Japan’s Nagasaki holds off inviting Israel to peace ceremony

By AFP
June 4, 2024

The sombre memorial at Nagasaki's Peace Park has in the past included ringing bells, a release of doves, and a prayer ceremony for the bombing victims - Copyright AFP Philip FONG

The Israeli ambassador to Japan has not yet been invited to Nagasaki’s annual peace ceremony, said city officials who instead sent the embassy a letter calling for a Gaza ceasefire.

The city in southern Japan this week invited dozens of countries and territories to the August 9 event on the anniversary of the US nuclear attack in 1945 that killed 74,000 people.

But “as for Israel, the situation is changing day by day… so we have put sending an invitation letter on hold,” mayor Shiro Suzuki told reporters on Monday.

Israel launched a blistering military offensive in Gaza nearly eight months ago, following an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on the country.

Worries that protests could disrupt the memorial for atomic bomb victims are partly behind the decision, said Suzuki.

“Given the critical humanitarian situation in Gaza, and public opinion in the international community, there are concerns about the risk of unexpected incidents during the ceremony,” which should be “safe and smooth”.

“As the Ukraine situation has not changed, we are not inviting Russia or Belarus” either, Suzuki added.

The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the death of 1,194 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

More than 36,470 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out, according to data provided by the health ministry of Hamas-run Gaza.

The Palestinian envoy has been invited to the ceremony in Nagasaki, local officials told AFP on Tuesday. Japanese media said that both sides are usually invited.

– Nagasaki, Hiroshima ceasefire push –


Nagasaki has instead sent a letter to the Israeli embassy in which “we call for an immediate ceasefire”, Suzuki said.

Its letter said that if city officials decide in the coming months that there is no problem in inviting Israel, “we will issue an invitation swiftly”, according to the mayor.

The Israeli embassy did not immediately issue a comment.

The sombre memorial at Nagasaki’s Peace Park has in the past included ringing bells, a release of doves, and a prayer ceremony for the bombing victims.

Hiroshima also holds a yearly ceremony in memory of the 140,000 people killed there after the United States dropped the first nuclear bomb on August 6, 1945.

The two strikes led to the end of World War II, and to this day Japan remains the only country to be hit by atomic weapons in wartime.

Hiroshima has invited Israel to this year’s ceremony, but in its letter called for a “ceasefire as soon as possible and resolution through dialogue”, a city official said.

According to local media, Hiroshima has never invited a Palestinian representative to its ceremony.

TikTok says cyberattack targeted big names including CNN

By AFP
June 4, 2024


TikTok says the number of accounts compromised in a recent cyberattack was 'very small' and it put defenses in place to thwart the tactic used by hackers - Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks

TikTok on Tuesday said it slammed the door on a cyberattack that targeted high-profile accounts including CNN.

The number of accounts compromised was “very small” and TikTok has beefed up defenses to thwart the method used by the hackers, according to a spokesperson.

“We have taken measures to stop this attack and prevent it from happening in the future,” the spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“We’re working directly with affected account owners to restore access, if needed.”

TikTok did not detail the exploit used by attackers, but media reports indicated it involved a direct messaging feature.

The attack on big brand and celebrity accounts by “malicious actors” was brought to TikTok’s attention by CNN, according to the spokesperson.

“We have been collaborating closely with CNN to restore account access and implement enhanced security measures to safeguard their account moving forward,” the spokesperson said.

News site Semafor was the first to report that CNN’s account was compromised last week, forcing the network to suspend its TikTok presence for several days.

Meta says generative AI deception held in check -- for now

San Francisco (AFP) – Social media giant Meta says its bid to thwart coordinated disinformation campaigns created through ever-improving generative AI is working, despite widespread concerns.


Issued on: 30/05/2024 - 

Meta says Russian operation called 'Doppelganger' has persisted in efforts to undermine support for Ukraine by using fake accounts on social media

 © Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP

Meta's latest study on "coordinated inauthentic behavior" on its platforms comes as fears mount that generative AI will be used to trick or confuse people in upcoming elections worldwide, notably in the United States.

"What we've seen so far is that our industry's existing defenses, including our focus on behavior rather than content in countering adversarial threats, already apply and appear to be effective," said David Agranovich, Meta's threat disruption policy director, in a press briefing Wednesday.

"We're not seeing generative AI being used in terribly sophisticated ways, but we know that these networks are going to keep evolving their tactics as this technology changes."

Facebook has been accused for years of being used as a powerful platform for election disinformation.

Russian operatives used Facebook and other US-based social media to stir political tensions in the 2016 election won by Donald Trump. The European Union is currently investigating Meta's Facebook and Instagram over alleged failure to counter disinformation ahead of June EU elections.

But experts now also fear an unprecedented deluge of disinformation from bad actors on Meta apps because of the ease of using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or the Dall-E image generator to make content on demand and in seconds.

Meta said it had seen "threat actors" put AI to work to create bogus photos, videos, and text, but no realistic imagery of politicians, according to the report.

Generative AI has been used to make profile pictures for false accounts in Meta's family of apps, and a deception network from China apparently used the technology to create posters for a fictitious pro-Sikh activist movement called Operation K, the report indicated.

Meanwhile, an Israel-based network posted what appeared to be AI-generated comments about Middle Eastern politics on Facebook pages of media organizations and public figures, Meta reported.

Comparing them to spam, Meta said those comments, some of which were on pages of US lawmakers, were criticized in responses posted by real users, who called them propaganda.

Meta attributed the campaign to a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm.

"This is an exciting space to watch," said Mike Dvilyanski, Meta's head of threat investigations. "So far, we haven't seen a disruptive use of generative AI tooling by adversaries."

The report also showed that efforts by a Russia-linked group called "Doppelganger" to use Meta apps to undermine support for Ukraine persisted but are being thwarted on the platform.

"Doppelganger has taken it to a new level over the last 20 months while remaining crude and largely ineffective in building authentic audiences on social media," according to Meta.

Meta also removed small clusters of inauthentic Facebook and Instagram accounts that originated in China and aimed at the Sikh community in Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, and other countries, the report showed.

Posts at those fake accounts called for pro-Sikh protests.

© 2024 AFP

AI could help with bereavement, but technology is fraught with risks, researcher says


Issued on: 04/06/2024 - 

Mourners can now speak to an AI version of the dead. But will that help with grief? Selina Sykes reports. FRANCE24's Monte Francis speaks to Tomasz Hollanek, Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge about the benefits, risks and future developments of AI clones.

11:09  Video by:Monte FRANCIS |Selina SYKES

OpenAI insiders blast lack of AI transparency


By AFP
June 4, 2024


The open letter criticizing AI transparency comes amid questions about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's corporate leadership - Copyright AFP/File Jason Redmond

A group of current and former employees from OpenAI on Tuesday issued an open letter warning that the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies were falling short of necessary transparency and accountability to meet the potential risks posed by the technology.

The letter raised serious concerns about AI safety risks “ranging from the further entrenchment of existing inequalities, to manipulation and misinformation, to the loss of control of autonomous AI systems potentially resulting in human extinction.”

The 16 signatories, which also included a staff member from Google DeepMind, warned that AI companies “have strong financial incentives to avoid effective oversight” and that self-regulation by the companies would not effectively change this.

“AI companies possess substantial non-public information about the capabilities and limitations of their systems, the adequacy of their protective measures, and the risk levels of different kinds of harm,” the letter said.

“However, they currently have only weak obligations to share some of this information with governments, and none with civil society. We do not think they can all be relied upon to share it voluntarily.”

That reality, the letter added, meant that employees inside the companies were the only ones who could notify the public, and the signatories called for broader whistleblower laws to protect them.

“Broad confidentiality agreements block us from voicing our concerns, except to the very companies that may be failing to address these issues,” the letter said.

The four current employees of OpenAI signed the letter anonymously because they feared retaliation from the company, The New York Times reported.

It was also signed by Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and Stuart Russell, who are often described as AI “godfathers” and have criticized the lack of preparation for AI’s dangers.

OpenAI in a statement pushed back at the criticism.

“We’re proud of our track record of providing the most capable and safest AI systems and believe in our scientific approach to addressing risk,” a statement said.

“We agree that rigorous debate is crucial given the significance of this technology and we’ll continue to engage with governments, civil society and other communities around the world.”

OpenAI also said it had “avenues for employees to express their concerns including an anonymous integrity hotline” and a newly formed Safety and Security Committee led by members of the board and executives, including CEO Sam Altman.

The criticism of OpenAI, which was first released to the Times, comes as questions are growing around Altman’s leadership of the company.

OpenAI has unveiled a wave of new products, though the company insists they will only get released to the public after thorough testing.

An unveiling of a human-like chatbot caused a controversy when Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson complained that it closely resembled her voice.

She had previously turned down an offer from Altman to work with the company.

Op-Ed: Deepfakes, dumb fakes, and just plain wrong fakes — AI screws up big time

By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 3, 2024


Elon Musk tweeted "Yikes. Def not me" about a deepfake video of him supposedly. 

— © AFP

This is very much a visual culture. You’re hit with tens of thousands of images per minute, real and fake. Ai is at the forefront of this bombardment. The plague of fake images, brought to you courtesy of the misinformation industry, is all AI.

This is also nothing like a smart culture. You’re allowed to be an idiot because it’s expected of you. As usual, the warnings arrived well before the fact, and were ignored. The legal situation is as blurry and unfocused as ever.

All of a sudden and as usual, everything everyone was warned about years ago is now a problem. Monotonous, isn’t it?

There’s a major quality issue with the deepfakes. Australian Associated Press has a very good, clear article about how wrong these AI fakes can be. It impacts everything about AI fake images, including their much-vaunted training methods.

These AI pictures are truly absurd. The Wright brothers are replaced with what looks like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. There’s no similarity at all with the real Wright brothers.

The point about AI training is simple. You’d think these lazy image-makers would have trained the AI to at least compare with the real images. Apparently, that’s too much trouble.

The market reach of fake AI images is pretty much universal. That’s not good news for anyone trying to promote anything, including themselves.

By a strange coincidence, this brings us back to who owns images of people? The people own their own images. They’re very much part of top-tier proof of identity, and that shouldn’t even be questioned as a legal ownership right.

…But who owns fake images if they’re given different names? As long as you’re not infringing on someone’s identity, it should be OK, right?

Not necessarily. The famous Taylor Swift deepfakes are a case in point. In this case, the images are close enough, and they do actual damage to the person.

Facial recognition is well-known as a core human must-have social skill. If it looks enough like Taylor Swift, you’re likely to think that it is Taylor Swift. Damage is automatically done by the publication of the images. Even if the sole instruction is “make an image of an attractive brunette” and the image is generated innocently, it’s still a potential problem.

To explain – AI is trained on large numbers of images. People who generate a lot of imagery are unavoidably included in the training materials. Something that looks like Taylor Swift is inevitable.

Add a bit of lowbrow nastiness and the desire to get money out of porn-obsessed morons, and you get porn attached to anyone’s face. Hard to understand? No, it isn’t.

There are forensic ways of managing this sort of thing. Think of it as a “forensic blockchain for images”. You can establish whether an image is too much like a person fairly easily. You could even cross-check a too-similar image before publication using AI. It really is an “image by numbers” thing, quite simple.

Meanwhile, back in Dumb Fakes Land, nobody’s thinking about things like this. Fake images are replacing influencers, photographers, and reality.

There are serious problems with deepfaking anything, including privacy violations, breach of commercial image copyright, and way too many et ceteras. If you deepfake a trademark or use it without accreditation, or go beyond “fair use”, you may have just published a million-dollar lawsuit or several.

Remember, these are unquestionably bona fide legitimate privacy and property issues. The publishers and the AI don’t have a toenail clipping to stand on, even in theory. All they can hope for is that the images don’t match too closely under scrutiny.

Dumb, it is. If anyone thinks people will miss an opportunity to make money out of a deepfake, they’re out of their minds. …Which sorta raises the question of why do deepfakes at all?

There is a market for this garbage. It’s new. It’s cute. It’s stunningly predictable. It’s quick. It’s cheap. It’s godawful, therefore it’s mainstream media. It’s lowest common denominator, therefore it’s good.

This is as dumb as getting AI to do your accounts. You are literally assuming that an automated system can tell the difference between fraud and real numbers. In this case, you’re assuming that people whose lives are based on their images won’t fight tooth and nail to protect those images.

AI deepfakes are also very much a major high-toxicity thing on social media. Nobody seems to be too fussed that hate campaigns are based on a lot of fake imagery and spin. The endlessly-remarked issue that X is now probably inhabited by as many bots as people doesn’t seem to matter much.

It’s commercial suicide, but what’s new? Bots don’t buy sponsors’ products, but that’s obviously OK with someone. Bots don’t get threatened round the clock, either. The odd but real picture is that non-existent people are now generating fake images at the expense of publishers.

We’re now at the black hole formation stage of fakes. These things can destroy their reason for existence already. We now have an artificially stupid technology which can put itself and its publishers out of business and create liabilities every second. Happy?

Microsoft to invest $3.2 bn in AI in Sweden


By AFP
June 3, 2024

Microsoft said it would train 250,000 people by 2027 to boost AI knowledge and competence and also increase capacity at its three data centres in Sweden. - Copyright AFP/File OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE

Microsoft said Monday that it would invest 33.7 billion kronor ($3.2 billion) over two years in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Sweden, its biggest investment in the country.

The group will train 250,000 people by 2027 to boost AI knowledge and competence and also increase capacity at its three data centres in the country, it said.

“Microsoft’s largest investment in our history in Sweden” would enable the Scandinavian country “to build world-leading AI data centre infrastructure,” the company’s president and vice chair Brad Smith said at a press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

“A big part of the reason we’re able to do this is because of Sweden’s forward-looking energy policy, the plentiful access to green energy, whether it’s carbon-free energy or renewable energy,” Smith said.

The US group has in recent months announced similar AI investments in other countries, including in France where it vowed to invest four billion euros ($4.3 billion), Japan where it announced a $2.9 billion AI push, and in Indonesia and Malaysia.

In Sweden, Microsoft will provide more than 20,000 graphic processing units (GPUs), needed for training AI models, and will boost capacity at its data centres in Sandviken, Gavle and Staffanstorp.

“AI is a catalyst for many things,” Kristersson said. “It will also help accelerate development in other areas. This huge investment in Sweden has the potential to pave the way for other investments.”

Data centres, which crunch and stock vast amounts of data, require large amounts of electricity and water, accounting for about two percent of global electricity consumption, according to a study by the HEC Montreal business school.

In 2020, Microsoft said it aimed to become “carbon negative” by 2030, but in 2023 its emissions rose by 30 percent, its data showed.

– ‘Rise in Russian deepfakes’ –

Asked about the risks and abuses associated with artificial intelligence, Smith said Microsoft was monitoring AI-generated deepfakes “very closely”.

“Our biggest concern, to be honest, is about the Russian government,” he said. “We’ve seen an increase in Russian activity using deepfakes.”

“This is the kind of danger for the future that we need to address and protect against, and that’s going to require more work.”

He said it would require governments to introduce new legislation, as well as new capabilities in the tech sector.

“Fundamentally, it requires the use of AI to defend against abuses that others are advancing with AI,” Smith said.

AI technology, which is expected to transform nearly every aspect of human life in the coming years, took a huge leap forward with the 2022 launch of the generative tool ChatGPT, which can create texts, images and audio files upon demand.

Laptop to desktop: Technology workers are drifting back to work


By Dr. Tim Sandle

DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 3, 2024


Image: © Tim Sandle

Work from home, back to the office, or a hybrid? For the UK technology sector, it appears there has been a resurgence of in-office workdays, with Monday to Wednesday emerging as the top choices for in-office workdays.

This tallies with a statement made by Elon Musk earlier in the year: “Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla”.

While Musk may not be taking an enlightened view when it comes to employment relations (and such dictatorial approaches would not be lawful in the UK), it further emphasises the technology sector trend.

The company Techspace has issued a report titled Scaleup Culture Report. The report offers insights into the current state of workplace culture within the UK tech industry.

In other related changes, the report finds that the number of companies adopting hybrid working models has reduced by one-third, with many transitioning to full-time office-based roles. People seem to prefer an average of three days in the office per week, a 30 per cent shift from last year.

One reason why people in the technology sector are keen to return to the office might relate to concerns with artificial intelligence. The report highlights 26 per cent of London technology employees expressing apprehensions about AI replacing roles, emphasising the need to balance innovation with addressing workforce anxieties.

Longer-term, many respondents believe returning to a five-day workweek is a good idea, driven by challenges in team productivity (35 per cent) and communication (33 per cent) when working from home.

For facilities that do not have permanent offices, there was a 79 per cent increase in respondents using flexible office space year over year. A considerable number of companies have shifted from longer-term leasehold agreements to more flexible contracts as a result of the pandemic. Full-time remote respondents who use coworking spaces for drop-in days are likely to influence this increase.

The report was conducted by Sapio Research and based on a survey of 2,000 tech employees.

Jonathan Bevan, CEO of Techspace, says in a statement provided to Digital Journal: “Much of the narrative over the last few years has concerned what employees think is best for them. Our 2023 report showed a very clear difference between the days employees chose to be in the office and the number of days they felt necessary for their team or company to work at its best.”

Bevan adds: “So, it’s interesting to witness employees choosing more in-person work this year and, in turn, effectively closing that gap. The report suggests this down to the need to collaborate, the social side of being with work colleagues and also an increasing recognition that new ideas come best through in person interaction.”

Show cancelled: Risks aplenty from Ticketmaster data breach


By Dr. Tim Sandle

DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 3, 2024

Hacking group ShinyHunters has claimed to have accessed the accounts of 560 million Ticketmaster customers - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP JOE RAEDLE

Ticketmaster has suffered from a data breach, conducted by ShinyHunters. This has impacted 560 million customers.

The U.S. entertainment giant said it had discovered “unauthorised activity” on 20 May, 2024 in a third-party cloud database that mostly contained Ticketmaster data.

Looking at the incident for Digital Journal is Andrew Costis, Chapter Lead of the Adversary Research Team at AttackIQ, and Nick Tausek, Lead Security Automation Architect at Swimlane.

Starting with Costis, the researcher looks at who was seemingly behind the incident: “ShinyHunters are well versed in the art of data breaches. They are known for gaining access via Microsoft Office 365, GitHub, obtaining access to valid accounts, as well as exploiting vulnerabilities.”

As to what might happen to the data, Costis continues: “It’s important to test for post-compromise techniques that are precursory to targeting critical business applications such as databases or other systems containing sensitive information. These are often the end goal of groups such as ShinyHunters, who aim to monetize on the stolen data from their targets.”

The second commentator, Tausek, looks at further indications of what might happen to the data.

Tausek begins by assessing what is at stake: “The trove of data allegedly accessed by ShinyHunters includes personally identifiable information such as names, emails, addresses and partial payment card details.”

As to what can happen to this rich trove of information: “Such information falling into malicious hands opens the floodgates to potential phishing schemes and identity fraud, posing a grave risk to affected individuals. It is imperative for Ticketmaster users to remain vigilant against any phishing and identity theft attempts.”

Drawing a parallel, Tausek recollects: “The recent legal action taken by the Justice Department, which filed a federal lawsuit last week accusing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation of illegally monopolizing the live entertainment industry, also mentions Ticketmaster’s history of cybersecurity incidents and breaches.”

The latest controversy over Ticketmaster’s dominance came when tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour went on pre-sale in 2022 – Copyright AFP DAVID GRAY

He elucidates: “This development is noteworthy, underscoring the inherent risk associated with industry consolidation. In concentrated and monopolized industries such as live entertainment with Ticketmaster, vulnerabilities to data breaches are heightened, amplifying the need for proactive security measures and response protocols.” In terms of some of the underlying issues that could make such attacks more commonplace, Tausek says: 2In this current era of frenzied corporate acquisitions, it is important to not only view monopolies as dangerous to consumers’ wallets, but also dangerous from a cybersecurity perspective. While antitrust legislation is nothing new, hopefully, this increased cyber risk will be taken into account in anti-monopoly actions taken by various governments around the world, both through prosecution of companies like Ticketmaster for holding illegal monopolies, and also through strengthening anti-trust legislation where appropriate.”

WWIII

Taiwan president vows to remember Tiananmen crackdown

By AFP
June 3, 2024

The Tiananmen crackdown killed hundreds or people, with some estimating the death toll was higher than a thousand - Copyright AFP Tommy Cheng

Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te said Tuesday that the memory of Beijing’s deadly crackdown at Tiananmen Square “will not disappear in the torrent of history”, in a post marking the event’s 35th anniversary.

Chinese troops and tanks forcibly dispersed peaceful protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, brutally quelling huge, weeks-long demonstrations demanding greater political freedoms.

Decades on, any mention in China of the protests is met with strict censorship.

Lai’s statement on Tiananmen comes weeks after his inauguration as president, and after China launched military drills around Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory to be seized one day.

“We will continue to work hard to keep this historical memory alive and touch everyone who cares about Chinese democracy,” Lai said in a Facebook post.

“Because this reminds us that democracy and freedom are not easy to come by, we must… respond to autocracy with freedom, face the expansion of authoritarianism with courage.”

Taiwan’s annual vigil is scheduled to take place at 6:40 pm (1040 GMT) at Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall.

Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party has long defended the sovereignty of Taiwan’s, which has its own government, military and currency.

In his Facebook post Tuesday, Lai said that “a truly respectable country is one where people speak out”.

“Any regime should face up to the voice of the people, especially the young generation, because social change often depends on diverse opinions,” he said.

“In the future, we will continue to unite all forces to deepen democracy in Taiwan, and work with like-minded countries to build a better world.”

– Tourists at Tiananmen –

The Tiananmen crackdown killed hundreds or people, with some estimating the death toll was higher than a thousand.

Beijing described the events of that night as riots, while those outside the country depict it as a massacre of innocent people, including many students.

Many young people today within China are unaware of the 1989 events due to the wide-reaching censorship.

Asked about the anniversary on Monday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the government “has long since reached a clear conclusion with regards to the political turmoil that occurred in the late 1980s”.

At the square in Beijing early Tuesday morning, tourist groups donning matching neon hats posed for pictures beside the mausoleum of China’s founding leader Mao Zedong.

Security presence was heavy, not unusual at the square, with police posted at every corner, some directing traffic while others observed passers-by through binoculars.

burs-dhc/rsc

Price of victory: How Allied D-Day bombs killed French civilians

Agence France-Presse
June 3, 2024 1

Fernand Mignon survived the Allied bombings hiding in a quarry with her family (Lou Benoist/AFP)

As the World War II victors celebrate the anniversary of the June 6, 1944, landings in Normandy, historians recall that 3,000 French civilians died under Allied bombs that day.

In an attempt to cut off German reinforcements rushing to the coast in response to the Allied invasion, American and British aircraft dropped bombs on main roads in several towns, including Caen, where the population believed -- in error as it turned out -- that it was safe to stay put during the raging battle on the coast.

"We saw bombs drop on Caen constantly," said Fernande Mignon, 93.

"My mother persuaded my father to let us seek shelter in the quarries," she told AFP at her home in Fleury-sur-Orne just outside Caen and close to where she grew up.

The move probably saved their lives.

Within 24 hours, 3,000 civilians had died in the firestorm unleashed by 1,500 bombers, including 700 in the town of Lisieux alone.

The number is comparable with the more than 4,600 Allied military personnel killed on D-Day, according to Commonwealth War Graves Commission figures.

Allied bombing missions reduced most town centers in lower Normandy to rubble.

After 10 weeks, the number of people who died in their homes in the area totalled 14,000.


- 'Bridgehead needed to hold' -

"If the landings were to succeed, the bridgehead needed to hold for 48 to 72 hours," said Emmanuel Thiebot, a historian and director of a memorial site dedicated to civilians in wartime.

"German reinforcements had to be slowed down for three days," he told AFP.

Main roads always ran through city centers at the time -- ring roads were to be introduced only after the war -- which put the hearts of towns and villages including Vire, Conde-sur-Noireau, Pont-L'Eveque, Flers and l'Aigle on the fire-bombing target list of the Allied command.

Residents often stepped outside their homes to watch the planes approach, assuming that they were simply flying overhead to destinations further inland, historians Francoise Passera and Jean Quellien said in a 2014 book.

But then, to the dismay of the civilians, the bomb bay doors opened over their heads and the explosives dropped.

"There was a massive tremor. We held each other, thinking that we were done for," the historians quoted a 15-year-old eyewitness as saying.

The teenage girl got away "by following mum's and dad's vague silhouettes in the blinding thick dust", she said.

People exited their homes with blood streaming down their faces.

Some were buried alive in the rubble, while others were decapitated by shell fragments.

- 'Not very efficient' -

With hindsight, the strategic wisdom of targeting city centres was actually debatable, said Thiebot.

"The tactic was not very efficient in military terms -- far from it -- because the Germans kept clear of the major roads," he said.

In fact, German reinforcements made it to the front line as early as the evening of June 6, with even more arriving the following day.

An earlier attempt by the Allies to get people to evacuate the area ahead of the assault came to little.

Pamphlets air-dropped three months before D-Day urging residents to leave "immediately" because the area "would come under attack very soon" were mostly ignored or lost in fields, unread.

Mignon ended up spending six weeks in the shelter of the quarry, sleeping on straw and living off "whatever we could find", while relentless bombing continued out in the open.

Eventually, on July 19, a Canadian arrived, telling them in Quebec-accented French that the fighting was over.

"Everybody exploded with joy," she said.

But the initial happiness quickly turned to consternation as the family discovered the destruction wrought on their neighborhood and everything around it.

At the family home, "the windows were broken, doors were unhinged and rain was falling into the house", she recalled.

It was to take "several years" before Mignon and her family managed to get back to a "normal life", she said.

France seeks to save Nazi massacre village from decay

Oradour-sur-Glane (France) (AFP) – A French village preserved as a reminder of Nazi cruelty since Waffen-SS troops murdered 643 people there in 1944 is in danger of decay, sparking efforts to preserve the site.


Issued on: 30/05/2024 - 

Decay is threatening what is left of Oradour-sur-Glane in southern France 

© Philippe LOPEZ / AFP
ADVERTISING

On June 10, 1944, Oradour-sur-Glane in German-occupied southern France became the scene of a massacre of civilians that still shocks the nation to this day.

Possibly as punishment for the killing by the French Resistance of a high-ranking SS member, German troops rounded up everyone they could find in the village and machine-gunned or burned alive men, women and children, torched or razed buildings and destroyed a church.

Postwar president Charles de Gaulle said the "martyr village" should never be rebuilt, but instead kept as a permanent reminder of the horrors of the Nazi occupation for postwar generations.

'Survivors are gone'

But 80 years later, village buildings are crumbling, roofs have disappeared and walls are covered in moss, prompting local politicians and descendants of villagers to call for a major conservation effort to keep the memory alive.

Charles de Gaulle said the village should not be rebuilt after the massacre © - / AFP

"All the survivors are gone, the only witnesses of the massacre are these stones," said Agathe Hebras, whose grandfather Robert was the last survivor of only six people to escape the SS murder spree. He died last year.

"I am deeply attached to these ruins, like many people here, we can't let them wither away," the 31-year-old told AFP. "We need to take care of them as best we can for as long as possible."

A new, eponymous town built nearby after the war is bustling, but the old ruins -- which are owned by the French state and a listed heritage site -- are eerily silent.
'Urgent action'

Some of the crumbling, blackened buildings carry signs like "Hairdresser", "Cafe", or "Ironmongery", reminding visitors that people went about their daily lives here until the murderous assault.

Scattered over 10 hectares are the odd rusty bicycle, sewing machine or shell of a period car.

"We need very, very urgent action," said Oradour-sur-Glane's mayor Philippe Lacroix. "As this setting disappears so will remembrance, little by little."

The Waffen-SS killed 643 people in Oradour-sur-Glane © - / AFP

Carine Villedieu Renaud, 47, the granddaughter of the only couple that survived the massacre, often walks across the ruins on her way to the new town, remembering her grandmother who lost her mother, her sisters and her four-year old daughter in the massacre.

"She would take me for walks among the ruins," she said. "We would pick flowers and she would tell me about her old life."

While the grandmother told her stories "without taboo", other survivors only felt able to speak about the massacre decades later, if at all.

Hebras said her grandfather, who lost two sisters and his mother in the killings, only began to talk about the events in the late 1980s.

"The first generation of children born in Oradour after the massacre, which includes my father, lived through a very hard time because their parents kept silent, believing that they needed to forget to keep on living," she said.
'Universal significance'

Since 1946, the government has allocated the equivalent of 200,000 euros ($216,000 at current rates) annually for maintenance, in addition to ad hoc spending, like the 480,000 euros allocated to the village church's restoration last year.

But much more is needed, said Laetitia Morellet, the regional deputy director for heritage and architecture.

"We don't want to bring back what was destroyed," she told AFP. "We want to preserve the state of destruction, because that is what helps people understand this war crime."

The local church was restored last year © Philippe LOPEZ / AFP

Some 19 million euros are needed, and an effort to source the money through donations and state financing is underway.

Oradour-sur-Glane could eventually gain "a certain universal significance" beyond the 1944 massacre and World War II, said Benoit Sadry, president of an association grouping the victims' families.

"What counts is to keep proof that in mass crimes committed during wars it is always the civilian population that pays the highest price," he said.

© 2024 AFP

Fortress Europe? The Nazi 'wall' that failed to prevent D-Day

Agence France-Presse
May 29, 2024 

A German fortification part of the WWII Atlantic Wall at Svolvaer in Norway (Olivier MORIN/AFP)

For the 80th D-Day landings anniversary, AFP travelled the coastlines from northern Norway to southern France to find out what became of the German-built Atlantic Wall defenses aimed at keeping the Allies at bay.

Fearing an Allied invasion of occupied Europe, Adolf Hitler ordered in 1942 the building of a 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) coastal defence system studded with bunkers, gun emplacements, tank traps and other obstacles.

AFP photojournalist Olivier Morin spent three weeks documenting the remnants of the supposedly impregnable fortifications, which were breached by the Allies on D-Day.

Here is a brief recap of the wall:

- 300,000 laborers -

More than 20 million cubic meters of concrete and 1.2 million tons of steel went into building thousands of fortifications linked by barbed wire along the Atlantic and North Sea shores, from France through Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark to Norway.

Over 300,000 workers of all nationalities worked on the French part alone, some of them prisoners press-ganged into labour but also hard-up people desperate for work, or German factory workers.

Entire communities were forced off their land to make way for Hitler's biggest defence project, which took over two years to build.

In the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, thousands of homes, seven schools, three churches and two hospitals were demolished in the name of defending "Fortress Europe".


- 'Hedgehogs' and 'asparagus' -

In 1944, with an Allied invasion appearing imminent, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was entrusted with boosting the defenses.

The Allies had managed to dupe the Nazis into thinking that they were planning a landing on France's north coast, near Calais, which meant they had left long stretches of the coast wide open for invasion, including what would become the Normandy landing beaches.

Rommel rushed to station more than 2,000 tanks, assault cannons and tank destroyers along the Normandy coastline, including "Czech hedgehogs" -- spiky steel anti-tank obstacles -- and wooden poles nicknamed "Rommel's Asparagus" used to try to prevent gliders and paratroops from landing.

Over five million mines were planted along the beaches. But it was too little, too late.

- Breached within hours -

The Atlantic Wall proved woefully inadequate in the face of the planning that went into the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944.

That evening, 156,000 Allied soldiers punched a hole in the defenses of 80,000 German soldiers.

The United States suffered heavy losses, especially on Omaha beach, where its soldiers found themselves trapped on the narrow strip beneath high cliffs of sand and stone.

Despite the challenges, the British, French, Americans and Canadians took just days to establish a beachhead in Normandy, which they used to land 800,000 troops and over 100,000 vehicles by the end of June.

Within 11 months, Germany had surrendered.

- Airbnb rentals -

Remnants of the Atlantic Wall remain scattered along the coast of Europe but many have been swallowed by the sand or sunk into the sea.

Some have been converted into museums, as at Batz-sur-Mer in France, Ostend in Belgium and Noordwijk in the Netherlands.

In the northern French city of Cherbourg, graffiti artists have transformed one bunker into a spaceship, while in the Brittany village of Saint-Pabu another has been renovated and turned into a Airbnb rental.

The Dutch government launched in 2014 an annual "Bunker Day" when the walls of the fortifications are thrown open to the public.