Category Archives: Transhuman News

GENEVA UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein today urged the government of Malaysia to withdraw its proposed amendments to the 1948 Sedition Act.

He warned that the new provisions would seriously undermine the freedom of expression and opinion in the country and would be in breach of Malaysias Federal Constitution and its international human rights obligations.

Zeid also expressed concern at the passage of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) in the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday this week. Among the serious human rights shortcomings in the law are provisions that allow the indefinite detention of individuals without trial and the granting of sweeping powers to law enforcement authorities without sufficient safeguards to prevent abuses and ensure accountability for violations of human rights.

The UN Human Rights Office has long urged Malaysia to either repeal the 1948 Sedition Act or to bring it in line with international human rights standards. The government had committed to repealing the Act during its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council in 2013, the High Commissioner said.

It is very disappointing that the Malaysian government is now proposing to make a bad law worse.

The proposal to amend the overly broad Sedition Act, tabled on Tuesday, further broadens the scope of the offences and introduces harsher penalties, including up to 20 years imprisonment for aggravated sedition. New provisions for travel bans are also worrying as they may allow for arbitrary restrictions against individuals on the basis of an ill-defined law.

These proposals are particularly worrying given that the Sedition Act has been applied in many instances to curb the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression in Malaysia including through the arrests of individuals for merely tweeting their criticism of government policies and judicial decisions, the High Commissioner said.

Since the beginning of 2014, at least 78 people have been investigated or charged under the Sedition Act and in 2015 alone, so far, at least 36 individuals have already been investigated or charged.

High Commissioner Zeid urged the government to review the cases of all those who have been charged under the Sedition Act.

Silencing dissent does not nurture social stability, but an open democratic space does, the High Commissioner said. Curtailing the legitimate exercise of human rights in the name of fighting terrorism has been shown, time and again, to backfire and to only lead to festering discontent and a strong sense of injustice.

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Draft anti-terror, sedition laws seriously undermine freedom of expression: UN

Vijayalakshmi R Iyer, chairperson and managing director of Bank of India, and K K Vohra, executive director of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), are in contention for the post of member (finance & investment) at Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai). This post fell vacant in mid-March after R K Nair retired from the post. Interviews for this position have already been conducted by the government.

Iyer, who took over as chairperson and managing director of Bank of India on November 5, 2012, will retire in May. Prior to this, Iyer was executive director of Central Bank of India from September 1, 2010. A post-graduate in commerce and a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (CAIIB), Iyer started her career with Union Bank of India in 1975.

Vohra was promoted to the post of executive director at RBI on November 3, 2014. He looks into portfolios including central security cell, corporate strategy and budget department, department of corporate services and the human resources management department.

According to the notification by the Department of Financial Services, a whole-time member in the area of finance and investment should preferably have at least 25 years' experience in the area of finance and investment with a minimum of three years experience at a senior level not below the rank of chief general manager of RBI or its equivalent in other financial institutions or regulatory bodies.

Also, the applicant should have at least two years of residual service with reference to the post of whole-time member in Irdai as on the last day for receipt of applications and age should not exceed 60 years on that day.

The tenure of appointment to this post will be five years from the date of joining office with a provision of re-appointment subject to the maximum age of 62 years. The consolidated pay and allowances of the whole-time members would be Rs 3.75 lakh a month without facilities such as house or car.

According to the Section 4 of Irda Act, 1999, the regulatory body is composed of a 10-member team consisting of a chairman, five whole-time members and four part-time members. All of them are appointed by the Government of India. Senior appointments under the Centre require approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).

Member (F&I) at Irdai looks into all finance and investment related regulations and norms governing the insurance sector. This includes auditing, accounting, investments in the equity and debt market and solvency margins, among others.

Irdai will see several top-level exits in the next few months. The positions of whole-time members of non-life, and distribution will become vacant in the next few months, while the post of member-life has been lying vacant since February 2014.

M Ramaprasad, member (non-life) is retiring in May 2015, while member (distribution) D D Singh will also retire in July.

See the original post here:
Iyer, Vohra vie for Irdai post

We are post-industrial human beings. The sagebrush steppe is not our natural habitat. We are far too fragile, too easily burned, baked and desiccated to survive long in the open in a place like this. We have decided by circumstance to make our homes on piles of sand and grit washed out of the hills, this place where without unnatural assistance, nothing lives that cannot be sustained on less than 10 inches of moisture in a year. This is a place once best suited to rodents and reptiles, and a few hardy human beings better equipped than we soft-ripened Nordics.

And yet with thrive here. With benevolent nature and human ingenuity we have created a place to envy, a leafy oasis, a patch of green at the foot of the brown hills, where many of us would rather be than any place we have seen.

Stay with the story. Get full access to The Wenatchee World online for just pennies a day!

Continued here:
Arbor Day: Celebrate trees

Governor passes bill that allows posting information for human trafficking victims

BOISE The VETO stamp hovered above H.B. 183 for a long moment, and right before Idaho Governor C.L. Butch Otter went to reject the bill allowing nonprofits to post signs that assist human trafficking victims, he pulled back.

He tricked the bills sponsors it was April Fools Day, after all. The bill was signed into law soon after.

The bill arrived on the back of Rep. Sage Dixon, R-Ponderay, who said he was contacted by Savannah Hicks, a resident in his district and founder of Slavery Prevention and Revealing Corruption (SPARC), a non-profit organization.

Dixon said besides being called into action by Hicks, who drafted the bill, he had also been contacted by trafficking victims in Idaho.

This is actually happening here and its happening to our children, Dixon said. It is still something that is somewhat in the shadows, and I received an email from a young lady in Eastern Idaho that was a victim of trafficking. She was a student that was very accomplished in high school, went out and got a job and got a boyfriend that ended up initiating her into human trafficking.

The law defines human trafficking as the illegal movement of people typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.

As per the new law, nonprofit groups such as SPARC now have the ability to post signs with emergency phone numbers for victims or witnesses of human trafficking at rest stops off state and interstate highways. These organizations are responsible for all costs attributed to posting the signs, so there is no impact to the General Fund.

According to the laws text, signs include telephone numbers to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and the Idaho State Office of Crime Victims Advocacy, both toll-free and open 24/7.

Hicks said if the bill was not passed into law, she would have had to clear posting the signs on rest stops with each countyindividually. Prior to Otter signing the bill, she said there was only one rest stop in the southern part of the state that had a sign posted for victims of human trafficking.

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Stop signs on human trafficking

The Times of Israel was forced to nix another controversial blog post this week that called for the killing of all Palestinians. But in a surprising turn of events, it turns out the blog post was a hoax posted by a malicious imposter.

Heres the article in question, which has been archived:

The article, first flagged by Talking Points Memos Brendan James, described Palestinians as worthless subhuman beasts and vermin, and claimed Palestinians no right to land and are not even human beings and thus have no right to even live at all. Australian attorney Josh Bornstein was listed as the author.

After receiving backlash on social media, according to TPM, the article was scrubbed from the site and Bronsteins author page was taken down. The Times of Israel called the article an inappropriate/satire piece:

Bornstein later denied having ever written for The Times of Israel:

Hes apparently been receiving some hate mail, too:

Later, The Times of Israel posted an apology on their website, saying they were breached in an elaborate manner by a malicious hoaxerwho on Thursday posteda hateful andracist post.

The website also said the imposter establish[ed] his credibility with them by submitting some of Bornsteins previously-published articles that were all on topic and perfectly reasonable.

As TPM also notes, Jewish bloggerDaniel Sieradski was apparently able to track down the elaborate plan to fool readers that was posted on 4chan: These people believe Im really a Jew. Sieradski also noted that Bornstein had been targeted by white supremacists for his support of open immigration policy and hate crimes legislation. He had been called a subversive Jewish parasite.

The Times of Israel lists the following disclaimer at the top of each blog post: This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content here are presented solely by the author, and The Times of Israel assumes no responsibility for them.

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Times of Israel Scrubs Another Pro-Genocide Blog, Blames Malicious Imposter