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WWII sacrifice of Free French defending Hong Kong

2018-07-01T02:57:58Z

KassandraFunk:

Seventy-five years ago, a handful of idealistic "Free French" took up arms to defend the British colony of Hong Kong in a futile battle against Japanese invaders. But their sacrifice, though largely unknown in their homeland, is not forgotten in Asia. There are six names on the worn stele that pays tribute to them in a corner of the British military cemetery in Stanley, on a hill in the south of Hong Kong island. A French flag is draped over [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] a memorial at the Stanley Military Cemetery, dedicated to French civilians who died fighting with the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps against the 1941 Japanese invasion of the territory �Isaac LAWRENCE (AFP) "I do not see why these people should be forgotten," says Francois Dremeaux, chairman of the Hong Kong committee of French Remembrances of China. "My job is to make their memory live by giving it meaning," adds the history teacher, who helped oversee a ceremony dedicated to them last week. Dremeaux, who has written a thesis on the French presence in Hong Kong in the interwar period, feels there is much to learn from these men, who in 1941 chose to fight in a battle some 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) from their homeland. Hong Kong was a British enclave, and there was nothing forcing them to defend it, he adds. "We cannot even say they were defending their colony," Dremeaux said. "They defended an idea, freedom, and did it of their own free will, which makes their sacrifice even more noble." Apart from representatives from the French consulate and army, those attending the modest commemoration were largely students from the French international school where Dremeaux teaches. The group sang 'Le Chant Des Partisans', the anthem of the French Resistance -- a tune rarely heard on the shores of the South China Sea. - Dissident consul - By June 1940, many in the French community -- which numbered around 400 in the late 1930s, had already fled to Indochina. Those who remained largely rallied to the Gaullist [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] Resistance cause. While the French embassy in Beijing was loyal to the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, in diplomatic correspondence Hong Kong consul general Louis Reynaud railed against the "treason" of the armistice Germany demanded and stamped his official telegrams with "V" for victory. A "Free France" committee was set up in Hong Kong with about 20 active members to recruit volunteers, turn merchant sailors on stopover in port or prepare propaganda broadcasts. Then on December 8, 1941, hours after their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, which had been living under the threat of the imperial forces since they seized the nearby Chinese city of Canton -- modern day Guangzhou -- three years earlier. Some of the Frenchmen joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps established by Britain to support regular forces vastly outnumbered by the Japanese. - Bayonet wounds - Dremeaux picks up the trail of the Free French at several key moments in the 17-day "Battle of Hong Kong", including the fight for the island's sole power plant. While only six names are on the stele, Dremeaux believes around ten took a stand against the Japanese. Among them was Armand Delcourt, a 42-year-old merchant who came to Hong Kong in 1926 and married a Eurasian woman of Japanese and Scottish origins, Captain Roderic Egal, who was in transit from Shanghai when the invasion began, Henri Belle, a sailor passing through Hong Kong who took up arms, and Paul de Roux a director of the Banque d'Indochine. Egal and Belle were both captured and sent to prison camps, the latter dying in captivity. Roux did not fight but set up a resistance network. He was arrested and tortured, before committing suicide to prevent the enemy forcing him to talk. Delcourt was wounded by two bayonet blows on December 21 while defending a strategic hill pass and executed two days later, shortly before the governor surrendered on Christmas Day. On January 5, 1942, brutalised by the Japanese, his pregnant wife gave birth prematurely in a Hong Kong church to a girl who for decades would not know the circumstances of her [http://www.express.co.uk/search/father%27s%20death/ father's death]. "I did not know the full circumstances of my father's death until much later when I was in Australia and received the letter from my father's close friend Carlos Arnulphy who had managed to trace me," Monique Westmore, who now lives in Melbourne, told AFP by email. "I would have loved to have known my father but when I read the documents that are attached (to the letter) I understand that he was a man of great principle -- I do sometimes ask myself 'why did you go knowing that your wife was hugely pregnant and also you weren't exactly a young man?'," Westmore wrote. "The battle of Hong Kong was a total disaster and many people lost their lives." His military death notification praised him as "a continuous example of courage and enthusiasm" in an unequal battle who "cheerfully made the supreme sacrifice, confident in the final victory of France." For Dremeaux, the path chosen by Armand Delcourt resonates strongly today, "a time of withdrawal" when countries are increasingly looking inward. "He was married to a Japanese woman, lived abroad and gave his life for Free France," he said. "To be patriotic is not a contradiction with being open to the world". Graphic on Japan's invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941 �-, - (AFP Graphic) French historian and teacher Francois Dremeaux poses for a photo after a memorial service at the Stanley Military Cemetery in Hong Kong �Isaac LAWRENCE (AFP) The French Consul General of Hong Kong Eric Berti (3rd R), along with military personnel and members of the public, attends a memorial service at the Stanley Military Cemetery �Isaac LAWRENCE (AFP) Advertisement

Popular 13-foot python

2018-06-26T14:43:28Z

KassandraFunk:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A popular python snake named Monty that came to the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky in 1981 has been euthanized. The 13-foot, 38-year-old Burmese python died Tuesday at the zoo. Zookeepers say they decided to [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] have the python [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] euthanized because it had not been eating well, was losing weight and was diagnosed with lymphoma. Bill McMahan, [http://Www.thefreedictionary.com/supervisor supervisor] of the HerpAquarium where Monty lives, says the python was a great ambassador for his species and [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh 5 ngày 4 đêm từ Hà Nội] had made appearances on local TV stations with its handlers. Pythons are constrictors, so they have no fangs and are typically fed poultry, rodents and rabbits. They are native to southern China, Burma, Indochina, Thailand and the Malay Archipelago. Advertisement

Chasing leaks is a road to hell in Washington. See: Nixon.

2018-06-18T22:44:08Z

KassandraFunk:

By Tim Weiner Feb 28 (Reuters) - (Editor�s note: Language in paragraph 17 may be offensive to some readers.) The Trump White House has moved at warp speed toward historic achievements. Sadly, these may include violations of the spirit and letter of the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Trump tweeted this on Friday: "The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security `leakers� that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even find the leakers within the FBI itself.... FIND NOW." When Trump hits Caps Lock, take heed. Informed citizens know well that the FBI is conducting a counterintelligence investigation into links between Russian cyber-saboteurs and the 2016 Trump campaign. They�ve read first-rate reporting by the nation�s leading news organizations on the case. The president evidently suspects that somewhere in a dark parking garage in the District of Columbia, the feds are ratting him out as reporters in fedoras furtively scribble shorthand notes. Maybe they�re using a state-of-the-art encrypted app instead, but more on that in a minute. Trump wants this case to vanish - and who can blame him? The tweeter-in-chief calls it "A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT." But if there�s a trail of evidence connecting the gilded chambers of Trump Tower and the chandeliered suites of the Kremlin, the FBI will follow it. The president appears to be seeking to strong-arm the Bureau, scare White House staffers, silence Congress, stanch the leaks, and stop the press. Trump keeps attacking reporters as the "enemy of the people" - a pithy phrase last in vogue when Vladimir Lenin ran the Russian revolution a hundred years ago. Trump�s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, talked to FBI director James Comey the other day. They weren�t reviewing security for the next Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn. The subject at hand was the reporting on Vladimir Putin�s spies and Trump�s campaign - and the president�s rage against it. Comey responded correctly, with stony silence. He certainly didn�t say Priebus had been "extremely careless," though come to think of it, he could have. The last time a White House chief of staff set out to impede an FBI investigation that threatened a president was a few days after the Watergate break-in in June 1972. H.R. Haldeman was acting on orders of Richard Nixon, caught on a reel-to-reel recording. They called it the smoking gun tape. Haldeman went to prison. Nixon went into exile. I�m not a special prosecutor, and I can�t say it�s an obstruction of justice to pressure Comey and Congress on the gravest counterintelligence case of the 21st century (the federal statute on obstruction of justice covers "endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede" a federal investigation). When a president picks a fight against the FBI and compares the CIA to Nazis, it�s in a way worse than a crime. It�s a blunder. This White House can�t keep making such mistakes. And as for escalating his battle against the press? Bad idea. "I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy," former President George W. Bush said Monday on NBC�s "Today" show. "Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power." I know - I had to read it twice too. The White House is attacking the media - and its sources inside the government - on many fronts. Last week, the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, put his staff on notice that their calls will be monitored. He specifically warned them against using encrypted communications apps like Signal and Confide. Now Trump is eyeball-to-eyeball with his chief lawmen. The last thing this White House wants to do is drive itself crazy chasing down leaks - especially when they involve a scintilla of evidence suggesting the abuse of power by a president. That is the road to hell in Washington. And we have [http://www.Wikipedia.org/wiki/travelled travelled] that road before. Fifty-five days into his presidency, Nixon started sending great waves of B-52 bombers over Cambodia. The United States was not at war with Cambodia and the attacks were supposed to be a secret. They did not stay secret. Nixon summoned his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, into the Oval Office on April 25, 1969, and he ordered Kissinger to take responsibility for the leaks. Kissinger followed orders. With help from J. Edgar Hoover, he starting wiretapping members of his own National Security Council staff. The targets of the taps grew to include 13 United States government officials at the NSC, the Pentagon, and the State Department, along with four newspaper reporters. They were not foreign spies. They were American citizens. The White House received the wiretap transcripts - and they were useless, Nixon later said: nothing but "gossip and bullshitting." The National Security Agency had its own watch list in those days, which grew to include two United States senators. One was Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat who sponsored the first bipartisan legislation against the war in Indochina. The other was Howard [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] Baker, a Tennessee Republican, who famously asked at the 1973 Watergate hearings: "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" All this - and the Watergate burglary team, known as the Plumbers, because they were created to stop leaks - was in part a presidential war against the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and of the press. Back then, the pen proved mightier than the presidential sword. Today? Well, we�ll see, won�t we? Trump doesn�t take a lot of free advice. But the president should be counseled on this point. He should not interpose the power of his office between reporters and their sources in the executive and legislative branches of the government. He cannot go on the warpath against the FBI, Congress, and the press corps over leaks. Those three forces are in constant opposition. But a free press can work in concert with federal investigators. If they align against the White House, a critical mass of shared information will gather. That information could someday take the shape of a subpoena seeking the traces of a smoking [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] gun. And an FBI agent can serve that subpoena at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It happened in 1973. It could happen again. (By Tim Weiner) Advertisement

User:KassandraFunk

2018-06-18T22:44:03Z

KassandraFunk: Created page with "Hello, I'm Kassandra, a 29 year old from Kobenhavn K, Denmark. My hobbies include (but are not limited to) Singing, Hooping and watching NCIS. Feel free to visit my..."

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