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HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <pages>
      <page ns="0" title="Main Page/Objectives" missing="" />
      <page pageid="6587" ns="0" title="How does my river work?" />
      <page pageid="6614" ns="0" title="Introduction to characterisation: Multi-scale Hierarchical Framework" />
      <page pageid="279" ns="0" title="Main Page" />
      <page pageid="52" ns="0" title="Meers - Floodplain lowering" />
      <page pageid="6502" ns="0" title="Restoration planning" />
      <page pageid="6585" ns="0" title="What&#039;s in this wiki?" />
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>