Talk about tackling an issue, head-on.

Insurer AIG’s latest advertisement starring the New Zealand national rugby union team, popularly known as the All Blacks, has drawn both cheers and frowns from across the world for what critics call a promotion of violence, and for what supporters say is a creative take on a marketing message.

In the three-minute advertisement, members of the All Blacks tackle Japanese pedestrians, seemingly at random: a schoolgirl crossing the road and a lady cleaning the windows of a cafe are grabbed and thrown to the ground by an athlete without warning, while a driver finds a man barrelling in through her car’s rear passenger window to land next to her child in the back seat.

The rugby players, however, are no villians, but rather superheroes in disguise, or thus the video hopes to portray.

A concrete mixer speeds through a pedestrian crossing, where the schoolgirl would have been had she not been grabbed by the athlete, and a car smashes into the cafe window where the cleaner was standing moments before. Meanwhile, the player who barrelled into the woman’s car buckles the child in and flashes the woman a big smile.

The message itself is simple: the All Blacks, as representatives of AIG, are forewarning and saving others from the risks and perils of everyday life, in line with AIG’s latest campaign #TackleTheRisk.

According to The Wireless, AIG said the ad would “boost the All Blacks’ profile in Japan in preparation of a more prominent involvement in the Japanese rugby market leading into 2019”.

Many netizens were impressed with the uniqueness of the advertisement, with several Facebook users saying that the ad took them by surprise. Others praised the ad’s creativity, calling it “awesome”.

However, not all share such sentiments.

Anti-violence and anti-domestic abuse charity Shine’s general manager, Jane Drumm, was reported as saying that she felt “really uncomfortable watching huge All Blacks tackling smaller Japanese people and throwing them forcefully to the ground”.

According to Drumm, other staff members of Shrine agreed with her, with one saying that the advertisement glamorised violence and had “tenuous links to sport”.

Read also: Cringeworthy video highlights the shallowness of the influencer industry

New Zealand Rugby has defended the ad in a statement, reported The Wireless.

“New Zealand Rugby and AIG have received overwhelmingly positive feedback for the new #TackleTheRisk campaign, which depicts All Blacks saving people from everyday hazards on the streets of Tokyo,” it said.

“When viewed in context it is clear that the ad is about people’s safety.”

pariel@sph.com.sg

KUALA LUMPUR: The murder of North Korean Kim Jong-nam could be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), said its president Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi.

However, there are limitations to this as Malaysia is not currently a member of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty from which the ICC derives its powers.

Also, the ICC deals with cases in totality rather than prosecute standalone criminal acts.

“The ICC can only exercise its function where a crime is committed in a member state that is part of the treaty” she said after a courtesy call on Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) secretary M. Kulasegeran at Parliament on Thursday.

Read also: Malaysia mistook slain Kim Jong Nam for South Korean

Gurmendi said it was still possible for the United Nations Security Council to refer the case to the ICC even if Malaysia was not a signatory to the treaty.

“The UN Security Council can also refer a case to the ICC in accordance with the UN Charter to expand the jurisdiction of the court.

“There have been two instances where Sudan and Libya were referred to the ICC,” she said.

However, she noted that cases referred to the ICC should be of the “entire situation and not a single case”.

In such a circumstance, Gurmendi said the ICC prosecutor would assess the situation to determine if there was a case.

“The ICC should be the court of last resort as the national court system should intervene first,” she said.

Furthermore, she added, the ICC did not have retrospective powers to prosecute cases such as the downing of flight MH17 in the event that Malaysia becomes a signatory of the Rome Statute.

PGA secretary-general Dr David Donat-Cattin said the UN Human Rights Council had recommended that North Korea be referred to the ICC.

However, he said, specific incidents cannot be taken in isolation and it must be shown that there was a systematic attempt to eliminate individuals who are not part of the North Korean regime.

Read also: Kim Jong-nam to be cremated, sent to North Korea: reports

The ICC comprises some 1,400 bipartisan lawmakers from 144 Parliaments.

The Cabinet had given its approval for Malaysia to be a signatory to the Rome Statute in 2009.

However, the country is still working towards being part of the treaty and will only be deemed a member three months after depositing its instrument of accession with the UN.

Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was killed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 departure hall on Feb 13, with what Malaysian police said was the banned VX nerve agent.

On March 1, Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong and Indonesian Siti Aisyah were charged with the murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code that carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.

Neither recorded a plea, and April 13 has been fixed for mention.

Read also: Kim Jong-nam murder suspect allegedly seen playing snooker in N Korean embassy

BANGKOK – A group of young transgender Thais sits together in women’s clothes behind rows of men, waiting for military officers to call their names and decide whether they must be drafted as soldiers.

“I was born male, so I must be here, as duty calls,” said Kanphitcha Sungsuk, 21, in a cream-coloured dress, holding up a mirror to check her make-up and long black hair.

Thailand is widely seen as a paradise for gay and transgender people, but many complain of being treated as second-class citizens and the obligation to respond to the draft can be a nightmare when they turn 21.

“Most are stressed and worried that they will be undressed, stared at, or humiliated in public,” said Jetsada Taesombat, executive director of the Thai Transgender Alliance for Human Rights.

“Some are so stressed out they want to commit suicide to avoid conscription.”

Every April, Thai men who turn 21 must either volunteer to serve for six months or take their chances in a lottery, where a choice of black ticket lets them go home but a red ticket means they must serve for two years.

A conscript’s death following a beating by soldiers this week highlights the brutality of army life that many men want to avoid.

Conscription can also mean serving in the south, where Muslim Malay separatists are fighting an insurgency.

Exemptions are made for those who are physically or mentally incapable.

They are also made for trangender women, but only if they can prove that they are not faking it.

A doctor takes them to a private room, or behind a wall, to see whether they have breasts or have undergone a sex change.

Those with physical alterations, who show “gender identity disorder”, are exempt from the draft and need never return, but those who have not undergone such changes must return for up to two more years, unless an army hospital certifies they have the “disorder”.

Transgender women say the reference to a disorder stigmatises them, although the army has softened its description from the previous “permanent mental disorder” and says it has improved the way they are treated.

“The army is instructed to treat and respect transgender women as women,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ongard Jamdee, who is in charge of a recruitment centre in Pasi Charoen, Bangkok.

Transgender women figure on television, in beauty pageants and at hair salons and cosmetics counters in Thailand.

But they cannot change the gender designation on their identity papers, despite a 2015 law against gender-based discrimination.

Some transgender women told Reuters they had been told to leave women’s toilets so as to not “frighten” women.

“Society looks on and thinks we are accepted, but it’s actually not so,” said Khwan Suphalak, 23, adding that hotels had barred her entry over her gender.

“We’re always treated differently.”

Two persons died and five others were injured on Tuesday when a wild elephant wreaked havoc in Hanumannagar Bazaar, the old district headquarters of Saptari.

The tusker entered the market place in Hanumannagar at around 9:30am from south-western part of the town, causing a massive stampede in the street.

The pachyderm started attacking as some people tried to chase it away.

The tusker menace continued in the area for about two hours until the security personnel and the locals eventually chased the animal away towards the Koshi river.

The animal is suspected to have entered the settlement from the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve which lies 15km from Hanumannagar.

Police identified the deceased as Roshan Kumar Jha, 22, of Hanumannagar-5 and Sanjaya Kumar Saphi, 30, of Hanumannagar-6.

The two, who were critically injured in the attack, were rushed to Dharan-based BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences but died during treatment.

Three of the injured are receiving treatment in Dharan, while the others are undergoing treatment in local health facility.

“We were terrorised as the wild elephant suddenly entered the settlement. The tusker attacked people as it could not find a way out in the narrow alley,” said Surendra Kumar Jha, an eye witness.

Meanwhile, the local authority announced Rs 500,000 (S$10,794) in compensation to the victims’ families.

An area near Nepal-India border in Gobargadha Tapu, Saptari, is being taken over by some families who have migrated from across the Indian border town.

These emigres, who hails from the village of Kataiya in Supaul district of Indian state of Bihar, have started to build huts and plant crops on the land that is located 5 km inside the border, the area that falls under the sovereignty of Nepal.

Surtal Mukhiya is one of the people, who have migrated from his native land, in India, to Gobargadha Tapu, where he is growing wheat on a land spread over nearly 10 bighas or 1.6 hectares.

He has also built a hut next to the plantation.

Mukhiya claimed he and his family had been coming to Gobargadha Tapu to plant crops for some years now.

Apparently, he has no qualms about occupying a land illegally, let alone a land in a foreign country.

“We live in India during monsoon and return after the monsoon has ended to grow our crops here,” he said.

Five new families from Mukhiya’s village also migrated to Gobargadha Tapu this year.

Like the Mukhiyas, they said, they too were here for seasonal farming and that they will return to India once the monsoon has begun.

“We are growing crops on a land that was barren and some of us are here to rear buffaloes,” said one woman.

The Gobargadha locals said that the number of Indian families building homes and cultivating on the Nepali territory has grown over the years and the authorities have not taken any notice of the blatant land grabbing taking place near the border area.

Sub Inspector of Nepal Police Bhagawani Thakur, of the Hanuman Nagar Area Police Office, said the office did not know about Indian families occupying the Nepali territory.

“No one has registered a formal complaint so far,” he said.

Chief District Officer Krishna Bahadur Katuwal also had no idea about the goings-on in Gobargadha Tapu.

“We will soon inspect the area and evict the illegal occupants,” he said after he was apprised of the situation at one of the border villages.