Emptying trash hangs

when I opened the lid of my macbookPro, the "emtying trash" pop-up was there, but did not move.
After a while (a few minutes) I hit the abort-button, and it still does not do anything.
It tried to empty the trash, and it try to stop emptying, but completely hangs. (The system being fully functional, though)...
what could I do to bring it to an end? kill the files one by one through terminal? any better (real) solution?
thanks!
david

Select  ▹ Force Quit... from the menu bar, then select Finder and press return. From the Finder menu bar, select Finder ▹ Preferences ▹ Advanced and uncheck the box labeled Empty Trash securely. Try again to empty the Trash. If you still have problems, follow the instructions in this support article:
You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash

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