The Asian reporter., January 02, 2017, Page Page 7, Image 7

U.S.A.
January 2, 2017
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
At Pearl Harbor, U.S. and Japan
seek absolution from the war
By Josh Lederman and Caleb Jones
The Associated Press
EARL HARBOR, Hawai‘i —
In a historic pilgrimage, the
leaders of Japan and the
United States took to the hallowed
waters of Pearl Harbor to prove that
even the bitterest enemies can
become allies. Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe did not apologize, but conceded
Japan “must never repeat the horrors
of war again.”
Seventy-five years after Japan’s
surprise attack sent America
marching into World War II, Abe and
President Barack Obama peered
down at the rusting wreckage of the
USS Arizona, clearly visible in the
tranquil, teal water. More than 1,000
U.S. war dead remain entombed in
the submerged ship, and in a show of
respect, Obama and Abe dropped
purple petals into the water and stood
in silence.
“As the prime minister of Japan, I
offer my sincere and everlasting
condolences to the souls of those who
lost their lives here, as well as to the
spirits of all the brave men and
women whose lives were taken by a
war that commenced in this very
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PAYING RESPECTS. U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe bow their heads while participating in a wreath laying ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial,
part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam,
Hawai‘i, on December 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
place,” Abe said later at nearby Joint added, “War is war.”
“They were doing what they were
Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
That was the closest Abe would get supposed to do, and we were doing
to an apology for the attack. And it what we were supposed to do,”
was enough for Obama, who also Rodrigues said before the visit.
declined to apologize seven months
Abe, who became Japan’s first
ago when he became America’s first leader to visit Pearl Harbor with a
sitting president to visit Hiroshima, U.S. president, said the visit “brought
where the U.S. dropped an atomic utter silence to me.” His remarks
bomb in a bid to end the war.
capped a day that was carefully
It was enough, too, for Alfred choreographed by the U.S. and Japan
Rodrigues, a U.S. Navy veteran who to show a strong and growing alliance
survived the attack. The 96-year-old between former foes.
said he had no hard feelings and
Continued on page 8
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Registry for some immigrant men, mostly Muslims, scrapped
By Alicia A. Caldwell
The Associated Press
ASHINGTON
—
The
Obama
administration
officially scrapped the last
vestiges of a U.S. registration system
for Muslim immigrants in December.
If President-elect Donald Trump now
wants to introduce an expanded
version of the program, he will have
to start from scratch.
The post-9/11 registration program
for immigrant men arriving mainly
from the Islamic world hasn’t been
enforced since 2011. Although it
never prohibited travel for men and
boys from the more than 20 affected
countries, including Syria, Iraq, and
Afghanistan, Trump’s suggestions
about banning Muslim immigrants
entering the United States have led
to fears that it could be reinstated and
used for new and enhanced purposes.
The decision to erase it from the
books entirely marks one of President
Barack Obama’s last administrative
actions on immigration and will at
least slow any Trump effort to intro-
duce even tougher requirements, as
has been suggested by a top adviser.
The registration program is “not
only obsolete,” said Neema Hakim,
spokesman for the Homeland Securi-
ty Department, “its use would divert
limited personnel and resources from
more effective measures.”
W
The registration system started
about a year after the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks, requiring men
and boys from a variety of mostly
Middle Eastern countries to register
with the federal government upon
their arrival in the United States.
Such people already in the country
had to register with immigration
authorities inside the U.S.
Registration, which also applied to
immigrants from North Korea, in-
cluded fingerprints and photographs.
People also were required to notify
the government if they changed
addresses.
Trump has never publicly spoken
about the program, but has made
clear his desire to take a far tougher
approach toward immigration than
Obama.
He and his advisers have suggested
the rising terror threat in the United
States, Europe, and elsewhere is
linked to insufficiently vetted refu-
gees and immigrants arriving from
predominantly Muslim countries.
After a truck attack killed 12 in a
Christmas market in Berlin, Trump
told reporters, “You know my plans.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris
Kobach, a Trump confidant on
immigration, has been more explicit
on his plans for the registry. In
November, he said he wanted to
launch an updated system for all
foreigners from “high-risk” areas.
Meeting Trump in Bedminster,
N.J., Kobach carried a document
labelled “Department of Homeland
Security Kobach Strategic Plan for
First 365 Days.” It described a reboot
of the National Security Entry-Exit
Registration System (NSEERS) as
the top priority. Kobach helped draft
the program while working at the
Justice Department under President
George W. Bush.
If Trump opts to restart NSEERS
and create a new program, he will
have to start from scratch with a
process that includes notifying the
public about his plans. That could
delay a new effort by months.
The program had been widely
derided by civil libertarians as an
effort to profile people based on race
and religion.
“With this action, the U.S. is on the
right path to protect Muslim and
Arab immigrants from discrimina-
tion,” said Joanne Lin, the senior
legislative counsel at the American
Civil Liberties Union, which said the
registry “didn’t yield a single terror-
ism conviction in nearly a decade.”
When the Obama administration
abandoned the system in April 2011,
it said a newer data collection pro-
gram would be sufficient to collect
biometric information for all foreign-
ers coming into the country. At the
time, more than 80,000 foreigners
were registered.
New York antiquities dealer charged with selling stolen artifacts
NEW YORK (AP) — A prominent New York antiquities
dealer has been accused of selling stolen artifacts from
international smugglers by creating sham documents to
hide their history in a scheme that prosecutors said dates
back to 1999.
Nancy Wiener was arrested on charges of criminal
possession of stolen property and conspiracy, according to
the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Prosecutors said
she and several co-conspirators have been trafficking in
illegal antiquities since at least 1999.
“(The) defendant used a laundering process that
included restoration services to hide damage from illegal
excavations, straw purchases at auction houses to create
sham ownership histories, and the creation of false prove-
nance to predate international laws of patrimony prohib-
iting the exportation of looted antiquities,” according to
the complaint filed in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Her lawyer, Georges Lederman, told The New York
Times his client “surrendered voluntarily.” ‘‘We are
examining the charges and will respond at the
appropriate time,” Lederman added.
Wiener and her mother, who died in 2011, have been
well-known dealers of Indian and Southeast Asian art in
New York for decades. Some of their top clients have been
Jacqueline Kennedy, John D. Rockefeller III, and Igor
Stravinsky.
When Wiener’s mother died, prosecutors said she
inherited hundreds of illicit items at their gallery and
arranged inaccurate ownership histories. She consigned
360 lots to Christie’s, which auctioned them off for $12.8
million.
In another example, prosecutors said Wiener purchased
a stolen bronze Buddha from Southeast Asia and had a
restorer erase shovel marks and other signs of looting
before displaying it in her gallery, where authorities
seized it during a raid in March.
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5
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Difficulty
EASY
4
level: Easy
#58452
# 22
Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1
through 9 appear one time each in every row, col-
umn, and 3x3 box.
Solution to
last issue’s
puzzle
Puzzle #92453 (Hard)
All solutions available at
<www.sudoku.com>.
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