TOKYO, Apr 9:  Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two this year, offered flowers and prayers today at a memorial to those who died in a fierce fighting on the Pacific isle of Peleliu.    About 10,000 Japanese defenders, fighting in the name of Akihito’s father, Emperor Hirohito, died in a two-month battle in 1944 on Palau’s tiny Peleliu island along with about 1,600 American troops. Unaware Japan had surrendered on August 15, 1945, 34 Japanese soldiers hid in the jungle until April 1947.    With the blue ocean sparkling in the background, Akihito, wearing an open-necked white shirt, and Michiko, clad in an ivory suit with a grey lapel, bowed deeply before laying bouquets of white chrysanthemums at a memorial erected by Japan’s government to those who died in the region in the war.The ceremony was shown live on public broadcaster NHK.    The imperial couple then spoke to Japanese veterans and soldiers’ relatives who travelled to the island for the event.    They were scheduled to offer silent prayers at a separate memorial for US soldiers who died on the island.”During World War Two … fierce battles between the United States and Japan took place in this region, including the present Republic of Palau, resulting in the loss of countless lives,” Akihito said at a banquet yesterday. “We are here in Palau to mourn and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in World War Two and reflect on the hardships suffered by the bereaved families.”Akihito, 81, has often urged Japan not to forget the suffering of the war, comments that have attracted fresh attention at a time when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears to be pushing for a less apologetic tone towards Japan’s past.    Besides mourning war dead at home, Akihito has sought to help reconcile with former enemies. In 1992, he became the first reigning Japanese monarch to visit China, where wartime memories still rankle. Akihito had long wanted to visit Peleliu but had been unable do so because of obstacles to travelling there. Instead, they marked the 60th anniversary of the war’s end with a trip to the US territory of Saipan, site of a bloody battle in 1944.The imperial couple spent last night on a Japanese Coast Guard patrol ship and flew to Peleliu by helicopter. They are scheduled to return to Japan later today. (AGENCIES)

TOKYO, Apr 9: The emperor of Japan visited a remote Pacific island today to pray for thousands of Japanese and American soldiers who died during the World War II battle of Pelelilu.
Emperor Akihito and his wife Empress Michiko laid bouquets of white flowers in front of a memorial for Japanese victims after arriving by helicopter on Pelelilu island in the western Pacific nation of Palau. They later prayed at a separate memorial for Americans.
“Our thoughts go out to all those who went to the battlefields to defend their countries, never to return home,” Akihito said in a statement before his flight to Palau on Wednesday. “We must never forget that those beautiful islands in the Pacific Ocean have such a tragic history.”
Akihito, who is 81, was 11 years old at the end of the war. His father, Hirohito, was emperor at the time.
Peleliu is one of several islands where Japanese soldiers fought to the death during the final year of the war. The three-month battle of Peleliu, which started in September 1944, left about 10,000 Japanese and 1,700 Americans dead. One Japanese survivor, 95-year-old Kiyokazu Tsuchida, travelled to the island for the imperial visit.
“Of the 34 survivors, sadly I’m the only one who made it back here,” he said Wednesday in an interview from the island with Japanese broadcaster NHK. After a moment of silence before the memorial, he added: “My perished fellow soldiers must be all delighted to see the emperor.”
The visit by the emperor highlights the slow-moving search for the remains of missing Japanese soldiers.
Only half of the 2.4 million Japanese who died overseas have been recovered. Of those, about 300,000 are believed to be lost at sea and unrecoverable.
Officials cite a lack of documentation and geographical and political reasons for the delay. In recent years, veterans groups and relatives of the dead have pressured the government to do more, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promised stepped-up efforts.
In Palau, half of the estimated 16,200 war-dead are still unaccounted for more than 60 years after the search began in 1953, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Six sets of remains were excavated during the latest search last month.
Palau, which lies about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the Philippines, was ruled by Japan for about 30 years after World War I. (AGENCIES)

CAIRO, Apr 9:   Egypt’s public prosecutor referred a further 379 alleged members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood to court  over sit-ins in August 2013 that were broken up by security forces who killed hundreds of protesters.The 379 are accused of causing the deaths of two policemen at al-Nahda Square in Giza, one of two sites where supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi gathered in the weeks following his overthrow by the military. They face charges including murder and vandalism.The government accuses the Brotherhood of fomenting an Islamist insurgency since Mursi’s removal. Militant attacks have killed hundreds of Egyptians, mostly soldiers and police.Security forces have killed hundreds and detained thousands of members of the group, which says it is committed to political change through peaceful means only.Prosecutor Hisham Barakat said in a statement that two police officers had also been referred to court, accused of torturing a lawyer to death at a Cairo police station last month.Prosecutions against members of the security forces are rare in Egypt where the police have reasserted powers eroded since the 2011 popular uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak.  Critics say the police now act with impunity, an accusation the Interior Ministry denies.Four policemen were charged last month in separate cases involving the deaths of a female protester and a suspected Brotherhood member.Foreign governments and rights groups have condemned the use of force to disperse demonstrations at Nahda and Rabaa squares, the bloodiest event in Egypt’s recent history.Cairo has defended its actions, saying it had given protesters the opportunity to leave peacefully and that armed elements within the Brotherhood initiated the violence.Barakat also ordered a former provincial governor to stand trial for violating a strict protest law that has landed many of the leaders of the 2011 uprising behind bars.Elsewhere, at least 11 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid near the border with Israel when a rocket-proplled grenade landed on their houses, security and medical sources said.The source of the attack was not immediately clear. Egypt’s government faces an Islamist insurgency based in that strategic region and growing discontent with what critics perceive as heavy handed security tactics.   (AGENCIES)
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WASHINGTON, Apr 9:  With the announcement that both the 65,000 and 20,000 H-1B visa caps for fiscal year 2016 have been reached, a top business body in the US has made a renewed call for Congress to fix the immigration system that keeps US companies from hiring the top world talent they need.
“Congress cannot claim it’s too hard to allow top world talent to contribute to America when other countries have figured out how to do it for their own economies,” said Business Roundtable (BRT), an association of CEOs of leading US companies which works to promote public policy and American economy.
“The problem is simply lack of action in Washington,” said Greg Brown, chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions, and Chair of the BRT Immigration Committee.
“How many more H-1B caps do we have to reach before policymakers fix the system?” Brown said.
The outdated H-1B visa system was one of the factors in a new BRT analysis that put the US ninth out of 10 advanced economies in terms of employment-based immigration policies, a media statement said.
“State of Immigration: How the United States Stacks Up in the Global Talent Competition” revealed that US employment-based immigration policies are “mostly unfavourable” to economic growth, while many of its competitor nations have adopted more favourable policies across the board.
In addition to insufficient H-1B visa numbers, the BRT report found other challenges for the US immigration system include low annual limits on employment-based green cards, high denial rates for intracompany transfers and a lack of visas for both immigrant entrepreneurs and year-round lower-skilled workers.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on April 1, started receiving H-1B petitions for the fiscal year 2016 beginning October 1, 2015.
It received more than the allocated quota of 65,000 H-IB visas in the first five days, and the successful applicants would be decided trough a draw of lots.
FWD.Us, comprising a diverse group of leading innovators, entrepreneurs, job creators, and business owners from the tech community, have launched a petition urging the Congress to fix broken immigration system in particular the H-1B system.
According to a Brookings research released this week, high-skilled foreign workers are concentrated in a small number of places.
Half of all approved H-1B petitions nationwide went to only nine metropolitan areas, and one-quarter went to just three: New York, Dallas, and San Jose—home of Silicon Valley.
New York, with over 29,000 approvals, had by far the highest number.
Dallas and San Jose had almost 20,000 and 16,000 approvals, respectively.
Durham in North Carolina ranks first among metro areas for the ratio of H-1B approvals to its total employed population.
The top 10 metro areas by this measure include large finance and technology hubs (eg. San Jose, Dallas, San Francisco, and Seattle), along with smaller metro areas that are home to large research-intensive universities (Durham, College Station, and Ann Arbor). (PTI)