HONOLULU: A small paper crane folded by a 12-year-old girl who died of leukemia after the US dropped an atom bomb on her hometown of Hiroshima will go on display in Pearl Harbor, where the 1941 Japanese attack launched the two nations into war.
Sadako Sasaki’s family donated the origami crane to promote peace and overcome the tragedies of the past.
“We have both been wounded and have suffered painfully. We don’t want the children of the future to go through the same experience,” said Yuji Sasaki, the girl’s nephew, by telephone from Hiroshima.
Starting Saturday, the crane will be part of an exhibit at the visitors’ center at Pearl Harbor near the USS Arizona battleship that sank during the Dec. 7 bombing.
The tiny crane — it’s about the size of a pinky fingernail — will occupy a small corner of one of two exhibit halls at the center, which is operated by the National Park Service.
Sadako Sasaki folded between 1,000 and 2,000 of the cranes while battling leukemia in 1955 (her family never counted exactly how many) after hearing an old Japanese story that those who fold a thousand cranes are granted one wish.
The 6th grader’s wish was to get better, but she died less than three months after she started the project.
Her story has since become well-known around the world, and origami cranes have become a symbol of peace.
The family has also given one crane to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, next to Ground Zero in New York, and to the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
Yuji Sasaki said his family wanted one crane to go to Pearl Harbor because he feels there’s still a gulf between some Americans and Japanese when it comes to how the war between their two countries began and how it ended.
For example, he said, when people from Hiroshima and Nagasaki say, “No more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki” to protest the use of nuclear weapons, he hears Americans reply with the phrase “Remember Pearl Harbor.”
The first time he witnessed an exchange like this in person, he said he thought: “I’m not going to get people to talk about the future this way.”
He hopes the crane will create opportunities for atom bomb and Pearl Harbor survivors to interact and think about each other’s perspectives.
“If we are going to pave the way to peace for the children of the future, we can’t pass on the grudges of the past,” said Yuji Sasaki, who helps run Sadako Legacy, a nonprofit organization promoting peace and his aunt’s story.
Lauren Bruner, who was a 21-year-old sailor on the Arizona on Dec. 7, welcomed the gift.
“There’s always somebody that will never forgive or forget, but I think it’s a nice gesture,” said Bruner, who suffered burns over 70 percent of his body and lost his best friend in the bombing.
Now 92, Bruner plans to speak at a ceremony opening the new crane exhibit on Saturday.
Hiroshima girl’s paper crane comes to Pearl Harbor
Hiroshima girl’s paper crane comes to Pearl Harbor
Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users
WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
“The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
