The victory in Taiwan’s presidential election of Lai Ching-te — a man Beijing has described as a dangerous separatist — is less of a provocation to future conflict than it might have been given that his party’s (DPP) share of the vote fell to 40% in a three way contest.

     Analysts say that Beijing’s response to his victory could translate into a more calibrated approach to Taiwan and make Chinese military action towards Taiwan less likely though  Beijing will still be unrelenting in its pressure on the country. 

  Lai Ching-te, 6 October 1959, whose father died in a mining accident when he was a baby had a redoubtable mother who worked to see him educated, in part in the USA.

  He is a Sun Mars in Libra; with a confident and charming Pluto Venus in Virgo square Jupiter (Moon) in Sagittarius and in an unyielding trine to Saturn.

  Despite the relatively low key Beijing reaction couched in the usual flamboyant though not blood-curdling terms, there are indications of a flare up across the middle of this year. Lai Ching-te’s relationship chart with the China 1912 country chart indicates implacable opposition and hostility on both sides with a composite Mars Pluto conjunction square Uranus – and the composite Sun will catch the tr Uranus opposition from June onwards setting them at odds. 

   His relationship chart with Xi Jinping is, if anything, even more fraught in essence with a composite power-struggling Mars Pluto conjunction square Saturn – and that is being put under intolerable pressure from June onwards with tr Uranus square the composite Mars and opposition the composite Saturn and rattling the composite Pluto the following year.

  Lai Ching-te’s personal chart flags up high risk and calamities at the same time – and those influences run on into 2025.

 The China 1912 chart has Mars at 24 Taurus opposition Venus at 25 Scorpio which will be activated from May this year onwards into April 2025.

 Finding a chart for Taiwan is tricky since its history is intertwined with China’s. But the China 1912 chart did show up the three Taiwan Strait conflicts in 1954/58 and 1996.

  The 1954 crisis occurred when Pluto was at 25 Leo which was square the Mars in Taurus and Venus in Scorpio on the China chart. By the second military action in 1958 Pluto had just moved into Virgo and Neptune just into Scorpio. In 1995 for the third Taiwan Strait crisis Pluto was with three degrees of exiting Scorpio.  So Pluto’s transitional years between signs do appear to heighten tensions within China. Not surprising given the high-stress, emphasized Pluto on the focal point of a yod in the China 1912 chart inconjunct Uranus sextile Venus.

  Xi Jinping’s initial presidency confirmation chart  has a Sun, North Node and Mercury in Scorpio between 23, 26, and 28 degrees so will be on alert over the next two years as tr Uranus opposes and de-stabilises its core planets.

[This year does not look like calming down globally I regret to say.]

See previous post China 29 December 2023 and other China posts in SEARCH.

  A young, savvy social media influencer, Chiara Ferragni, who has built a global brand and a multimillion-dollar business on her image with 30 million Instagram followers, is on the hook for “aggravated fraud.” She gave her name to a Christmas cake that was misleadingly linked to fundraising for a children’s hospital and received £1 million for her trouble. The hospital received £50,000. A separate branded Easter egg sales campaign linked to another charity, from which she earned €1.3mn over two years, is also being looked at by Italian prosecutors.

  Ferragni has lost sponsors over the debacle including Coca Cola as well as followers.

 Born 7 May 1987 12.40am Cremona, Italy,  she is no shrinking violet with a determined 4^th house Taurus Sun opposition an influential and controlling Pluto on her Midheaven. She also has an attention-seeking, self-assured, entrepreneurial Fire Grand Trine of an 8^th house Leo Moon trine Saturn Uranus in Sagittarius trine Venus (Jupiter) in Aries, formed into a Kite by Saturn Uranus opposition Mars in Gemini in her hard-working 6^th house. So her go-getting, communicative Mars is the driving planet.  Jupiter Venus is often a combination seen in fashion charts or amongst the exceptionally sociable or frivolous.

  She started as a model and moved into blogging and then brand promotion.

 There is nothing too dramatic showing up in her chart though tr Saturn through her first quadrant tends to be prone to slipping on banana skins career-wise for the ego-centric. She’ll be less successful for a few years ahead but may then reinvent herself.

  Maybe the insubstantial famous-for-being-famous brands may melt into thin air once Pluto in Capricorn moves into the past.

  The scandal that broke British politics. The Horizon/Fujitsu system whose unreliability was flagged up before the £900million deal was struck in 1999 was backed by Peter Mandelson (Lord) and pushed through by Tony Blair (Sir) despite the adverse reports to avoid damaging relations with Japan. Gordon Brown later appointed Lib Dem Ed Davey (Sir) as Postal Affairs Minister while prosecutions were ongoing. David Cameron (Lord) and every Tory PM since have averted their eyes from the egregious miscarriages of justice going on under their noses.  What are they for?

  The Mail on Sunday has also noted that Blair had close links with Fujitsu, meeting Fujitsu bosses in Japan in 1996, before he entered No10.

  On the UK chart the 2^nd house Neptune is under attack from a square to the Solar Arc Sun and also to the SA Midheaven over coming months – all of which might point up a financial snafu of epic proportions with all the Neptunian vices of evasion, deception, dishonesty, smoke-screening, chilling inhumanity on show.

 The Solar Arc Saturn is also opposition the UK Uranus exactly over this furore, tugging on one leg of the UK yod of Uranus sextile Jupiter inconjunct Pluto.  That yod at its most negative is bullying, coercive and grandiose as well as wayward and defiant. Saturn has no truck with arrogance or deviations from the straight and narrow – so this influence may be part of this scenario as well.

  Plus tr Uranus is moving to square the UK Saturn in the 11th house, which rules the legislature this May and again over the New Year into March 2025 – which might give Westminster a sharp elbow in the ribs. Maybe. Hopefully.

  It is too much to hope that the great British electorate rise up and toss all of them into the trash can.  But again it may be Pluto in Capricorn’s swansong to spotlight wholesale political failures. Never mind the PPE procurement and infected blood disasters which are still limping along in the background.  

  Tony Blair, 6 May 1953 6.10am Edinburgh, Scotland, is running into a series of cataclysmic setbacks courtesy of his Progressed Mars square his Neptune Saturn from now till 2026; and his SA Moon opposition his Neptune Saturn in 2026/27.  At the moment his has a Solar Arc yod formed from SA Neptune sextile SA Pluto inconjunct his Jupiter – all at the 29’ anaretic degree. Tr Pluto is also just into his career 10^th house which often coincides with a reputation dent/collapse..

  The Fujitsu Sun, 20 June 1935, falls in his financial 2^nd house with the Fujitsu Jupiter exactly opposition his Taurus Sun.  His relationship with Fujitsu has a ‘fated yod’ hinting that the association will affect the destiny of both for good or ill. That yod is being  cut down to size with tr Saturn square one leg and tr Neptune Saturn in 2025 colliding with the Saturn focal point. So it is a link that won’t fade into obscurity any time soon.

  Ed Davey has tr Pluto conjunct his Mars in Aquarius from late February on and off for two years which will box him in.

  Just goes to show a week is a long time in politics. Starmer’s two backroom string-pullers of Blair and Mandelson will be compromised over this which will reflect badly on his judgement. And Rishi Sunak has gone into full “Wag the Dog” mode over the Houthi attack, whether intentionally or not, which could change the rules of the game in coming months.

See previous posts: Blair – 14 November and 28 July 2023.  Fujitsu/Post office 8 January 2024.

Lisa St Aubin de Teran, the wild woman wunderkind of the literary scene four decades ago is back with another memoir Better Broken than New: A Fragmented Memoir. Her life might be described as novelesque except it would be deemed overblown as fiction.

  She was conceived in a mental hospital where her four-times divorced mother was being treated for suicidal depression. At 16 she ran off with a schizophrenic Venezuelan landowner-turned-bank robber who had been stalking her and escaped a murder-suicide pact only to find herself trapped in a haunted Norfolk castle with the Scottish poet George MacBeth. Then she eloped with the painter who had been commissioned to do her portrait. A ruined Mozambique palace came next with a former war correspondent. Now she lives in a houseboat in Chelsea harbour.

 A Times review careers through her madcap lifestyle: “across three continents, three marriages (with a child from each) and endless madcap exploits (love affairs, assassinations, car crashes, comas, costume parties, violent attacks, prison sentences, exotic illnesses, a hunger so fierce she ate dog food.” “There are walk-on parts for Malcolm X, the Queen Mother, Andy Warhol and a serial killer and cannibal called Ivan Russian Schmitter who shared a prison cell with her first husband, Jaime Teán, and later tried to seduce the author’s mother.”

  What appears to have brought her down to earth was a “life changing” home invasion in 2015 in Mozambique by a gang of 18 machete wielding robbers which she and her partner fought off.

 She said before this – “I’ve always been careless. I go to places and do things and people say, ‘Ooh, that’s really dangerous,’ but I’ve always been unaware. I would see myself as someone who could walk through a minefield and nothing would blow up.” The attack appears to have finally brought reality home.

 She was born 2 October 1953 10am London, with an 11^th house Libra Sun which sounds surprisingly well balanced. But what dominates her chart is a Half Grand sextile from a lucky Jupiter in her 8^th (giving her no fear of death?) trine a 12^th house Neptune, Mercury, Saturn in Libra, sextile Pluto conjunct her Midheaven. The neurotic Neptune Saturn in the 12^th will be a hint of the unsettled mental state of her mother during pregnancy. Pluto on her 10^th would make her susceptible to dominating partners but also defensively controlling herself. Such a strong Pluto would ramp up the dramatic factor in her life. She also has the can-be-passionate, romantically impulsive, inclined-to-infidelity Venus Mars conjunction in Virgo in her 10^th.  Her Saturn Mercury Neptune are also square Uranus, giving her an obsessive, unrealistic and disruptive streak.

  Her Sun and Leo Moon are in sextile but otherwise not well integrated into her chart.  Perhaps why Johanna Thomas-Corr, the Times reviewer, describes her as ‘unmoored.’

 Of the book she says: “It is one of the most bonkers life stories I’ve read. Published by a tiny London press, it is a riveting — if rather disjointed — read, one that conjures up a lost world of international bohemianism in which freedom fighters, poets, artists, opera singers and the odd stray python shack up in semi-feudal situations.”

Annie Nightingale, the trailblazing and eternally young-at-heart DJ, has died at 83. When she decided to break into the male enclave of the housewife-friendly music jock she was rebuffed.  She was told in the 1970s by BBC bosses her voice was too high and wouldn’t carry, that she didn’t have sufficient authority, and that disc jockeys were “husband substitutes” for listening housewives and a female voice would kill the fantasy. She persevered, called out their gender bias in her magazine column and after three years they relented. She stayed as the first and only lady of radio for 12 years until joined by Janice Long.

  She was born 1 April 1940 in Isleworth, England, and had an upfront, pro-active Sun and Jupiter in Aries; with a stubbornly persistent and enthusiastic Uranus, Venus, Mars in Taurus; and an even more relentlessly determined Saturn in Taurus square Pluto perhaps opposition an Aquarius Moon. Lots of fizz and sparkle backed up by resolute staying power.

  Her Uranus opposed the BBC’s Scorpio Sun so she would be a rebellious and unsettling presence but their relationship chart had a lucky, successful composite Sun Jupiter conjunction; a musical Venus opposition Neptune; and a chained-together Saturn Pluto. Once on board she would not leave and kept working into her 80s.

Joan Baez, singer and heroine of the protest culture and anti-Vietnam movement is 83 years old. While no longer touring, she still resonates with audiences, received a Kennedy Center Honour in 2021 and capped her long career with a documentary last year on Netflix: Joan Baez, I am a Noise. It looks back on her sensational life and her relationship with Bob Dylan who broke her heart.

  She was born 9 January 1941 and has a 10^th house Capricorn Sun and Mercury in an Earth Grand Trine to Uranus in Taurus in a creative trine to musical Neptune. She has a powerful and influential Pluto in her performing 5^th house square a determined Jupiter Saturn in Pluto, sextile her Gemini Moon and trine an 8^th house Mars in Sagittarius.

  Her Moon opposition an 8^th house Mars tied into Pluto suggests a stressed family background to which she alludes in the documentary but never clarifies.

Roger Daltrey, lead singer with the Who and then a solo artist will be 80 in six weeks. But his latest claim to fame is the £32 million he has raised for the Teenage Cancer Trust over the past two decades. It has built specialist units and funds an array of psychologists, social workers and palliative care nurses and will be promoting a series of shows this March featuring the Who, Noel Gallagher and the Chemical Brothers at the Royal Albert Hall, London in late March.

  He has been reflecting back on a long stint, remarkably drug free through the music business, with a marriage that has last for 52 years, despite his many dalliances away from home which have resulted in four illegitimate children to add to his four produced in two marriages (and now fifteen grandchildren).  

  He was born 1 March 1944 2am in London, growing up poor in post-war Britain. He has a 3^rd house, quick-witted Pisces Sun on the focal point of a yod to a 10^th house creative Neptune sextile Pluto North Node. A yodal Sun starts with low-self-esteem problems but grows in self-assurance, at times tilting into over confidence. He has an Air Grand Trine of Neptune trine Venus in Aquarius trine Moon Uranus in Gemini, formed into a Kite by Venus opposition Pluto North Node – a thinker and communicator, influential, quite controlling, emotionally intense and detached at the same time.  His Sun is also in a defiant, rebellious square to Uranus and a Saturn Mars conjunction in Gemini in his 7th house of partner. He’ll be short-fused and argumentative and his Gemini wife must be a paragon of tolerance. Strangely for someone who avoided drugs to protect his singing career he has no earth in his chart and should be ungrounded. Perhaps his Saturn sextile Jupiter protected him from tilting too far in the direction of any kind of excess.   

  Very different from earthy Joan Baez but a survivor all the same.

Yemen is the latest epi-centre of conflict in an increasingly turbulent Middle East. US and UK forces, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, struck “a number of targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels” in a bid to thwart their capacity to endanger international shipping moving through the Red Sea which in recent weeks has threatened to destabilise world trade.

  The Houthis emerged in the early 1990s as an opposition movement to Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who they accused of corruption and being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States. Allied to Hezbollah, the Houthis adopted an official slogan against the United States, Israel and the Jews. Assumed to be an Iran-proxy they are also on the other side of the great Islamic Sunni-Shia split.

  Taking a step backwards to try to encapsulate Yemen’s background might be helpful since historical memories and past injustices tend to fester more than usually in this part of the world.

 Yemen has existed at the crossroads of civilisation for more than 7,000 years, home to Sabaeans and the Queen of Sheba, a primary producer of coffee and in the 7th century, a center of Islamic learning. At this time, Yemen was the most advanced region in Arabia. Now it is described as a humanitarian disaster, one of the least developed countries in the world, ranking second-worst on the Global Hunger Index.

 By the 19^th century the country was divided between the Ottoman (Turkish) and British empires. The British took over Aden in south Yemen as a protectorate and then a Crown colony (1937 to 1963) to facilitate the trade route to India. Up to the 1960s the Port of Aden was one of the busiest ship-bunkering, duty-free shopping, and trading ports in the world. The British exit in 1967 was a botched up and violent mess.

  In the latter half of the 20^th century Yemen was split between north and south with the two states uniting in 22 May 1990 to form the modern Republic of Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh was the first president until his resignation in 2012 in the wake of the Arab Spring. Since 2014 a civil war has been raging, widely regarded as part of the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict, with Saudi Arabia invading in 2015, their brutal methods attracting international condemnation.  The Houthis are now reckoned to have won in the north and the Saudis have attempted to make peace with them.

  The Yemen Republic 22 May 1990 chart has a Gemini Sun with the triple conjunction spread out through Capricorn.  It did register the Saudi Invasion of 26 March 2015 on an exact Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn hitting the Yemen Neptune – so it works well enough but the political situation is and has been for decades frankly dizzying with a revolving carousel of violent unrest, civil wars and coups.

  Wiki: In March 2020, the Trump administration and key U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, cut off tens of millions of dollars for health care programs and other aid to the United Nations’ appeal for Yemen. As a result of funding cuts, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that the UN agencies were forced to either close or reduce more than 75 per cent of its programs that year alone, affecting more than 8 million people.

  More background than astrology but it clarifies two things.  1) The cauldron of history is constantly bubbling: empires and dynasties rise and fall, dark ages are followed by cultural peaks and then the process reverses. It might damp western arrogance to absorb the heights reached in the past by nations that are now regarded as ‘below the salt’ (= of lesser rank).

2) I am beginning to revise my antipathy to the mindless mantra about the British Empire which I regularly delete from troll posts. Well I still think the word salad diatribe of psychopathic, narcissistic, neoliberal blah blah deserves to be despatched into a cyber black hole. But there is no doubt the old Empire left behind some gaping wounds. Aden being one of them. Ditto ditto US and UK support for autocratic corrupt rulers in the region over the decades has also created understandable antipathy.

 See previous posts – Iran pushing USA out of ME 31 December 2023; and 8 October 2023.  

PS February is brewing up to be a challenging month with Mars joining the Sun, Pluto and Mercury there midmonth to form an immediate conjunction with Pluto and two days later Venus moves into Aquarius also to conjunct Pluto. Often violent clashes break out when Mars Pluto is around especially in the Middle East; and Venus Pluto will only ramp the emotionally intense mood up more.

Add On: There has been more talk since this latest conflict broke out about whether the Ben Gurion Canal project will be pushed ahead, with talk from the Arab side about it being driven through Gaza – though that may just be conspiracy theory.

https://www.newarab.com/news/what-israels-ben-gurion-canal-plan-and-why-gaza-matters

The Ben Gurion Project and Its Relation to Israel’s Occupation in Gaza

The anaretic degree from 29° to 29°59’59’’ was always deemed fated or problematic though it has also been associated with old souls who have reached a peak, with hints of the difficulty about being able to leave the past behind. The effect can be of the ‘dither and dash’ variety – unable to decide and then making an impulsive leap often in the wrong direction. It can bring a sense of urgency of unfinished business connected to the sign involved that needs closure which can lead to poor choices, difficulties or overcompensation.

  One astrologer suggests there is a “feeling of inevitability and ‘fatedness’ about the anaretic degree with a fascination with what happened before birth that cannot be undone.

 For those who don’t have a final degree planet in their chart they will still feel the effects from the changeover of Solar Arc Sun (every 30 years) to a new sign and Progressed Moon (every 2.5 years). Both of these herald a significant shift with the run up to the changeover being filled with uncertainty, indecision leading to hasty commitments and sometimes crisis – described as sometimes ‘packing a punch’.

  As with the transiting outer planets when they reach the final sign before the changeover there can often be a ‘swansong’ of unfinished business connected to the sign that is being exited which show up as crises.  Pluto leaving Capricorn – money, governmental practice, capitalism. Neptune leaving Pisces – weird ideas, conspiracy theories, religious zealotry. The theory being that a resolution must be found before it is too late – the Trump madness and the UK Post Office debacle being two examples to ponder.

  On a quick scan through examples:

29 Taurus Sun – Cher and Laurence Olivier. 

29 Capricorn Sun – Janis Joplin, Dolly Parton, Al Capone.

Not sure I would draw any great conclusion from those examples.

  Last degree Moons seem trickier:

29 Aries Moon – Celine Dion

29 Taurus Moon – Friday Kahlo, River Phoenix, Henrik Ibsen.

29 Leo Moon – Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher.

29 Virgo Moon – Jack Nicholson, Deepak Chopra, Betty White

29 Scorpio Moon – Jennifer Lopez, Melinda Gates, Ellen Pompeo

29 Capricorn Moon – David Beckham, Prince George Cambridge, Napoleon 1, Robert Kennedy Jnr.

29 Pisces Moon – Kim Kardashian, Hilary Clinton, Catherine Zeta Jones, serial killer Wayne Gacy.

  Interesting to hear from those who have final degree planets. 

PS Fun example. The Great Stink in London of 1858 – a stench that was so noxious from untreated human waste and industrial effluent that it led to a major overhaul and introduction of new sewage systems occurred when Uranus was at 29 degrees Taurus – and that’s an appropriate astro-signature. Taurus being earthy and fairly anal – and up-in-its-head Uranus moving into Airy Gemini wanting freed from the grosser aspects of city living.

Add On:

Rupert Murdoch – Venus 29′ Aquarius – making an impulsive leap, often in wrong direction.

Oscar Pistorius – Sun 29′ Scorpio (square Mars) and Reeve Steenkamp Saturn 29 Libra (conjunct Pluto and trine his Mars).

Peter Mandelson – Saturn 29’ Libra

Michael J Fox & George Clooney – Saturn 29′ Capricorn

Harvey Weinstein – Sun 29’ Pisces

Cillian Murphy  29 Aries Chiron in painful square to Saturn 29 Cancer.

Jerry Hall Jupiter 29 Leo conj Pluto 26 Leo

Sir Mick Jagger: Chiron 29 Leo; Neptune 29 Virgo

Chris Hemsworth 29′ Saturn in Libra conjunct Pluto  square Mars.

Kate Hudson has Sun at 29 Aries square Moon at 29 Capricorn opposition Jupiter 29’ Cancer.

Jeremy Corbyn –  Uranus 29 Gemini and Saturn 29 Leo. 

Chris Packham, naturalist – Mars 29′ Cancer opposition Saturn 29′ Capricorn.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, is 42 today as she juggles an increasingly hectic schedule, mothering three children and turning out in elegant style to state occasions as well as casual charity functions.

   Jupiter moving through her 10th house from mid 2023 to May 2025 will keep her popularity high and attract praise. Although tr Saturn through her 8^th house from May 2024 for two years may put her under extra pressure and she’ll be left feeling under-supported. Saturn through the 8^th does teach resilience and self-sufficiency.

  What is notable and happens within a day or so is that her Progressed Mars goes retrograde and stays that way for the rest of her life. Robert Blaschke in his book on Progressions remarks that a retrograde Mars affects vitality, will and energy, on occasion leading to a sense of not knowing what is desired. Sometimes the immediate phase of turning retrograde can produce an accident or other event which feels like a collision.  Though there is nothing else in her chart flagging up such an event so it may have a different effect.

  Where her life looks most disrupted will be 2026 to 2028 with her Solar Arc Sun to Uranus and SA Uranus to Sun and Moon becoming exact. Her relationship with Will will be going through a cool and then swampy patch from 2027 to 2029.

  Her relationship with King Charles, always notoriously prickly about others’ upstaging him whether by design or accident, will be hitting an uncertain and chilly phase from April this year into 2025. Though she will have fewer problems with Queen Camilla.

 Prince Andrew she dislikes as much as Prince William does. Prince Harry she will regard with sadness with no indication of the gloom lifting anytime soon.

 There could be an eruption over the Meghan situation with an explosive tr Uranus opposition their composite Venus, square the Mars and Moon and finally in 2025 opposing the Uranus. All of which sounds as if there may be more outbursts to come presumably from the California end. All of which coincide with Meghan’s midlife crisis as tr Uranus opposition her Uranus from July 2024 onwards for a few  months – which can bring impulsive and not always wise decisions.  

  Life in the Royal goldfish bowl – I don’t envy Princess Catherine one bit. She luckily has that steely Saturn Pluto conjunction square her Capricorn Sun and Cancer Moon so does have stamina.

Add ON: After her hospital admission.

I don’t normally like commenting on health issues but three things come to mind.
Firstly if her 7pm birth time is accurate she has tr Pluto and her Progressed Moon just into her 6th house of health.
Secondly I would have expected to see Mars Uranus in some form for an operation – either the midpoint or transit/solar arcs etc – and there are none.
Thirdly she has Venus in Aquarius in her 6th which certainly makes her caring and helpful but can point to indulgences (less so perhaps in Aquarius). In fact she is under rather than over-indulgent perhaps because her Venus in a fashion-conscious square to Jupiter. When she was a student she was a normally healthy shape but for years has looked overly thin. The pressures of a public life with the camera adding pounds can lead to unhealthy restrictions on eating – ask any model or ballet dancer.
A mystery that will no doubt be uncovered. She says she wants her medical problems kept private but that seems a forlorn hope in the circumstances.

Add On: Apropos her long hospital stay after ‘abdominal surgery’ and long recuperation period I’m puzzled at the lack of any major health flags in her chart on a 7pm birth time. If the birth time is circa 2pm which there is a suggestion on ADB it might be (one among many) – then it would make more sense with her Solar Arc Uranus exactly opposition her Moon (and square her Mars/Saturn midpoint) and SA Mars just into her 6th.

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