8 December 2004

Kiwi D-day veterans honoured in French pictorial

Veterans: 1944-2004 – Photographs and Conversations with D-Day veterans by Régis Colin is a moving exhibition displaying 24 black and white portrait photographs of New Zealand World War 2 veterans who participated in D-Day, 6 June 1944.

To mark the exhibition opening Auckland Museum is hosting a ceremony to honour the veterans of the historic battle that reshaped the closing stages of the war. At 10.30am on Friday 10 December in the Pictorial Gallery, Jean-Michel Marlaud, French Ambassador to New Zealand will symbolically present the French Military Cross to Anne Raven, daughter of John Raven who sadly died a fortnight ago. He was posted to Borneo after the war and his medal was sent to him in the post.

Most of the surviving veterans will be attending along with their families. This will be one of the last remaining chances for these veterans to gather on mass. Allison Blanley, a paratrooper and medic of the 82nd Airborne agrees. “…It’s a good thing you have come to meet us now because, as you probably know, a lot of us have already taken the last jump, the one for which a parachute is no longer of any use!...”

The exhibition Veterans is on display in the Pictorial Gallery from 10 December until 9 January.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>