Category Archives: Transhuman News

An AirAsia counter staff attends to a customer at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang on Aug 28, 2016. (Reuters photo)

KUALA LUMPUR - AirAsia, the biggest budget carrier in Asia, is training thousands of its staff to fight human trafficking, becoming one of the first airlines in the continent to crack down on the global crime.

Companies have come under increased pressure to tackle human trafficking, with an estimated 46 million people living in slavery and profits thought to be about US$150 billion.

Planes are a key part of the illegal business, as criminal gangs transport thousands of children and vulnerable people by air each year for redeployment as sex workers, domestic helpers or in forced labour.

The United Nations has urged airlines to step in and look out for the tell-tale signs of trafficking.

Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia, which flies millions of passengers annually to more than 110 destinations, said it was planning to train between 5,000 and 10,000 frontline staff, including cabin crew.

"We like to be able to have our staff know what to do if somebody comes up to them and says 'I need help'," said Yap Mun Ching, the executive director of AirAsia Foundation, the airline's philanthropic arm, which is driving the initiative.

"Sometimes (the victims) don't know they have been trafficked. They realise it only when they are on their way and they want to be able to get help. Most of the time they don't know who to turn to," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

AirAsia has teamed up with US-based Airline Ambassadors International, a group that trains airline staff on trafficking, for the initiative, which kicked off this week at the airline's four main hubs - Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila.

All are hotspots for trafficking.

The group said signs of trafficking include young women or children who appeared to be under the control of others, show indications of mistreatment or who seem frightened, ashamed or nervous.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime urged airline bosses at a summit in June to train flight crews to help combat human trafficking, the first time the aviation industry has held global discussion on the issue.

While some training of airline staff to spot and report potential trafficking is mandatory in the United States, it is not widespread across the industry.

So far, more than 70,000 US airline staff have been trained under a programme that began in 2013.

Asia has some of the worst offenders of human trafficking.

Countries such as Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are listed by the United States on a trafficking watch list for not meeting the minimum standards needed to end the crime.

Get full Bangkok Post printed newspaper experience on your digital devices with Bangkok Post e-newspaper. Try it out, it's totally free for 7 days.

Read more here:
AirAsia trains crew to spot human traffickers - Bangkok Post

City officials got their first look at a detailed human rights ordinance Monday that supporters said will show Portage can be home to all kinds of residents.

The City Council's three-member ordinance committee John Cannon, R-4th, Sue Lynch, D-At large, and committee chair Pat Clem, D-2nd had plenty of questions and concerns about the lengthy and tabled the measure, but all agreed the spirit of the ordinance was important.

"We totally support the rights for our city for all human beings who live in our city," Lynch said.

Clerk-Treasurer Chris Stidham, who drafted the ordinance with Portage resident Beto Barerra, a retired civil rights organizer, and the Rev. Michael Cooper, who pastors Metropolitan Community Church Illiana, a church open to LGBTQ members, said the ordinance would send "the right message."

"This ordinance says we're an open for business city, that we're an open and welcoming city," Stidham said.

The committee members said they had not had enough time to read the seven-and-a-half page ordinance, which, as written, is meant to ensure "equal rights" and "equal treatment without regard to race, color, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or veteran status."

The ordinance calls on the city to appoint a nine-member Human Rights Committee, made up of members selected by each of the city's nine elected officials, to ensure equal access to public accommodations, even extending fairness to private interactions, such as banks granting loans or landlords treating tenants and potential tenants fairly and handling a wide range of potential complaints.

The ordinance committee spent considerable time wrestling with the ordinance's appointment of a Human Rights Coordinator to do extensive community education and outreach and to serve as the point person for any civil rights complaints.

Cannon had the most questions on the coordinator position, peppering ordinance supporters with questions on how a coordinator would be selected and paid and suggesting many of the alleged wrongs the ordinance would address already are covered by state and federal law.

Another sticking point was how deeply the human rights committee and coordinator can go into addressing complaints of alleged discrimination, especially if those complaints are aimed at local businesses. Everyone from landlords to bankers to colleges and private employers and labor unions could face an investigation and mediation if the committee and coordinator find they discriminated against any of the protected groups in the legislation, the plan says.

As long as the council members agree with "the spirit of the ordinance," there's room for dialog and explanations that could make the ordinance more palatable, Barrera said.

"If they're against some of the content, then we can deal with that," Barrera said. "At least all three said they're not against the ordinance itself. I think if they, in good faith, would sit down and read the ordinance and try to understand it better, then we can eliminate some of the language, no problem."

Portage would not be alone locally or statewide in adopting a human rights ordinance, Cooper said. Statewide, 17 other municipalities have such local legislation and, with Portage, he ordinances would cover about two million Hoosiers, he said.

Munster and Valparaiso adopted similar ordinances last year, and Portage supporters used Valparaiso's model, Stidham said.

Heath Carter, a Valparaiso University assistant history professor and chair of the mayor's Advisory Human Relations council, said his city still is working on how to educate the public on its ordinance and on hiring a citywide community relations director to serve as the point person on discrimination issues.

"It's just a process, and we're still at the beginning of the process of helping the residents of Valpo understand what I think is a pretty extraordinary law," Carter said. "It offers you a local, accessible, free recourse should you experience some discrimination in a protected status.

"It's our word and deed," he said. "It's our commitment to being a place that can be a home for anybody and everybody. It's a way of living into the values this community has expressed, no matter who you are, you can feel right at home here."

Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

Here is the original post:
Portage gets first look at human rights proposal - Chicago Tribune

A baby dolphin died last week after hundreds of beachgoers in southern Spain surrounded the animal to touch and take pictures with it, sparking condemnation from a local animal rescue group.

The incident took place last Friday in Mojcar, on the countrys southeastern coast, according to Equinac, a Spanish nonprofit organization that advocates for marine wildlife.

According to several posts on the groups Facebook page, a baby dolphin that was stranded on the beach was quickly surrounded by numerouscurious people, including children,who wanted totouch and photograph it. Some accidentally covered the dolphins spiracle, the blowhole the animals use to breath, the group said.

One concerned person reported the stranded animal to 112, the countrys emergency services number, but by the time Equinac rescuers arrived at the beach, the dolphin was dead, the group said.

Once again we note that the human being is the most irrational species that exists, Equinac wrote on Facebook Aug. 11, the day of the incident, blasting the selfishness of those that had swarmed the animal. There are many [who are] incapable of empathy for a living being that is alone, scared, starved, without his mother and terrified. All you want to do is to photograph and poke, even if the animal suffers from stress.

The group later clarified that the baby dolphin may have been isolated because it was sick or somehow separated from its mother. However, even though the beachgoers had not been responsible for the dolphins stranding, merely touching and photographing the animals can cause them to enter a very high stress state and, at worst, to experience fatal shock, the group said.

Those who see a stranded dolphin should call emergency rescue services rather than try to handle the animal, it added.

Equinac did not immediately respond to a request for further comment Wednesday. In a subsequent Facebook post, the group said it had turned down media interview requests because we are not interested in circuses.

The incident was reminiscent of a similar one last year in Argentina, when beachgoers picked up an endangered baby dolphin and passed it around for selfies. The animal later died. Its death triggered a round of public shaming against those who had mobbed the animal, as well as a strongly worded statement by the Argentine Wildlife Foundation.

Equinac, the Spanish group, regularly posts pictures of its attempts to rescue marine life and of dead dolphins periodically found washed ashore.

In an angry follow-up postSaturday, Equinac lamented how many times it had previously tried to educate the public on what to do in the case of a stranded animal to seemingly no avail.

Do we have to continue to justify our anger? Does it have to be us, Equinac, the police, the lifeguards, the ones that teach many of you common sense? the post read. Ignorance has absolutely nothing to do with respect, empathy and logic.

CRA LACTANTE DE DELFN APARECE VIVA EN UNA PLAYA DE MOJCAR, CIENTOS DE PERSONAS SOBRE ELLA PARA TOCARLA Y HACERLE

Posted by Equinac onFriday, August 11, 2017

Read more:

Endangered baby dolphin dies after swimmers pass it around for selfies

Canadian fisherman killed after freeing trapped whale

Flesh-eating sea bugs attacked an Australian teens legs: There was no stopping the bleeding.

More here:
A mob of beachgoers wanted to play with a baby dolphin and wound up killing it - Washington Post