of this year's five winners of the so-called American Nobels in medicine says every woman over the age of 30 needs to be tested for cancer-causing genetic mutations.

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundations Award for Special Achievement will go to Dr. Mary-Claire King, who correlated mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes with breast and ovarian cancer.

Current guidelines discourage testing, but King says it would cost little and identify 250,000 to 400,000 American women with the cancer-causing genetic mutations.

The Lasker awards each include a $250,000 honorarium and are to be presented in New York September 19.

The Journal of the American Medical Association summarized Kings proposal in an article published to coincide with the Lasker award announcements.

The Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research will be shared by Drs. Mahlon DeLong of Emory University in Atlanta and Alim Louis Benabid of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France. They developed a surgical treatment for Parkinson's disease.

In work that began in the late 1960s, DeLong traced Parkinson symptoms to over-activity in a specific part of the brain. Benabid, independently following up on that research, showed in 1995 that stimulating this area with a surgically implanted electrode could ease some Parkinson symptoms.

The Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research will be shared by Peter Walter of the University of California, San Francisco, and Kazutoshi Mori of Japan's Kyoto University.

They made key discoveries about how cells detect and manage their proteins that have not been folded correctly, which can make them harmful. The research has shed light on certain inherited diseases, including cystic fibrosis, the Foundation said.

Since 1942, when the Lasker awards began, 86 laureates also have won Nobel Prizes.

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American Nobel: Screen Women for Cancer-Causing Genetic Mutations

Futurist Jack Uldrich to Speak on Future Trends in Energy at the Western Energy Institute in British Columbia

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Portland-Vancouver, OR (PRWEB) September 08, 2014

When it comes to the future of energy, futurist Jack Uldrich has plenty to say: "From the outside, the utility industry may appear to slow, cumbersome and resistant to change. These characterizations may or may not be fair, but I do know the industry is poised for extraordinary change in the years ahead and that what has served the industry well in the past wont be sufficient for remaining competitive in the future."

Just what will keep the energy industry ahead of the game is precisely the content of Uldrich's keynote to the Western Energy Institute's Annual Meeting on September 8th in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Western Energy Institute (WEI) is a regional association serving the electric and gas industries, both public and private, throughout the Western United States and Canada. Based in Portland, Oregon, WEI was formed in October 2000 from two longstanding industry associations - the Western Electric Power Institute (WEPI) founded in 1908, and the Pacific Coast Gas Association (PCGA) founded in 1893.

WEIs membership is comprised of 70 energy companies, including gas pipeline, electric and gas distribution, electric generation, power marketers and over 175 industry service providers. WEI offers a member-driven, open learning environment to develop effective leaders and ensure well-trained employees.

WEI has chosen Uldrich, a highly acclaimed futurist and public speaker whose aim is to help them and their member companies thrive in increasingly competitive energy markets. Uldrich has worked with a number of companies and dozens of trade associations in the utility industry including Southern Company, SDG&E, SMUD, Eaton, BP, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Missouri River Energy, Northwest Energy, Idaho Power and the Northeast and Northwest Public Power Associations.

Uldrich's presentations have been described as "inspiring, thought provoking, motivational, and practical all at oncewith a huge dose of practicality intricately added to the mix." All of which is needed for the future of the energy industry. Following his keynote for WEI, Uldrich will be addressing leaders in finance at AgBank in Minneapolis, the PMMI in Chicago, as well as the The National Council for Continuing Education & Training in Denver, among others.

Parties interested in learning more about him, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to visit his website. Media wishing to know more about either the event or interviewing Jack as a futurist or trend expert can contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.

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Foxx takes a futurist turn at DOT

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Politicians are often accused of failing to look past the next election. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx wants to look past the next fifteen.

Foxx is leading a DOT effort to create a 30-year outlook for the state of transportation in the U.S., an ambitious effort he hopes will shift the country out of its stubborn, single-track focus on the short-term needs of keeping solvent the Highway Trust Fund. Instead, he wants to take a broader look at how the country plans on moving an additional 100 million people by 2050 and all the goods those Americans will buy.

In a sit-down interview with POLITICO on Friday, Foxx was blunt.

Were having the wrong conversation about transportation in this country, he said. There are a host of factors that are colliding, that are changing the ground underneath us. But yet our policies, not to mention our funding, arent keeping up. I think its very important for us to have a new reset.

Foxx ticked off those factors: technological innovation, a population moving into denser metro areas and demographic shifts.

Lots of forces are converging to create a very disruptive set of conditions, he said. We need to lay out what we think policymakers are going to be facing over the next 30 years. Because right now were having conversations about transportation funding that are really disconnected from the conversations about policy we need to be having.

Foxx is frustrated with the narrow focus on finding money for the trust fund which Congress patched yet again before leaving for the August recess and he expressed the need to focus more on how federal transportation dollars are spent.

My hope is that people will take a look at this, and some of the unexamined assumptions weve had about transportation in the last couple of decades will start to be examined, and policymakers hopefully will understand we cant just concern ourselves with the funding side of the equation, that how that funding is actually deployed is a key piece of how we move forward, he said.

If Congress had succeeded in getting the Highway Trust Fund stabilized, many people in Washington would have considered that as accomplishing the mission, he said. And thats just not the case.

Foxx wants to reveal a report by the end of the year and promises a robust outreach effort before then. He will host five webinars to gather feedback from transportation groups and government bodies, and DOT staff will also regularly solicit feedback. While he emphasized the plan wouldnt promote specific policy ideas, he did drop a few hints about the areas DOT could focus on.

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Drone Startup Flirtey Partners with The University of Nevada, Reno To Push UAV Delivery Forward

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The day when drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), fill the sky is no longer a futurist ideal but an impending reality. Drones have traditionally only been used for military and academic purposes, but within a few years they will be used commercially. Business Insider predicts that 12% of an estimated US$98 billion in global spending on drones over the next decade will be for commercial purposes.

Amazon Prime Air, Google Google Project Wing, Facebook and even NASA are all working on drone technology. Start-ups like Airware are working to provide drone hardware and software to deploy on missions from infrastructure inspection to humanitarian campaigns. Last year, Dominoes Pizza in the U.K. trialed pizza delivery with a drone called the DomiCopter; this year a pizzeria in Mumbai did the same. Now Dronies are the new Selfies, where people use drones with cameras to capture their group shots.

Flirtey Founder and CEO, Matthew Sweeny

Flirtey, a Sydney and Nevada based start-up is aiming to be one of the worlds first UAV delivery companies. The company conducted a world-first drone delivery test back in October 2013 and to date has conducted over a hundred successful test deliveries of textbooks, with its partner Zookal.

Flirtey has struck a partnership with The University of Nevada, Reno, a leading research center for Unmanned Autonomous Systems (UAS). In exchange for equity, the University is providing access to its R&D labs for design, manufacture and research collaboration plus its indoor flight-testing facilities and supply graduate students to work with the company.

Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada said, I am excited to welcomeFlirteyto the Nevada family. The partnership between Flirteyand the University of Nevada, Reno demonstrates a commitment to our shared vision of building a vibrant and sustainable economy.The collaboration betweenFlirteyand UNR will send a strong message that Nevada is a leader in this emerging industry not only because of our unique environment, but also because we are educating and training the aviation workforce of the future.

Flirteyis pioneering UAV delivery to make receiving packages as simple and as easy as possible, where customers no longer have to wait at home all hours for a delivery, or stand in line at the post office to pick up parcels.Flirteys vision is to provide drone delivery as a service, with its fleet of drones making autonomous deliveries directly to your location. Initially, Flirtey drones will trial deliveries over sparsely populated areas and within line of sight for deliveries that customers want within thirty minutes.

Although Amazon has begun lobbying the Federal Aviation Administration to speed up its approval of the usage of drones for commercial usage, it will likely be a few more years until it really happens. Being in Nevada, Flirtey is well positioned when it does. Until then, Flirtey is taking advantage of New Zealands more liberal UAV regulatory stance. The country has launched Airshare, a hub for UAV information, which will allow commercial operators to log their flights to ensure maximum safety. Flirtey will be among the first to participate in Airshare before it goes live later this year. Flirtey has also started lining up customers including urgent parcels, fast food, online retail, and medical deliveries in New Zealand and is looking for more partners. According toFlirtey, this marks the first use of fully automatedcommercial drones for package delivery in the world.

Deliveries viaFlirteycan be made in as little as two or three minutes, compared to two or three days for traditional shippingmethods. Upon arrival at an outdoor delivery destination,Flirteys drones hover and lower the parcel through a custom deliverymechanism that is attached to a retractable cord. Each drones real-time GPS location can be tracked via theFlirteysmartphone app. Currently Flirtey can carry up to 2kg for 10km, but with more time and investment, Flirtey looks to significantly increase the range and payload capacity.

Naturally, safety is a key concern for Flirtey. To prevent the dangerous scenario of a drone dropping from the sky, Flirteys drone is a hexa-copter that can continue to fly even when one rotor fails. They are also heavily investing in a redundant power supply.

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Drone Startup Flirtey Partners with The University of Nevada, Reno To Push UAV Delivery Forward

Texas Entrepreneurs Want More Work Visas

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Monday, September 8, 2014

Lauren Silverman / Fronteras

Famed futurist and physicist Michio Kaku has said that America has a secret weapon.

That secret weapon is the H-1B, Kaku said, Without the H-1B the scientific establishment of this country would collapse! Forget about Google. Forget about Silicon Valley, there would be no Silicon Valley without the H-1B.

So what exactly are H-1B visas? Theyre visas for highly skilled, foreign born workers. And theyre hard to get. Companies looking for these employees snatch them up fast in October, it took less than a week for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to hit the cap of 65,000 for 2015.

Its a talent war, says Shams Juma. Hes CEO of a Dallas business consulting startup called Quantifye.

Its very difficult for us to find good talent, and in house.

Juma shared his struggle with a group of startup enthusiasts a few weeks ago at an event put on by local startup group LaunchDFW and the national lobby group FWD.us. FWD.us has been called the Zuckerberg PAC, for its Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

Not everyone searching for an H-1B visa wants to work in IT for Google, Facebook, or a consulting firm. Adrian Avendano wants to work at his own company, but its not that easy.

Tricky Transition From School To Startup

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NASA Awards Contracts To Virgin Galactic And Other Suborbital Providers

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Virgin's SpaceShip2 in flight (Credit: MarsScientific.com and Clay Center Observatory)

NASA announced on Monday that it has awarded four American suborbital space companies to carry payloads to the boundary of space.

According to NASA, each of the four selected companies will receive an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for integration and flight services. The contracts are worth a minimum of $100,000, have a duration of three years and include two year extension options.

The four companies selected for the contracts are:

Virgin Galactic, which is best known for developing its space tourism business with its SpaceShipTwo craft. However, in addition to carrying passengers, the company is also actively working to offer the use SpaceShipTwo for scientific research. The company is also developing LauncherOne, which will aim to deliver small satellites into orbit.

Masten Space Systems, which is working to develop vertical takeoff, vertical landing unmanned spacecraft. The company is probably most famous for winning the $1 million Lunar Lander X-Prize in 2009. It was also recently awarded a contract from DARPA to work on developing a reusable spaceplane.

UP Aerospace, which focuses on developing suborbital rockets for the delivery of research payloads. The company most recently launched a suborbital rocket for NASA in November of 2013, and its next launch is scheduled for October 7, 2014.

Paragon Space Development Corporation, which has developed hardware for over 70 space flight missions. Paragon is partnered with another company, World View Experience, which aims to use balloons to take commercial passengers to the edge of space about 120,000 feet above the surface.

Weve made tremendous progress in working toward the goal of regular, frequent and predictable access to near-space at a reasonable cost with easy recovery of intact payloads, NASAs Michael Gazarik said in a press release. These proven flight service providers will allow for payloads from organizations including NASA, industry, academia, and other government agencies to be tested on flights to the edge of space before being committed to demonstration in the harsh environment of space itself.

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Europe's Arianespace Claims 60% Of The Commercial Launch Market

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An Ariane 5 rocket in flight. (Credit: Arianespace)

Today, European commercial launch provider Arianespace has announced that it has signed four new commercial launch contracts. This marks an impressive 11 launch contracts signed so far this year for the company, with two current contracts under negotiation to be completed by the years end.

According to the company, these four contracts bring Arianespaces total launch backlog to 38 satellite launches for 29 different customers. The value of these combined orders exceeds $5.82 billion. The company claims to now hold 60% of commercial launch market.

All four launches satellites are between 3,300 and 3,500kg and will be launched by an Ariane 5 rocket with other, heavier satellites, whose launches are already on the books. The Ariane 5 is capable of delivering 10,000kg of payload to geosynchronous transfer orbit, over twice as much as its competitor SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket. This ability to lift two larger satellites at once helps the company stay competitive with other providers.

Dual manifesting allows Arianespace to be very competitive on price, a company spokesperson told me. It is part of our business model.

The Optus 10 satellite being prepped for launch at Arianespaces launch center. (Credit: Arianespace)

In 2016, Arianespace will be launching communications satellite JCSAT-1 for its customer SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation. The satellite will be used to broadcast TV signals for its customers. This will be the 29th satellite that Arianespace has launched for SKY Perfect since 1989.

For Korean satellite communications provider, KTSat, Arianespace will be launching Koreasat 7. This satellite, to be launched in 2016, will provide communications services to customers in Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and India. This will mark the third KTSat launch performed by Arianespace.

In 2017, Arianespace will be launching the telecommunications satellite Hylas 4 on behalf of its customer, the London-based Avanti Communications. Hylas 4 will be builtd by Orbital Sciences and will provide TV and data services to Africa, Europe and Latin America.

During the third quarter of 2016, Arianespace will launch IntelSat 36 on behalf of telecommunications service provider Intelsat. This will be the 55th satellite that Arianespace has launched for Intelsat. The satellite will deliver data services to customers in Asia and Africa.

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Europe's Arianespace Claims 60% Of The Commercial Launch Market

Learn how to play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite with AppSpy – Episode 6 – Video

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Learn how to play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite with AppSpy - Episode 6
Mushrooms, Congas, land sharks: it #39;s all kicking off in Episode 6 of our series with the iPhone and iPad action RPG. Want to watch the hunt LIVE? Join us at http://www.twitch.tv/appspy every...

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Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Online MP #289 | 2 Hypnocatrices [G Rank] – Video

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Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Online MP #289 | 2 Hypnocatrices [G Rank]
QUEST: LV G1 Hypno, Hypno! SUBSCRIBE, nya!: http://bit.ly/sub_barbanium Enjoyed the video, meow? Please hit that LIKE button! Played with PPSSPP v0.9.9.1 Get it here: http://www.pps...

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