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Sunday 26 April 2015

Nepal: Death toll from Saturday's earthquake rises to over 3,200

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© Google
The earthquake, 7.8 in magnitude hit Nepal on Saturday, April 25th, 2015

    
At least 3,218 people are now known to have died in a massive earthquake which hit Nepal on Saturday, say officials. Rameshwor Dangal, head of Nepal's disaster management agency, said another 6,500 people had been injured. Dozens of people are also reported to have been killed in neighbouring China and India.

Thousands have spent a second night outside after the 7.8-magnitude quake, which also triggered deadly avalanches on Mount Everest. Vast tent cities have sprung up in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, for those displaced or afraid to return to their homes as strong aftershocks continue.

"We don't have a choice, our house is shaky. The rain is seeping in but what can we do?" 34-year-old shopkeeper Rabi Shrestha, who was sleeping by the roadside with his family, told AFP news agency.

Rescue missions and aid have started arriving to help cope with the aftermath of the earthquake, the worst to hit Nepal for more than 80 years.

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© Getty
Local people have been using basic tools to dig through rubble in badly hit towns like Bhaktapur

    
Efforts to dig victims out from under the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kathmandu continued into Monday. But home ministry official Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told Reuters rescuers were "in a really bad shape" after working non-stop for two days. "We are all about to collapse."

Meanwhile, officials have warned that the number of casualties could rise as rescue teams reach remote mountainous areas of western Nepal. Initial reports suggest that many communities - especially those close to mountainsides - suffered significant quake damage.

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© AP
A team of Indian rescue personnel look for survivors in a Kathmandu building - such searches are still continuing but winding down

    
Landslides have prevented rescue teams from reaching rural communities in the area where the quake was centred, chief Gorkha region district official Prakash Subedi said.

"Villages like this are routinely affected by landslides, and it's not uncommon for entire villages of 200, 300, up to 1,000 people to be completely buried by rock falls," World Vision spokesman Matt Darvas said. "It will likely be helicopter access only."

A man evacuated by helicopter to Pokhara, 200km from Kathmandu, said almost every home in his village of more than 1,000 houses had been destroyed, charity worker Matt Darvas of World Vision told the BBC. In Dhading district, 80km west of Kathmandu, people were camped in the open, the hospital was overflowing, the power was off and shops were closed, Reuters news agency reported.

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© AP
Cremations of the dead took place across Nepal on Sunday

    
Renewed panic

A powerful aftershock was felt on Sunday in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, and more avalanches were reported near Everest. The 6.7-magnitude tremor, centred 60km (40 miles) east of Kathmandu, sent people running in panic for open ground in the city. It brought down some houses that had been damaged in the initial quake.

At hospitals rattled by the aftershocks, staff moved sick and injured patients outside on Sunday afternoon. Both private and government hospitals have run out of space and are treating patients outside, officials say. Deepak Panda, a disaster management official, said medical services were "overwhelmed with rescue and assistance requests from all across the country", Reuters reports.

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© AFP
Hospital patients were among those moved outside over the weekend

    
Stranded on Everest

Foreign climbers and their Nepalese guides around Mt Everest were caught by the tremors and a huge avalanche that buried part of the base camp in snow. More than 60 people were injured and many people are still missing.

Separately rescue workers have told the BBC that climbers stranded on Everest have been unable to get down because climbing ropes and ladders have been swept away by a series of avalanches.

Tourism Minister Deepak Chanda Amatya told the BBC that more than 50 climbers had been rescued.

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© AFP
Rescuers have been able to take some injured people off Mount Everest

    
Nepal's ruined tourism

At least four out of seven Unesco World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu valley - three of them ancient city squares - were severely damaged.

Nepali Times editor Kunda Dixit told the BBC that the destruction was "culturally speaking an incalculable loss", although he said monuments could be rebuilt. In Bhaktapur, until now Nepal's best preserved old city, reports say half of all homes have been destroyed and 80% of temples damaged.

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© EPA
Several landmarks were badly damaged by the quake

    
There are 14 international medical teams on the way to Nepal, the UN says, and up to 15 international search-and-rescue teams on the way, the UN says, which will if necessary use military aircraft or the overland route from India to get into Nepal. Offers of help have come in from around the world. Some foreign teams have already arrived and are helping with search and rescue efforts - braving aftershocks at Kathmandu airport that forced some aircraft to circle before landing.

The UN children's agency says nearly one million children in Nepal urgently need humanitarian assistance as they were particularly vulnerable. The country is running out of water and food, and there are frequent power cuts, the UN says. Heavy rain earlier on Saturday further worsened conditions with UN officials expressing concern that thunderstorms that could harm people staying outdoors and lead to a shortage of vaccines against disease including diarrhoea and measles.

Offers of aid:

  • US: Disaster response team and an initial $1m (£0.7m), according to aid agency USAid
  • China: Rescue team reported to have arrived in Nepal
  • India: Several aircraft, carrying medical supplies and a mobile hospital, and a 40-strong disaster response team, including rescuers with dogs
  • UK: Eight-strong humanitarian team, £5m in aid
  • Pakistan: Four C-130 aircraft carrying a 30-bed field hospital, and army doctors and specialists; urban search-and-rescue teams equipped with radars and sniffer dogs; food items, including 2,000 meals, 200 tents and 600 blankets
  • Norway: $3.9m (£2.5m) in humanitarian assistance
  • Pledges from Germany, Spain, France, Israel and the EU

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Australia: everyone must get vaccinated, except the Prime Minister's daughters

© The Record, Australia

    
We're talking about Tony Abbott, who just ruled from on high that there are no more exemptions from vaccines in Australia.

No more conscientious objections, no more religious exemptions. Only the rare medical exemption, permitted by a doctor. And suddenly, every family who refuses vaccinations for their children will lose up to $15,000 per year, per child, in federal support money. Every family in Australia is eligible for federal money.

Tony has officially ripped away citizens' right to choose. Australia is now officially a medical police state.

But...

Back in 2006, Tony was singing a very different tune concerning his own daughters.

On November 9, 2006, news.com.au had the story: "Abbott rules out cancer vaccine for his daughters" (see also theaustralian.com.au "I could be seen as 'cruel' on Gardasil: Abbott"):

"FEDERAL Health Minister [at the time] Tony Abbott has said that while he may be seen as a 'cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard', he would not be rushing to have his own daughters vaccinated [with the HPV shot] against cervical cancer.

"'I won't be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated, maybe that's because I'm a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won't be,' Mr Abbott said on Southern Cross radio."

How interesting. How revealing. Tony Abbott, a vaccine refuser. Then. But now he's the Pope of forced vaccinations for all Australians, whether they want them or not.

I don't see Australian media outlets rushing to cover this contradiction. A reader pointed me to the 2006 article. Otherwise I never would have known about Tony's double life.

Back in 2006, Tony had a bizarre justification for his anti-vaccine stance. The news.com.au article spells it out:

Tony: "If there is a national immunisation program [that includes the HPV shot], I certainly will be making sure that they [his daughters] get vaccinated under the program."

Tony: "The [national] program is what the experts think clearly is absolutely necessary, and at the moment the experts don't think this [HPV shot] is absolutely necessary."

The article continues:

"The PBAC [Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee] yesterday knocked back the application from Australian manufacturer CSL to make the Gardasil [HPV] vaccine available free to all females aged 12 to 26.

"Gardasil halts the spread of sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes 70 per cent of cervical cancers. At present it costs $460 for the recommended three doses.

"The PBAC said it made the decision because the vaccine program - which would have cost about $625 million during its first four years - was not value for money."

Let me take this apart.

Tony was saying he wouldn't have his daughters vaccinated with the HPV shot because there was no national program for it.

That's like saying, "If the supermarket doesn't sell cherries, I won't let my daughters eat them."

You see, the only reason a national program to vaccinate girls with the HPV shot wasn't instituted, in 2006, was because of money. The cost vs. value of the program was determined to be "not worth it."

Conventional researchers, doctors, and vaccine manufacturers in Australia were quite confident, in 2006, that the vaccine was safe and effective. Otherwise, they never would have considered it, in the first place, for the national vaccine program.

(As far I'm concerned, HPV is one of the most useless and dangerous vaccines in existence, but for the purposes of this argument, we're talking about the conventional mainstream view.)

Tony was deciding to reject what he considered to be a safe and effective vaccine for his own daughters—for whatever bizarre reasons he cared to advance. Because he had the right to choose. And because he held a high post in government. And because he decided he could do whatever he wanted to do.

But now, flashing forward nine years, Tony is telling every person in Australia what they have to do. No choice. No freedom. No right to seek out information independently and make a decision based on that information.

Australia is a medical police state, with Tony, the old vaccine refuser, at the helm.

If that isn't cause for uproar in the Land Down Under, what is?

"Hi, I'm Tony. I'm your boss, your ruler, your King. What I say goes. For you. But not necessarily for me. That's the way it works, don't you know? The King makes rules for everyone else, but he can do what he damn well pleases. He's above the rules. He's different. He's the Lord of the idiots and slaves, but he himself is free. That's the deal. It's none of your business. Just keep your eyes straight ahead and your mouths shut and march forward. That's your fate. I so command it."

The anti-surveillance state: Clothes and gadgets that make you (digitally) invisible

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Last spring, designer Adam Harvey hosted a session on hair and makeup techniques for attendees of the 2015 FutureEverything Festival in Manchester, England. Rather than sharing innovative ways to bring out the audience's eyes, Harvey's CV Dazzle Anon introduced a series of styling methods designed with almost the exact opposite aim of traditional beauty tricks: to turn your face into an anti-face - one that cameras, particularly those of the surveillance variety, will not only fail to love, but fail to recognize.

Harvey is one of a growing number of privacy-focused designers and developers "exploring new opportunities that are the result of [heightened] surveillance," and working to establish lines of defense against it. He's spent the past several years experimenting with strategies for putting control over people's privacy back in their own hands, in their pockets and on their faces.

Harvey's goal of "creating a style that [is] functional and aesthetic" has driven several projects and collaborations, including a method for "spoofing" DNA, and via the Privacy Gift Shop, his drone-thwarting Stealth Wear line (clothing he claims "shields against thermal imaging...[which is] used widely by military drones to target people," seen below) and the OFF Pocket phone sleeve, able to keep out unwanted wireless signals.

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His CV Dazzle designs for hair and makeup obscure the eyes, bridge of the nose and shape of the head, as well as creating skin tone contrasts and asymmetries. Facial-recognition algorithms function by identifying the layout of facial features and supplying missing info based on assumed facial symmetry. The project demonstrates that a styled "anti-face" can both conceal a person's identity from facial recognition software (be it the FBI's or Facebook's) and cause the software to doubt the presence of a human face, period.
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Harvey's work is focused on accessibility in addition to privacy. "Most of the projects I've worked on are analog solutions to digital challenges," he said. His hair and makeup style tips - a veritable how-to guide for how to create "privacy reclaiming" looks at home - are "deliberately low-cost." His current project - software to "automatically generate camouflage...that can be applied to faces" - will allow a user to "create [their] own look and guide the design towards [their] personal style preferences."

Other low-tech protections against widespread surveillance have been gaining ground, too. Though initially designed as a tongue-in-cheek solution to prying eyes and cameras, Becky Stern's Laptop Compubody Sock offers a portable, peek-free zone to laptop users, while the CHBL Jammer Coat and sold-out Phonekerchief use metal-infused fabrics to make personal gadgets unreachable, blocking texts, calls and radio waves. For people willing to sport a bit more hardware in the name of privacy, the Sentient City Survival Kit offers underwear that notifies wearers about real-life phishing and tracking attempts, and its LED umbrella lets users "flirt with object tracking algorithms used in advanced surveillance systems" and even "train these systems to recognize nonhuman shapes."

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Large companies are also getting in on the pushback against increasing surveillance. Earlier this year, antivirus software leaders AVG revealed a pair of invisibility glasses developed by its Innovation Labs division. The casual looking specs use embedded infrared lights "to create noise around the nose and eyes" and retro-reflective frame coating to interfere with camera flashes, "allowing [the wearer] to avoid facial recognition." In early 2013, Japan's National Institute of Informatics revealed a bulky pair of goggles it had developed for the same purpose.

A spokesperson for Innovation Labs claims its glasses represent "an important step in the prevention against mass surveillance...whether through the cell phone camera of a passerby, a CCTV camera in a bar, or a drone flying over your head in the street." Innovation Labs says that, with a person's picture, facial recognition software "coupled with data from social networking sites can provide instant access to the private information of complete strangers. This can pose a serious threat to our privacy." Though AVG's glasses are not scheduled for commercial release, Innovation Labs said that individuals can take a number of steps to prevent their images from being "harvested":

"First and foremost, make sure you're not allowing private corporations to create biometrics profiles about you. When using social networks like Facebook, be aware that they are using facial recognition to give you tag suggestions. Facebook's DeepFace was already tested and trained on the largest facial dataset to-date (an identity labeled dataset of more than 4 million facial images belonging to thousands of identities)."

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Holmes Wilson of nonprofit Fight for the Future, which works to defend online privacy and freedoms on various fronts, is more concerned with other types of privacy invasion than real-life image harvesting. "It's pretty unlikely in most of the world that you'll get followed around using a network of street cameras with face recognition," he said. "It's probably pretty likely, though, that you'll get filmed by police at a protest. But [there's] not much you can do about that other than wearing a mask."

Wilson advises people concerned about privacy breaches through surveillance to first focus on the ways in which their gadgets are supplying info to third parties. "The place where it's easiest to fight back against surveillance is in protecting the security of your messages," he said, adding that message security "can be a problem for activists, too." He said apps like Textsecure, Signal, and Redphone can make it "a lot harder for people to spy on you." Wilson added:

"Phones are the biggest thing. Lots of people think of smartphones as the big privacy problem, but old-fashioned phones are just as bad, and worse in some ways. All cellphones report on your location to the network as you move around. That's just how they work, and they need to send that information or the system won't know where to send your call. There's no way to turn that off, other than by turning off the phone and, for good measure, taking the battery out."

In collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future recommends a variety of options for encrypting messages, password-protecting accounts and securing a user's various communication and browsing activities via Reset the Net. Wilson encouraged those with specific privacy concerns to check out tutorials, resources and break-downs of privacy issues from Surveillance Self-Defense.

Last year, Facebook announced that its DeepFace facial recognition technology can detect a person's identity from photos with 97.25 percent accuracy, only a hair below the 97.5 percent success rate for humans taking the same test. Currently, a congressional front is preparing to extend surveillance powers granted to legal bodies by Section 215 of the Patriot Act - the NSA's legal foothold of choice with regard to mass collection of US phone records since 2006, and set to expire on June 1 - with the light-on-reform USA Freedom Act.

It seems likely that a growing number of both tech-wary and tech-savvy people will continue weighing how best to ensure their personal privacy, whether by putting stark makeup on or by turning their phones off.

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Anzac Day; Perpetuating the myth

© firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
Viscount Alfred Milner, unquestioned leader of the Secret Elite.

    
In 1916, when the British government set up the Dardanelles Commission, they turned first to the most important member of the Secret Elite, Viscount Alfred Milner. Prime Minister Asquith and conservative leader, Bonar Law, both asked him to be its chairman, [1] but Milner turned the offer down in favour of more immediate work with Lord Robert Cecil at the Foreign Office. [2] Anyone could supervise a whitewash. Alfred Milner's influence want well beyond that of a commission chairman and he could ensure the conclusion without the need for his personal involvement. They turned to another friend and associate of the Secret Elite, Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer, who accepted the position knowing full well that 'it will kill me'. [3] And kill him it did. He died in January 1917 and was replaced by Sir William Pickford.

Others volunteered willingly. The position of Secretary to the Commission was taken by barrister Edward Grimwood Mears, who agreed to the post provided he was awarded a knighthood. [4] He had previously served on the Bryce Committee which falsified reports and generated volumes of lies about the extent of German atrocities in Belgium. [5] The British Establishment trusted Mears as a reliable placeman. Maurice Hankey, Cabinet Secretary and inner-circle member of the Secret Elite [6] 'organised' the evidence which politicians presented to the Commission. He rehearsed Lord Fisher's evidence, and coached Sir Edward Grey, Herbert Asquith and Lord Haldane. [7] Asquith insisted that War Council minutes be withheld and thus managed to cover up his own support for the campaign. Churchill and Sir Ian Hamilton collaborated on their evidence and planned to blame the disaster on Lord Kitchener. [8] Unfortunately for them, that strategy sank in the cold North Sea when Kitchener was drowned off the coast of Orkney in 1916, and was henceforth confirmed for all time as a great national hero; an untouchable.

Churchill informed the Commission that Vice-Admiral Sackville-Carden's telegram (in which he set out a 'plan' for a naval attack) was the most crucial document of all, [9] but there is no acknowledgement in the Commission's findings that Churchill had duped Carden into producing a 'plan' or had lied when telling him that his 'plan' had the overwhelming support of 'people in high authority.' [10] Every senior member of the Admiralty had advised Churchill that a naval attack on its own would fail, but he made no reference to that and scapegoated the ineffective Carden. General Hamilton conveniently added that the only instructions he had received from Kitchener before his departure was that 'we soldiers were clearly to understand that we were string number two. The sailors said they could force the Dardanelles on their own, and we were not to chip in unless the Admiral definitely chucked up the sponge.' [11]

© firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
General Sir Ian Hamilton

    
Criticisms in the Commission's interim report in March 1917 were 'muted and smudged'. The War Council should have sought more advice from naval experts; the expedition had not succeeded but 'certain important political advantages' had been secured. In the final report, delayed until the peace of 1919, criticism was again polite, bland and vague. 'The authorities in London had not grasped the true nature of the conflict' and 'the plan for the August offensive was impractical.' [12] Stopford received a mild reprimand. Major-General De Lisle suggested that politicians were trying to pin the blame on the soldiers. The Commission ostensibly investigated the campaign's failings, but effectively suppressed criticism, concealed the truth and neither wholly blamed nor vindicated those involved.

Far more important than covering up individual culpability, the greatest fear of the London cabal was that, should the report come close to the truth, it would irrevocably damage imperial unity. Gallipoli had served to lock Australia more firmly into the British Imperial embrace. Before the final report was published, Hamilton warned Churchill that it had the potential to break up the Empire if it 'does anything to shatter the belief still confidently clung to in the Antipodes, that the expedition was worth while, and that 'the Boys' did die to a great end and were so handled as to be able to sell their lives very dearly. ...If the people of Australia and New Zealand feel their sacrifices went for nothing, then never expect them again to have any sort of truck with our superior direction in preparations for future wars.' [13] This was the crux of the matter, even in 1919. The truth would threaten the unity of the Empire, run contrary to the Anzac mythology and expose the lies that official histories were presenting as fact. Prior to the final report, Hamilton wrote again to Churchill that the Commission's chairman, Sir William Pickford, should be warned about the imperial issues at stake. He, Churchill, should 'put all his weight on the side of toning down any reflections which may have been made.' [14] In other words, it had to be a whitewash. The warning was heeded. The following year, Pickford was raised to the peerage as Baron Sterndale. It was ever thus for those who served the Secret Elite.

The truth about Gallipoli was buried and pliant historians have ensured that it stayed that way for nearly a century.

Surely a whitewash was impossible given that the Dardanelles Commission included Andrew Fisher, former Australian Prime Minister and then High Commissioner in London? But he too had bought into the big lie and made no attempt to question or refute its conclusions.

© firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
Anzac Day Commemorative Parade.

    
According to historian Les Carlyon, the Australian government did not welcome an inquiry into the disaster because 'the Anzac legend had taken hold and Australia didn't want officialdom spoiling the poetry.' [15] The 'poetry', the 'heroic-romantic' myth, was created in the first instance by writers such as Charles Bean, Henry Nevison and John Masefield who glorified the Anzac sacrifice within the myth of Gallipoli. [16] Masefield's effusive cover-up stated, 'I began to consider the Dardanelles Campaign, not as a tragedy, nor a mistake, but as a great human effort, which came more than once, very near to triumph ...That the effort failed is not against it; much that is most splendid in military history failed, many great things and noble men have failed. ...This failure is the second grand event of the war; the first was Belgium's answer to the German ultimatum.' [17] Of Suvla Bay, where thousands died from thirst and dehydration, Masefield made the astonishing assertion: 'The water supply of that far battlefield, indifferent as it was, at the best, was a triumph of resolve and skill unequalled yet in war.' [18]

This British apologist and purveyor of nauseating historical misrepresentation was rewarded with gushing praise from Lord Esher, member of the Secret Elite's inner-core, together with a Doctorate of Literature by Oxford University, the Order of Merit by King George V and the prestigious post of Poet Laureate.

The British, French and Anzac troops who perished at Gallipoli are portrayed by mainstream historians as heroes who died fighting to protect democracy and freedom, not as ordinary young men duped by a great lie. Barely mentioned are the quarter million dead or maimed Ottoman soldiers who defended Gallipoli and the sovereignty and freedom of their homeland against aggressive, foreign invaders. The myths and lies that saturate the Gallipoli campaign are particularly prevalent in the Antipodes. 'No-one could pass through the Australian education system without becoming aware of Gallipoli, but few students realise that the Anzacs were the invaders. Even after all these years, the Anzac legend, like all legends, is highly selective in what it presents as history.' [19] And it is a well preserved and repeatedly inaccurate account that is force-fed to these impressionable youngsters.

© firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
Turkish Memorial at Lone Pine erected after the Allied withdrawal in December 1915.

    
Commemoration should respectfully educate people about what really happened at Gallipoli, but strategic analyst and former Australian Defence Force officer James Brown writes angrily about a cycle of jingoistic commemoration rather than quiet contemplation, with individuals, groups and organisations cashing in on Anzac Day. 'A century after the war to end all wars, Anzac is being bottled, stamped and sold. ...the Anzac industry has gone into hyperdrive. ...What started as a simple ceremony is now an enormous commercial enterprise. ...Australians are racing to outdo one another with bigger, better, grander and more intricate forms of remembrance.' Even the Australian War Memorial has devised an official "Anzac Centenary Merchandising Plan" to capitalise on "the spirit."' [20] The myth has been rebranded to mask the pain of the awful reality of Gallipoli. The emaciated, dehydrated victims have been turned into the bronzed heroes of Greek mythology.

A number of Australian historians remain deeply concerned about the relentless militarisation of Australian history, and how the commemoration of Gallipoli has been conflated with a mythology of white Australia's creation and the 'manly character' of its citizens. That mythology is submerging the terrible truth about why so many were sacrificed and has become so powerful and pervasive that to challenge it risks the charge of inexcusable disrespect for the dead. 'To be accused of being "anti-Anzac" in Australia today is to be charged with the most grievous offence.' [21] A few brave historians have dared to voice their deep disquiet.

Professors Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds believe that Australian history has been 'thoroughly militarised', and their aim is 'to encourage a more critical and truthful public debate about the uses of the Anzac myth.' Dissent, they say, is rarely tolerated and 'to write about what's wrong with Anzac today is to court the charge of treason.' Anzac Day has 'long since ceased to be a day of solemn remembrance and become a festive event, celebrated by backpackers wrapped in flags, playing rock music, drinking beer and proclaiming their national identity on the distant shores of Turkey.' [22] Their forefathers were duped into volunteering a century before at a cost they never foresaw. It is clear that many of those young Australians who travel en-masse to the shores of Gallipoli every April have also been duped. Should there not be a moral outrage against these obscene celebrations; a moral outrage that these young people have been so misled by the Gallipoli myth that the irony of guzzling beer on the shores where their forefathers died from thirst and dehydration is lost on them.?

© firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
Anzac Day 1916.

    
Professor Lake revealed that after a radio broadcast, she was subjected to personal abuse and accusations of disloyalty. Harvey Broadbent, another Australian historian who questions the myth, has also been subject to similar comments by some fellow Gallipoli historians that 'has come uncomfortably close to abuse.' Like us, Broadbent proposes that 'it was the intention of the British and French governments of 1915 to ensure that the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Campaign would not succeed and that it was conceived and conducted as a ruse to keep the Russians in the war and thus the continuation of the Eastern Front.' [23] Exactly. Their aim was to keep Russia in the war but out of Constantinople. And they succeeded, but at a terrible cost.

The heroic-romantic myth, so integral to the cult of remembrance, has survived, perpetuated by compliant historians and politicians. As James Brown has written, Gallipoli and the Anzac sacrifice, is like a magic cloak which 'can be draped over a speech or policy to render it unimpeachable, significant and enduring.' [24] Norman Mailer pointed out that 'Myths are tonic to a nation's heart. Once abused, however, they are poisonous.'

© firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, 1915.

    
Gallipoli was a lie within the lie that was the First World War, and peddling commemoration mythology as truth is an insult to the memory of those brave young men who were sacrificed on the merciless shores of a foreign country. The Australian government is outspending Britain on commemoration of the First World War by more than 200 per cent, and commemorating the Anzac centenary might cost as much as two-thirds of a billion dollars. Just as in Britain, the Government of Australia seeks to be the the guardian of public memory, choreographing commemoration into celebration. [25] Nothing attracts politicians more than being photographed, wrapped in the national flag, outbidding each other in their public display of patriotism.

These hypocrites ritually condemn war while their rhetoric gestures in the opposite direction. [26] The War Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park proudly exhorts, 'Let Silent Contemplation Be Your Offering', yet the deafening prattle of political expediency mocks the valiant dead with empty words and lies. Don't be fooled.

Those young men died at Gallipoli not for 'freedom' or 'civilisation', but for the imperial dreams of the wealthy manipulators who controlled the British Empire. They died horribly, deceived, expendable, and in the eyes of the power-brokers, the detritus of strategic necessity.

Please remember that when you remember them.

References:
[1] Milner Papers, Bonar Law to Milner, 25 July 1916.

[2] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, pp. 350-1.

[3] Roger Owen, Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul, pp 388-9.

[4] Jenny Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, p. 27.

[5] see previous blog; The Bryce Report...Whatever Happened To the Evidence? 10 September 2014.

[6] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 313.

[7] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, p.294.

[8] Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, pp. 28-9.

[9] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, p. 248.

[10] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 40.

[11] Martin Gilbert, Winston S Churchill, p. 347.

[12] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli p. 646.

[13] Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, p. 33.

[14] Ibid.

[15] L A Carlyon, Gallipoli, pp. 645-7.

[16] Macleod, Reconsidering Gallipoli, p. 4.

[17] John Masefield, Gallipoli p.2.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Kevin Fewster, Vecihi Bagram, Hatice Bagram, Gallipoli, The Turkish Story, pp. 10-11.

[20] James Brown, Anzac's long Shadow, The Cost of Our National Obsession, pp. 17-20.

[21] Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, What's Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History, p. xxi.

[22] Ibid., pp. vii-viii.

[23] Harvey Broadbent, Gallipoli, One Great Deception? http://ab.co/1DOrtoO

[24] James Brown, Anzac's Long Shadow, p 29.

[25] Ibid., pp. 19-22.

[26] Lake and Reynolds, What's Wrong With Anzac?, p. 8.

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Being a US vassal state is expensive: France to pay €1.1 bn to Russia for cancelled Mistral ships

© Reuters / Stephane Mahe

    
France plans to pay back costs for the Mistral helicopter carriers ordered by Russia if they are not delivered, returning €800 million and paying compensation for other expenses totaling €300 million, French media reports citing government sources.

Paris is expected to fund the compensation from €2 billion that Poland will pay to buy French helicopters, according to .

The decision on compensating Russian costs for the Mistral ships hasn't yet been legally formalized; however France and Russia will take another month to set the exact terms of the annulment of the contract for the Mistral war ships.

In addition, Russia will give France the right to resell the two helicopter carriers, the newspaper says adding that some NATO countries have already shown interest in buying them.

Earlier this week French President Francois Hollande agreed that the funds should be returned to Russia if it doesn't receive the ships. However, he added that currently it's impossible to deliver them to Russia because of the situation in Ukraine.

The contract for the delivery of the Mistral helicopter carriers was signed between the French company DCNS/STX and Russia's arms distributor Rosoboronexport in 2011.

France was expected to handover the first ship in November 2014, but the delivery has been postponed indefinitely partly due to pressure on France by the US and the EU, which imposed a series of sanctions against Moscow over its accession of Crimea and alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.

The Anti-surveillance state: Clothes and gadgets that make you (digitally) invisible

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Last spring, designer Adam Harvey hosted a session on hair and makeup techniques for attendees of the 2015 FutureEverything Festival in Manchester, England. Rather than sharing innovative ways to bring out the audience's eyes, Harvey's CV Dazzle Anon introduced a series of styling methods designed with almost the exact opposite aim of traditional beauty tricks: to turn your face into an anti-face - one that cameras, particularly those of the surveillance variety, will not only fail to love, but fail to recognize.

Harvey is one of a growing number of privacy-focused designers and developers "exploring new opportunities that are the result of [heightened] surveillance," and working to establish lines of defense against it. He's spent the past several years experimenting with strategies for putting control over people's privacy back in their own hands, in their pockets and on their faces.

Harvey's goal of "creating a style that [is] functional and aesthetic" has driven several projects and collaborations, including a method for "spoofing" DNA, and via the Privacy Gift Shop, his drone-thwarting Stealth Wear line (clothing he claims "shields against thermal imaging...[which is] used widely by military drones to target people," seen below) and the OFF Pocket phone sleeve, able to keep out unwanted wireless signals.

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His CV Dazzle designs for hair and makeup obscure the eyes, bridge of the nose and shape of the head, as well as creating skin tone contrasts and asymmetries. Facial-recognition algorithms function by identifying the layout of facial features and supplying missing info based on assumed facial symmetry. The project demonstrates that a styled "anti-face" can both conceal a person's identity from facial recognition software (be it the FBI's or Facebook's) and cause the software to doubt the presence of a human face, period.
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Harvey's work is focused on accessibility in addition to privacy. "Most of the projects I've worked on are analog solutions to digital challenges," he said. His hair and makeup style tips - a veritable how-to guide for how to create "privacy reclaiming" looks at home - are "deliberately low-cost." His current project - software to "automatically generate camouflage...that can be applied to faces" - will allow a user to "create [their] own look and guide the design towards [their] personal style preferences."

Other low-tech protections against widespread surveillance have been gaining ground, too. Though initially designed as a tongue-in-cheek solution to prying eyes and cameras, Becky Stern's Laptop Compubody Sock offers a portable, peek-free zone to laptop users, while the CHBL Jammer Coat and sold-out Phonekerchief use metal-infused fabrics to make personal gadgets unreachable, blocking texts, calls and radio waves. For people willing to sport a bit more hardware in the name of privacy, the Sentient City Survival Kit offers underwear that notifies wearers about real-life phishing and tracking attempts, and its LED umbrella lets users "flirt with object tracking algorithms used in advanced surveillance systems" and even "train these systems to recognize nonhuman shapes."

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Large companies are also getting in on the pushback against increasing surveillance. Earlier this year, antivirus software leaders AVG revealed a pair of invisibility glasses developed by its Innovation Labs division. The casual looking specs use embedded infrared lights "to create noise around the nose and eyes" and retro-reflective frame coating to interfere with camera flashes, "allowing [the wearer] to avoid facial recognition." In early 2013, Japan's National Institute of Informatics revealed a bulky pair of goggles it had developed for the same purpose.

A spokesperson for Innovation Labs claims its glasses represent "an important step in the prevention against mass surveillance...whether through the cell phone camera of a passerby, a CCTV camera in a bar, or a drone flying over your head in the street." Innovation Labs says that, with a person's picture, facial recognition software "coupled with data from social networking sites can provide instant access to the private information of complete strangers. This can pose a serious threat to our privacy." Though AVG's glasses are not scheduled for commercial release, Innovation Labs said that individuals can take a number of steps to prevent their images from being "harvested":

"First and foremost, make sure you're not allowing private corporations to create biometrics profiles about you. When using social networks like Facebook, be aware that they are using facial recognition to give you tag suggestions. Facebook's DeepFace was already tested and trained on the largest facial dataset to-date (an identity labeled dataset of more than 4 million facial images belonging to thousands of identities)."

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Holmes Wilson of nonprofit Fight for the Future, which works to defend online privacy and freedoms on various fronts, is more concerned with other types of privacy invasion than real-life image harvesting. "It's pretty unlikely in most of the world that you'll get followed around using a network of street cameras with face recognition," he said. "It's probably pretty likely, though, that you'll get filmed by police at a protest. But [there's] not much you can do about that other than wearing a mask."

Wilson advises people concerned about privacy breaches through surveillance to first focus on the ways in which their gadgets are supplying info to third parties. "The place where it's easiest to fight back against surveillance is in protecting the security of your messages," he said, adding that message security "can be a problem for activists, too." He said apps like Textsecure, Signal, and Redphone can make it "a lot harder for people to spy on you." Wilson added:

"Phones are the biggest thing. Lots of people think of smartphones as the big privacy problem, but old-fashioned phones are just as bad, and worse in some ways. All cellphones report on your location to the network as you move around. That's just how they work, and they need to send that information or the system won't know where to send your call. There's no way to turn that off, other than by turning off the phone and, for good measure, taking the battery out."

In collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future recommends a variety of options for encrypting messages, password-protecting accounts and securing a user's various communication and browsing activities via Reset the Net. Wilson encouraged those with specific privacy concerns to check out tutorials, resources and break-downs of privacy issues from Surveillance Self-Defense.

Last year, Facebook announced that its DeepFace facial recognition technology can detect a person's identity from photos with 97.25 percent accuracy, only a hair below the 97.5 percent success rate for humans taking the same test. Currently, a congressional front is preparing to extend surveillance powers granted to legal bodies by Section 215 of the Patriot Act - the NSA's legal foothold of choice with regard to mass collection of US phone records since 2006, and set to expire on June 1 - with the light-on-reform USA Freedom Act.

It seems likely that a growing number of both tech-wary and tech-savvy people will continue weighing how best to ensure their personal privacy, whether by putting stark makeup on or by turning their phones off.

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