Alex Morgan, of the US celebrates on the shoulders of Sydney Leroux after scoring the opening goal against Germany during their Algarve Cup women's soccer final match Wednesday, March 13 2013, at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, southern Portugal. The US defeated Germany 2-0 in the final. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
Alex Morgan, of the US celebrates on the shoulders of Sydney Leroux after scoring the opening goal against Germany during their Algarve Cup women's soccer final match Wednesday, March 13 2013, at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, southern Portugal. The US defeated Germany 2-0 in the final. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
Christen Press, left, of the US, fights for the ball with Germany's Babet Peter during their Algarve Cup women's soccer final match Wednesday, March 13 2013, at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, southern Portugal.The US defeated Germany 2-0 in the final. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
Alex Morgan, 4rd right, of the US, celebrates after scoring the opening goal against Germany during their Algarve Cup women's soccer final match Wednesday, March 13 2013, at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, southern Portugal. The US defeated Germany 2-0 in the final. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
Alex Morgan, 3rd right, of the US, celebrates after scoring the opening goal against Germany during their Algarve Cup women's soccer final match Wednesday, March 13 2013, at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, southern Portugal. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
Christen Press, center, of the US, challenges Germany's defense during their Algarve Cup women's soccer final match Wednesday, March 13 2013, at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, southern Portugal. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
The United States gave Tom Sermanni a title in his first tournament as coach of the American women's team.
Alex Morgan scored twice in the first half, and the U.S. defeated Germany 2-0 Wednesday night in the final of the Algarve Cup at Faro, Portugal. The Americans won the prestigious tournament for the ninth time in 18 appearances.
"It's great to continue the winning tradition that the U.S. team has," said Sermanni, who took over this year after Pia Sundhage left to coach her native Sweden. "At least I haven't been a jinx in the short term."
The Americans have won three straight Olympic gold medals, including two under Sundhage, but have not won the Women's World Cup since 1999.
"It was such a good foundation for us. Now we just need to work off that," defender Ali Krieger said. "Tom has done such a great job with us, and he has a lot of knowledge of the game and we need to let it all soak in."
Backup goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart protected the lead with some strong saves in the second half. Midfielder Megan Rapinoe was selected tournament MVP despite missing the final after straining a muscle in pregame warmups.
"This is obviously very unexpected. I thought I was getting punked when our liaison told me," she said.
Morgan started the scoring in the 13th minute. Sydney Leroux sent a cross that Germany central defender Josephine Henning tried to clear with a header. But the ball fell to Morgan just inside the area and she scored with her left foot.
Morgan connected again 12 minutes later. A mix-up between goalkeeper Almuth Schult and her defense let Morgan steal the ball and she rolled a shot into the empty net from the edge of the box.
"It's been a different lineup every single game, so I think that it's good for him to evaluate players and good for us to get games," Morgan said, referring to Sermanni. "Other than a World Cup or Olympics, we never really get this many games in this short a time."
Forward Abby Wambach came off the bench for the first time since March 9, 2011, against Iceland at the Algarve Cup. She entered in the 75th minute for Christen Press, but did not score. She remained at 154 career goals, four shy of tying Mia Hamm's international record.
NOTES: Three-time Olympic gold medal winner Heather Mitts announced her retirement. The 34-year-old defender made her international debut in 1999, played her last match in December and had two goals in 137 appearances. She had been allocated to the Boston Breakers for the new National Women's Soccer League. ... The United States has won Algarve Cups in 2000, '03, '04, '05, '07, '08, '10, '11 and '13. ... The Americans have not lost in 29 games, including victory at last year's London Olympics. Their last defeat was in this event a year ago to World Cup champion Japan. ... Tobin Heath started in Rapinoe's place and assisted on the second U.S. goal.
LONDON (AP) ? World leaders sent in their congratulations and Catholics around the world were celebrating Wednesday after the Vatican announced the election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the papacy ? making him the first pontiff from the Americas.
As bells tolled and crowds cheered across Latin America, President Barack Obama offered warm wishes to Pope Francis and said the selection speaks to the strength and vitality of the New World.
"I offer our warm wishes to His Holiness Pope Francis," Obama said. "As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than 2,000 years."
In Europe, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also issued statements of congratulations.
Wednesday was "a momentous day for the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world," Cameron said in a message posted to Twitter, while Merkel, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, said millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike would be looking to the new pope for guidance not just in questions of faith but in matters of peace, justice and protecting creation.
Merkel said she was particularly happy for Christians in Latin America, who now had one of their own called to be pope for the first time. Francis was elected after German-born Pope Benedict XVI stepped down last month, saying he lacked the strength to continue in the job.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he looked forward to cooperation with the Holy See under Pope Francis' "wise leadership," while European Union leaders Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso wished the new Catholic leader "a long and blessed pontificate."
The atmosphere across Latin America brimmed with excitement and surprise, with people bursting into tears and cheers on streets from Buenos Aires to Caracas, Venezuela.
"It's incredible!" said Martha Ruiz, 60, who was weeping tears of emotion in the Argentine capital. She said she had been in many meetings with the cardinal and said, "He is a man who transmits great serenity."
At the St. Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district in Puerto Rico, church secretary Antonia Veloz exchanged jubilant high-fives with Jose Antonio Cruz, a Franciscan friar.
"It's a huge gift for all of Latin America. We waited 20 centuries. It was worth the wait," said Cruz, wearing the brown cassock tied with a rope that is the signature of the Franciscan order.
Arcilia Litchfield, a 57-year-old tourist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, was walking down the cobblestone streets when they glanced at a TV and saw that a new pope had been chosen. She and her husband then went to the San Juan Cathedral, where the remains of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon are buried.
"It's historic. It's the first time a pope has been chosen from this part of the world," she said. "It hasn't sunk in yet."
Even in Communist Cuba, there was pride as church bells rang to celebrate the news. Elsewhere on the continent, people traded stories about the new pontiff.
"You would see him taking public buses," said Maurizzio Pavia, an Argentine now working in Puerto Rico, who said he was familiar with Bergoglio because they both came from the same region. "He would cook his own food. He would not let anyone serve him."
In the United States, the archbishop of Philadelphia said the new pope is a man of "extraordinary intellectual and cultural strengths."
Archbishop Charles Chaput calls Francis a "wonderful choice" who comes from the "new heartland of the global church."
Despite the overwhelming outpouring of joy and goodwill, not everyone thought the news was positive.
Andrew Reding of the World Policy Institute in New York said the choice of Bergoglio was an example of "superficial change."
"Once again, a conclave has made a bold geographical move while choosing a doctrinal conservative," he said. "To paraphrase an old saying, the more things change in the Roman Catholic Church, the more they stay the same."
On Twitter, the pope's mothballed account was revived and read: "HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM," a reference to the cardinal's new name: Pope Francis.
___
Associated Press writers from across the globe contributed to this report.
Drinking just two cups of coffee a day is associated with the risk of low birth weight. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have conducted a study on 59,000 women in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Expectant mothers who consume caffeine, usually by drinking coffee, are more likely to have babies with lower birth weight than anticipated, given their gestational age. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, conducted a study on 59,000 pregnant Norwegian women in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
"The correlation between intake of caffeine and fetal growth was established even among women who followed the official recommendation that they limit caffeine consumption to 200 milligrams a day (two cups of coffee)," researcher Verena Sengpiel says.
The medical term used in this connection is "small for gestational age" (SGA), which is associated with an elevated risk of morbidity and death.
The new results are consistent with previous international studies but are based on a considerably larger cohort. The participants were healthy and had uncomplicated pregnancies until delivery, while the results were adjusted for age, smoking, body mass index, nicotine consumption, alcohol use and other variables that affect fetal growth.
"We need to stress that our study did not examine whether caffeine is the specific mechanism substance by which responsible for the fetus is being at greater risk of low birth weight," Ms. Sengpiel says. "Nor did we look at whether these babies actually had special health problems during the neonatal period. Additional research is needed before we can say for sure what our finding actually means for pregnant women and their babies."
The other purpose of the study, which is being published in BMC Medicine, was to determine whether women who consumed caffeine during pregnancy were more likely to give birth prematurely. Such a correlation could not be established.
The research team is hoping to conduct more in-depth studies about the cause-effect relationship between caffeine use and SGA, as well as any correlation between SGA and neonatal morbidity and death.
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University of Gothenburg: http://www.gu.se/english
Thanks to University of Gothenburg for this article.
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Contact: Kathryn Hansen kathryn.h.hansen@nasa.gov 301-286-1046 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Vegetation growth at Earth's northern latitudes increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, according to a NASA-funded study based on a 30-year record of land surface and newly improved satellite data sets.
An international team of university and NASA scientists examined the relationship between changes in surface temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. Results show temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982.
"Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more," said Ranga Myneni of Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment. "In the north's Arctic and boreal areas, the characteristics of the seasons are changing, leading to great disruptions for plants and related ecosystems."
The study was published Sunday, March 10, in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Myneni and colleagues used satellite data to quantify vegetation changes at different latitudes from 1982 to 2011. Data used in this study came from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) onboard a series of polar-orbiting satellites and NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites.
As a result of enhanced warming and a longer growing season, large patches of vigorously productive vegetation now span a third of the northern landscape, or more than 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers). That is an area about equal to the contiguous United States. This landscape resembles what was found 250 to 430 miles (400 to 700 kilometers) to the south in 1982.
"It's like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years," said co-author Compton Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The Arctic's greenness is visible on the ground as an increasing abundance of tall shrubs and trees in locations all over the circumpolar Arctic. Greening in the adjacent boreal areas is more pronounced in Eurasia than in North America.
An amplified greenhouse effect is driving the changes, according to Myneni. Increased concentrations of heat-trapping gasses, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, cause Earth's surface, ocean and lower atmosphere to warm. Warming reduces the extent of polar sea ice and snow cover, and, in turn, the darker ocean and land surfaces absorb more solar energy, thus further heating the air above them.
"This sets in motion a cycle of positive reinforcement between warming and loss of sea ice and snow cover, which we call the amplified greenhouse effect," Myneni said. "The greenhouse effect could be further amplified in the future as soils in the north thaw, releasing potentially significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane."
To find out what is in store for future decades, the team analyzed 17 climate models. These models show that increased temperatures in Arctic and boreal regions would be the equivalent of a 20-degree latitude shift by the end of this century relative to a period of comparison from 1951-1980.
However, researchers say plant growth in the north may not continue on its current trajectory. The ramifications of an amplified greenhouse effect, such as frequent forest fires, outbreak of pest infestations and summertime droughts, may slow plant growth.
Also, warmer temperatures alone in the boreal zone do not guarantee more plant growth, which also depends on the availability of water and sunlight.
"Satellite data identify areas in the boreal zone that are warmer and dryer and other areas that are warmer and wetter," said co-author Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Only the warmer and wetter areas support more growth."
"We found more plant growth in the boreal zone from 1982 to 1992 than from 1992 to 2011, because water limitations were encountered in the later two decades of our study," said co-author Sangram Ganguly of the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute and NASA Ames.
###
Data, results and computer codes from this study will be made available on NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a collaborative supercomputing facility at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. NEX is designed to bring scientists together with data, models and computing resources to accelerate research and innovation and provide transparency.
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Contact: Kathryn Hansen kathryn.h.hansen@nasa.gov 301-286-1046 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Vegetation growth at Earth's northern latitudes increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, according to a NASA-funded study based on a 30-year record of land surface and newly improved satellite data sets.
An international team of university and NASA scientists examined the relationship between changes in surface temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. Results show temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982.
"Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more," said Ranga Myneni of Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment. "In the north's Arctic and boreal areas, the characteristics of the seasons are changing, leading to great disruptions for plants and related ecosystems."
The study was published Sunday, March 10, in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Myneni and colleagues used satellite data to quantify vegetation changes at different latitudes from 1982 to 2011. Data used in this study came from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) onboard a series of polar-orbiting satellites and NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on the Terra and Aqua satellites.
As a result of enhanced warming and a longer growing season, large patches of vigorously productive vegetation now span a third of the northern landscape, or more than 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers). That is an area about equal to the contiguous United States. This landscape resembles what was found 250 to 430 miles (400 to 700 kilometers) to the south in 1982.
"It's like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years," said co-author Compton Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The Arctic's greenness is visible on the ground as an increasing abundance of tall shrubs and trees in locations all over the circumpolar Arctic. Greening in the adjacent boreal areas is more pronounced in Eurasia than in North America.
An amplified greenhouse effect is driving the changes, according to Myneni. Increased concentrations of heat-trapping gasses, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, cause Earth's surface, ocean and lower atmosphere to warm. Warming reduces the extent of polar sea ice and snow cover, and, in turn, the darker ocean and land surfaces absorb more solar energy, thus further heating the air above them.
"This sets in motion a cycle of positive reinforcement between warming and loss of sea ice and snow cover, which we call the amplified greenhouse effect," Myneni said. "The greenhouse effect could be further amplified in the future as soils in the north thaw, releasing potentially significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane."
To find out what is in store for future decades, the team analyzed 17 climate models. These models show that increased temperatures in Arctic and boreal regions would be the equivalent of a 20-degree latitude shift by the end of this century relative to a period of comparison from 1951-1980.
However, researchers say plant growth in the north may not continue on its current trajectory. The ramifications of an amplified greenhouse effect, such as frequent forest fires, outbreak of pest infestations and summertime droughts, may slow plant growth.
Also, warmer temperatures alone in the boreal zone do not guarantee more plant growth, which also depends on the availability of water and sunlight.
"Satellite data identify areas in the boreal zone that are warmer and dryer and other areas that are warmer and wetter," said co-author Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Only the warmer and wetter areas support more growth."
"We found more plant growth in the boreal zone from 1982 to 1992 than from 1992 to 2011, because water limitations were encountered in the later two decades of our study," said co-author Sangram Ganguly of the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute and NASA Ames.
###
Data, results and computer codes from this study will be made available on NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a collaborative supercomputing facility at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. NEX is designed to bring scientists together with data, models and computing resources to accelerate research and innovation and provide transparency.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
All three of these men (ish) will go down in history as Old Spice's strange assortment of spokesmen.
"Old Spice was looking for someone to market its new wild collection of scents, someone from the wild," Mr. Wolfdog, Old Spice's new chief director of marketing, explains via a voice machine in the ad.
Mark Pritchard, the global brand-building officer at P&G said in a statement, "We look forward to tapping his unparalleled animal instincts to further enhance the launch of new Old Spice Wild Collection. We continuously strive to hire the most dynamic talent on earth, and given Director Wolfdog's fierce track record, he is sure to be a force to be reckoned with at P&G."
Giving celebrities new brand marketing roles is now all the rage. Alicia Keys is Blackberry's global creative director, Justin Timberlake is Bud Light Platinum's new creative director, and Marc Jacobs is Diet Coke's creative director "exclusively" for 2013.
Wolves were first introduced in Old Spice's ad campaign for its Super Bowl spot that just ran in Juneau, Alaska. But this is the first wolf to really make it big with the company. He even has a Twitter account and an old school professional website.
LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian singer Justin Bieber has canceled one of two planned concerts in Portugal this week, the venue in Lisbon said on its website on Monday.
A source close to the singer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the cancellation was not linked to Bieber's collapse on-stage in London last week, which forced the teen sensation to take a 20-minute break for oxygen and later to visit a hospital.
"Due to unforeseen circumstances, Justin Bieber was forced to cancel the second performance in Portugal, March 12," a statement said on the website of the Pavilhao Atlantico.
"The Canadian singer is eager to play for the Portuguese fans on March 11," it added. Ticket holders for the canceled gig were entitled to a refund if they claimed it within a month.
The Bieber source did not give a reason for the cancellation, but local media in Portugal reported that tickets sales for the March 12 gig, which was added to his itinerary in February, were lower than organizers had hoped.
Bieber described his visit to London as a "rough week".
As well as the collapse, the 19-year-old was caught on film in an expletive-filled altercation with a photographer, showed up nearly two hours late for a show leading to widespread anger and was labeled a "pop brat" by a leading tabloid.
Discovered on YouTube in 2008, Bieber has built an online following of tens of millions of fans and is one of the pop world's biggest stars. In February, he became the youngest artist to land five chart-topping albums in the key U.S. market.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Additional reporting by Andrei Khalip in Lisbon; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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Our outdoor cycling group, the Cycle e Club, will having it's first ride of the spring season.? See the attached info for all the details.? The ride will start at 10060 Market Circle at Hastings Market Place, Manassas, VA 20110.? Share the joy of outdoor cycling with us and bring a friend.?
Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer arrives to celebrate mass in the Sant' Andrea al Quirinale church, in Rome, Sunday March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. Scherer, the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer arrives to celebrate mass in the Sant' Andrea al Quirinale church, in Rome, Sunday March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. Scherer, the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
U.S. Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley hoists a book of prayers as he celebrates Mass in his titular church of Santa Maria alla Vittoria in Rome, Sunday, March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
Cardinal Angelo Scola celebrates a mass in Rome's Santi Apostoli church, Sunday March 10, 2013. Cardinals from around the world gather this week in a conclave to elect a new pope following the stunning resignation of Benedict XVI. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. Yet several names have come up time repeatedly as strong contenders for the job. Scola, the Archbishop of Milan, is among those considered to have a credible shot at the papacy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican insists that the cardinals participating in the upcoming conclave will vote their conscience, each influenced only by silent prayers and reflection. Everybody knows, however, that power plays, vested interests and Machiavellian maneuvering are all part of the game, and that the horse-trading is already under way.
Can the fractious Italians rally behind a single candidate? Can the Americans live up to their surprise billing as a power broker? And will all 115 cardinals from around the world be able to reach a meeting of minds on whether the church needs a people-friendly pope or a hard-edged manager able to tame Vatican bureaucrats?
This time there are no star cardinals and no big favorites, making the election wide open and allowing the possibility of a compromise candidate should there be deadlock.
While deliberations have been secret, there appear to be two big camps forming that have been at loggerheads in the run-up to the conclave.
One, dominated by the powerful Vatican bureaucracy called the Curia, is believed to be seeking a pope who will let it continue calling the shots as usual. The speculation is that the Curia is pushing the candidacy of Brazilian Odilo Scherer, who has close ties to the Curia and would be expected to name an Italian insider as Secretary of State ? the Vatican No. 2 who runs day-to-day affairs at the Holy See.
Another camp, apparently spearheaded by American cardinals, is said to be pushing for a reform-minded pope with the strength to shake up the Curia, tarnished by infighting and the "Vatileaks" scandal in which retired Pope Benedict XVI's own butler leaked confidential documents to a journalist. These cardinals reportedly want Milan archbishop Angelo Scola as pope, as he is seen as having the clout to bring the Curia into line.
The other key question to resolve is whether the pope should be a "pastoral" one ? somebody with the charisma and communication skills to attract new members to a dwindling flock ? or a "managerial" one capable of a church overhaul in a time of sex-abuse scandals and bureaucratic disarray.
It's hard to find any single candidate who fits the bill on both counts.
Italy has the largest group of cardinal electors with 28, and believes it has a historic right to supply the pope, as it did for centuries. Italians feel it's time to have one of their own enthroned again after 35 years of "foreigners," with the Polish John Paul II and the German Benedict.
But Italians are divided by which Italian church groups they have been affiliated with, and which leaders they follow. A dispute that pitted the followers of the archbishops of Genoa and Florence is said to have cost them the papacy in 1978 after 455 years of Italian popes.
Andrea Riccardi, a founder of the Sant Egidio community and minister of cooperation in the Italian government, says Italian cardinals should get the first look.
"The pope is bishop of Rome," Riccardi said. "Only if the selection of an Italian becomes impractical should it be the case to look in another direction."
From one point of view, the Italians have already suffered a setback. The selection of Tuesday for the conclave to begin is considered a victory for the "foreigners" who had sought more time to get to know get to know one another amid pressures to begin voting as early as Sunday.
And the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which polled experts on Saturday, found Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley topped their list of papal favorites ? ahead of both Scherer and Scola.
Two other Americans ? Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington ? also emerged as potential popes in the survey. That was a surprise since Americans had largely been written off because of potential negative perceptions of electing a superpower pope. Vatican watchers have also noted that an American pope would likely have difficulty dealing with anti-Christian violence and persecution in the Islamic world.
But there are 11 American cardinal-electors, second in number only to the Italians, and they are being talked up for their perceived managerial skills.
The American reputation may have been boosted by the Vatican's decision to silence their daily pre-conclave news conferences. The American eagerness for transparency has been well received among Catholics ? and cast in sharp contrast to the secrecy-prone Italians.
There is one more camp, which presumably commands enough votes to influence the election.
It is the "Benedict faction," the 67 voting cardinals who owe their red hat and presence in the conclave to the most recent pope. They make up more than half of the voters.
Their loyalty to Benedict could damage the ambitions of any cardinal thought to have damaged his papacy and been part of the "divisions" that Benedict lamented in his final addresses.
Who might that be? Their names are presumably listed in a secret report prepared for Benedict about the "Vatileaks" scandal.
Only a few people have seen that report. None of the cardinals who will be voting are among them.
CONWAY, S.C. (AP) ? Liberty coach Dale Layer doesn't care how many losses it took to get his players to the NCAA tournament.
The Flames became just the second 20-loss team to reach college basketball's marquee event, beating Charleston Southern 87-76 Sunday to win the Big South Conference title. Liberty opened the season with eight straight losses and had never won more than three in a row until this week. Yet, it joined Coppin State in 2008 as the only schools with 20 or more defeats in the field of 68.
The Flames' .429 winning percentage (15-20) is the lowest for an NCAA tournament team since Oakland (Michigan) had a 12-18 record (.400) in 2005.
"That's awesome," the fourth-year coach said of his team. "We've got the hats, right?"
Yes, you do, Coach.
The Flames finished their best stretch of basketball this year, winning their fifth in a row ? and their fourth game since Tuesday ? to take their first Big South tournament crown since 2004. John Caleb Sanders led the way with 27 points and tournament MVP Davon Marshall had 20 off six 3-pointers.
Marshall and Sanders got things going in a hurry over top-seeded Charleston Southern (19-12) with 3-pointers in the first 90 seconds ? and the Flames barely lost their outside touch. Marshall was 6 of 7 from beyond the arc and Liberty finished 9 of 18 on long-range baskets.
The performance ended a hard-to-imagine run through the field where Liberty defeated home-standing Coastal Carolina and both Big South divisional winners in High Point and Charleston Southern. Sanders said the team began to believe when they topped the Chanticleers 78-61. "When you can beat Coastal by 20 on their home floor, we knew we could beat anybody in this tournament," he said.
That played out over the week at the HTC Center with the improbable run.
"We've played four of our best games in these four games of the tournament," Sanders said. "Talk about peaking at the exact right time."
Count on Liberty being near the bottom of the 68 NCAA seeds and a likely candidate for the tournament's first-four contests. Sanders says he and the Flames don't care which opponent they face.
"I feel like if we do us, we can give them a game," he said.
Saah Nimley had 18 points to lead the Buccaneers, who as the Big South's regular-season champs will play in the NIT.
The Flames and their cheerleaders rushed the court when the game ended, the players piling on top of each other in celebration. And why not, since Liberty was among the longest of longshots to be cutting down the nets in this one?
Liberty will try and pull off a Big South tournament double later Sunday when its top-seeded women's team takes on Longwood for that NCAA berth. The Flames women have won 14 of the past 16 Big South tournament titles.
The Flames fell behind for a final time, 40-37, on Arlon Harper's 3-pointer with 18:10 lead. That's when Sanders' jumper started a 17-7 run the next six minutes to take control. The charge was capped by Marshall's long 3-pointer that put Liberty ahead 54-47. The lead eventually grew to 14 points as the Bucs could not match Liberty's success from the field.
Charleston Southern was just 9 of 28 from behind the arc and Nimley, who made the all-Big South Conference team, was just 1 of 7 from three. The Bucs finished with five players in double figures.
Buccaneers coach Barclay Radebaugh said he told people after his team's 79-75 victory at Liberty on Jan. 26 that he wanted no part of what the Flames were building a second time.
"I think they're lying in wait," he said. "That's a scary team. They've got size, they've got depth. They're guards are good. They're strong."
Charleston Southern came in the tournament's top seed and would have hosted this final under the Big South's old home-court format. The league began a three-year deal to play at the recently opened, $35 million HTC Center on the campus of Big South member Coastal Carolina ? about 10 miles or so west of South Carolina's Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach resort area.
The Buccaneers hadn't been to a Big South final since 2005 and last won in 1997, also the last time they advanced to the NCAA tournament. They got to the championship by defeating Winthrop in the tournament opener and rallied from 5 points down at the half to oust VMI, 71-65.
Charleston Southern had gone from nine victories in 2009 to back-to-back 19-win seasons the past two years. Both their leading scorers in Nimley and Harper are sophomores so Radebaugh believes the Bucs aren't done contending for Big South crowns. First things first, though.
"I'm really looking forward to the NIT," Radebaugh said. "It's not going to be a show up game for us."
Liberty was next to last in the Big South's six-team North Division. That's when the Flames found their game, topping host Coastal Carolina in the opening round before knocking off one of the tournament favorites in High Point, 61-60, in the quarterfinals. The Flames led throughout against High Point, taking a 19-point lead and holding on.
Liberty kept the run going on Saturday with a win over Gardner-Webb.
The Flames didn't let up against Charleston Southern. Sanders, the team's leading scorer this year at 13 points a game, nearly reached that mark with 12 points in the period while Marshall added 11.
Tavares Speaks hit a bucket as the halftime buzzer sounded that put the Flames ahead 35-34 heading into the break. Speaks ended the game with 18 points.
Layer previously led Colorado State into the NCAAs back in 2003. He said it was difficult to compare experiences and chooses to concentrate on his happy players, snipping away at basketball nets to take back to campus.
"It's life changing. I'm just looking at their faces and trying to soak in every moment," he said. "That's what you're doing this for."
They spend all day in line in the searing heat for a chance to pay their respects. For Hugo Ch?vez?s supporters, waiting in line for 12 hours or more to spend a few seconds in front of his coffin has become something of a required pilgrimage.
?It?s something that all Chavistas should do. Something they need to do,? says Higdalia Az?car, who was not deterred by stories of daylong waits ?We came here for the love. We wouldn?t miss it.?
The line stretches for miles, weaving through shade and sunlight, past public parks and in front of the bleachers where Venezuelans watched Ch?vez salute military parades.
RECOMMENDED: Hugo Ch?vez 101: a quiz about Venezuela's president
On Friday morning, state-run television said more than 2 millions Venezuelans had made the trip to the low-slung military academy where Ch?vez?s open casket has been since Wednesday.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who will be sworn in as interim president this evening, on Thursday extended the viewing for an additional seven days due to the response. Thereafter, Ch?vez?s body will be embalmed, much the way Russia?s Vladmir Lenin and China?s Mao Zedong were, and displayed in a glass case for eternity, Mr. Maduro says.
Once inside, visitors said they saw Ch?vez wearing his signature red beret and sash. Photography was not permitted, but visitors say that on Wednesday and Thursday, Ch?vez was dressed in a blue suit. That was swapped out this morning ? before his funeral ? for his military fatigues.
?I was filled with sadness when I approached his casket,? says Juana Uscategui, an elementary school teacher. She waited 15 hours in a wheelchair to catch a glimpse. ?When I finally saw, I was overcome with joy, as he was finally resting. He wore his red hat, his suit and medals. He was beautiful.?
For Lenin Benitez, a political organizer, it was a two-day journey.
After driving overnight from the state of Lara in the northwest, he queued up because it was ?necessary to see him again and to show to the world that Venezuela stood with their president.?
He adored the idea of embalming the president.
?In the rest of the world, people tell their children stories about fictitious heroes, like Batman and Robin,? Mr. Benitez says. ?Here in Venezuela, we can tell our story of Hugo Ch?vez and his deeds. But more than that, we can show him to our children and continue to inspire the revolution.?
RECOMMENDED: Hugo Ch?vez 101: a quiz about Venezuela's president
The Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy is soliciting applications for its Visiting Fellows program. This program is intended to attract scholars in law and philosophy who can contribute to the life of the Rutgers law and philosophy community. We welcome scholars from any stage of their career who would like to spend a semester or the academic year at Rutgers Law in Camden. We will provide office space, a computer and IT support, and a very modest research stipend. Applicants will need to provide their own funding.
The Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy is among the most active such centers in the nation. In the past twelve months alone, we have hosted conferences on criminal law theory, law and neuroscience, and tort theory. A full list of the events that we have hosted is available here: http://lawandphil.rutgers.edu/past-conferences.
To apply, please email lawandphil@rutgers.edu with your CV.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed making high-quality preschool available to all children in the United States.
?Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on?by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime,? he said.
Since then, the pundits have been scrutinizing whether such education for youngsters actually has substantial benefits.
In fact, a number of studies show that there are long-lasting benefits. But, as it goes when studying something as intangible as the long-term effects of preschool, other studies seem to indicate that the advantages of a preschool education fade by third grade.
While the proposal is still in the early stages of being sketched out?the administration hasn?t yet detailed how it plans to pay for the program, though it could do so in Obama?s budget, expected in March?we dive into the numbers to see whether this investment by society is a waste of money or boon to us all.
In the State of the Union, Obama said, ?Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America,? but his proposal?is actually more limited. It aims to provide federal matching dollars to states to provide public preschool to all four-year-olds from families with incomes at or below 200% of the poverty limit, which for a family of four would be $47,100. States who expand public pre-K slots to middle-class families would be eligible for more funding, and those families would pay tuition rates based on a sliding scale.?
RELATED: Obama?s State of the Union Address: What You Need to Know
As Sara Watson, director of Ready Nation, a group of business leaders that supports early childhood policies, said, his plan targets ?families who are the working poor?ones who are working but at minimum-wage jobs. They make too much to qualify for Head Start??a federal program that offers education, health, nutrition and parent involvement services to support low-income children and their families??but not enough to pay for preschool.?
The president?s proposal could also have an effect on the quality of preschool education. His plan will take some cues from an Alabama program that requires preschools to?employ teachers with bachelor?s degrees in early childhood education or child development, to have class sizes of less than 20 children, and to follow a state-approved curriculum.
Additionally, although much of the attention has been on his preschool proposal, Obama actually intends to address a whole spectrum of issues from birth through kindergarten entry. He also plans to:
Invest in a new ?Early Head Start-Child Care partnership? that would expand and improve early learning programs for infants and toddlers.
Expand voluntary home-visiting services that allow nurses, social workers and other professionals to connect families to services aimed at improving a child?s health, development and ability to learn.?
Watson says of home visiting,??highly trained professionals work with expectant and new parents to teach them to be great nurturers of their children. They learn how to soothe them, nurture them, teach them and read to them from a very early age. Those seemingly simple parenting actions make a big difference in children being able to learn.?
I've worked in the gay porn industry for over a decade -- producing, distributing, and making hardcore sex films. Two years ago, an unusual proposal came across my desk. A young filmmaker named Travis Mathews was looking to direct his first feature, a frank meditation on gay life in San Francisco called I Want Your Love, and he thought I might be able to help. He was looking for backers. It turned out, I could do a lot more.
We took on the project because we liked it. And because we were familiar with the gay market. But we also knew that we could give something to I Want Your Love that another, more traditional distributor couldn't: freedom.
From its early days, gay filmmaking has faced constraints when finding an audience that straight filmmakers don't. Earlier gay filmmakers, like Jack Smith and Kenneth Anger faced obscenity prosecution for even broaching the subject of sexuality. In the late '60s, even featuring someone in drag could result in an X rating. The culture has changed dramatically since then, but in some ways gay filmmakers still face challenges in bringing their movies to a market. Just this week, Australian censors banned I Want Your Love from screening at all in the country -- even at festivals.
It's too bad for them. I Want Your Love is a tremendous film, part meditation on gay identity, part love letter to San Francisco. It also happens to include segments with explicit gay sex. Watching the film evolve it struck me as to the difference between gay film and straight films. Unlike straight filmmakers that tend to play up the heat, gay filmmakers tend to de-sensationalize the sex, to make it seamless within a story, to play it down. Sex is an integral part of our lives, but that doesn't stop outsiders -- or traditional distributors -- from labeling it obscene or pornographic.
I Want Your Love has much in common with those early gay filmmakers -- and I think it also offers a way forward. Part of the reason I was so intrigued by the film as a producer was because I don't shy away from sex. And I knew that unlike mainstream distributors, we could help allow Travis to produce a version of the film that wasn't compromised by outdated ratings codes or theatrical discomfort. I Want Your Love screened at festivals across the country last year -- including a packed house at Lincoln Center, but when it's released this Monday, it's main distribution platform will be VOD -- video-on-demand.
Video-on-demand, a platform pioneered by porn companies like NakedSword, holds the possibility of a new era of gay filmmaking. Gay film festivals in places like New York, San Francisco and Provincetown will remain cultural events, but distribution -- the lifeblood of filmmaking -- will be increasingly virtual, allowing them to reach a larger and more targeted audience, and hopefully to finance their next project.
You see, porn hasn't had a theatrical revenue base for almost forty years. And what we've done in the meantime has been to build up email lists, to learn audience behaviors, and find ways to bypass the gatekeepers. We've always been the insurgents of the film community, with more in common with Roger Corman than any Burbank studio exec.
What does this mean for gay film? It means that our lives can be told in more varied, complex stories -- and still be profitable. It's like the difference between CBS and Netflix. To make a program successful, CBS needs to reach a broadest possible audience. Netflix, on the other hand, can create a successful production just by targeting a very specific segment of a larger audience. In many ways, this is what porn has been doing for years.
We're eager to help I Want Your Love find that audience, so that more stories like it can be told. People always ask me about the unlikely partnership between an indie filmmaker and a porn company. After all, if it were just about the money we could have made a more explicit film much more cheaply. So I tell them that it's not so much about the sex as it is the love -- for the audience, for the community, for the future of gay filmmaking.
?
Follow Tim Valenti on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NakedSwordTim
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea vowed on Thursday to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric hours ahead of a vote by U.N. diplomats on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.
An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors" because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.
Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.
Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, and especially so in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on Thursday, tens of thousands of North Koreans protested the U.S.-South Korean war drills and sanctions.
"Now our enemies are trying to make additional sanctions against us, but we can never accept this," said Ri Kum Il, a Pyongyang citizen at the rally. "We will make a preemptive nuclear attack against our enemies wherever they are and turn their strongholds into a sea of flames."
The U.N. Security Council is set to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council would vote on the draft sanctions resolution Thursday morning.
The resolution was drafted by the United States and China, North Korea's closest ally. The council's agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signaled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.
The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
It accused the U.S. of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows to take "powerful second and third countermeasures" against its enemies. It hasn't elaborated on those measures.
The statement said North Korea "strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the U.S. in 1950."
North Korea demanded the U.N. Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led U.N. Command that's based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.
In anticipation of the resolution's adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.
North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on Feb. 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs.
U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said the proposed resolution, to be voted on at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT), would impose some of the strongest sanctions ever ordered by the United Nations.
The final version of the draft resolution, released Wednesday, identified three individuals, one corporation and one organization that would be added to the U.N. sanctions list if the measure is approved.
The targets include top officials at a company that is the country's primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment, and a national organization responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.
The success of a new round of sanctions could depend on enforcement by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.
The United States and other nations worry that North Korea's third nuclear test pushed it closer to its goal of gaining nuclear missiles that can reach the U.S. The international community has condemned the regime's nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.
The draft resolution condemns the latest nuclear test "in the strongest terms" for violating and flagrantly disregarding council resolutions, bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests "or any other provocation," and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It also condemns all of North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.
But the proposed resolution stresses the council's commitment "to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution" and urged a resumption of six-party talks with the aim of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula "in a peaceful manner."
The proposed resolution would make it significantly harder for North Korea to move around the funds it needs to carry out its illicit programs and strengthen existing sanctions and the inspection of suspect cargo bound to and from the country. It would also ban countries from exporting specific luxury goods to the North, including yachts, luxury automobiles, racing cars, and jewelry with semi-precious and precious stones and precious metals.
According to the draft, all countries would now be required to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to North Korea's nuclear or missile programs.
To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The draft resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.
The proposed resolution also bans all countries from providing public financial support for trade deals, such as granting export credits, guarantees or insurance, if the assistance could contribute to the North's nuclear or missile programs.
It includes what a senior diplomat called unprecedented new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.
The draft also requires states to inspect suspect cargo on their territory and prevent any vessel that refuses an inspection from entering their ports. And a new aviation measure calls on states to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be aboard.
___
Lederer reported from the United Nations. Foster Klug in Seoul contributed to this report.
Numbers of women in engineering, physics and computer science are on the decline in Korea
Seoul, March 7, 2013 In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in others, including the United States. South Korea's low ranking in the study results reflects a substantial underrepresentation of females in public and economic life.
South Korean ranks last of the countries in the study in female economic status, access to resources, supportive policy, and participation in the knowledge and STI sectors. While it shows strong participation of women in education at all levels, the country is failing to adequately support women to participate in its growing economic success. A low level of female participation in the knowledge society overall demonstrates a clear lack of correlation between a country's GDP and gender equality.
The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU. The study was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation. The research was led by Dr. Sophia Huyer, Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.
Despite efforts by many of the countries in this study to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. In South Korea:
Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields less than 30% in most countries and less than 15% in South Korea.
Overall science and engineering enrollments (including bio and health sciences) are under 21%. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board, dropping to 11% in South Korea.
Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace.
In Korea, the share of women in professional fields remains substantially lower than men, and at less than 50%, is well below the average for member countries of the OECD.
Women make up less than 18% of IT workers.
In the private sector progress has also been slow, with women making up less than 1% of corporate board directors, and the percentage of women-run businesses with more than one employee at 21%.
"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."
The data show that women's parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being participation in the labour force, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources. Findings also show that women have greater parity in countries with government policies that support childcare, equal pay, and gender mainstreaming. One of the main findings is that few countries collect consistent and reliable sex-disaggregated data in all of these areas, which inhibits their ability to implement effective supporting policies and programs.
"We found that the absence of any one of these elements creates a situation of vulnerability for economies that want to be competitively positioned in the knowledge economy," Huyer says. "No one country or region is ticking off all the boxes, and some are falling dismally short. This is a tremendous waste of resources. We are wasting resources educating women without following through, and we are missing out on the enormous potential that women represent."
"This broad and ambitious assessment is a critical starting point for measuring the participation of women and girls in science, technology and innovation in emerging and developing worlds," said David Ruth, Executive Director of the Elsevier Foundation, "This study identifies key areas of national strength and weakness, and we hope it will help form the basis of evidence-based policy making and aid going forward."
The report, funded by The Elsevier Foundation, which provides grant programs targeting women scientists in the early stages of their careers, was also supported by futureInnovate.net, a non-profit that supports initiatives that strengthen innovation systems in Canada and around the world.
###
Notes to Editors
The project summary and Key Findings, the Gender Equality and the Knowledge Society Scorecard, as well as graphical scorecards for each country studied, can be found at http://www.wisat.org Please contact Ylann Schemm (y.schemm@elsevier.com) for more information or to arrange an interview with lead researchers Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin.
About the Researchers
As founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology, Sophia Huyer has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology policy, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and social development. She is also research director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. She was a major contributor to the UNCTAD report Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) and the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender (2007).
Recently inducted into the Internet Society's Internet Hall of Fame, Nancy Hafkin played a key role in developing Africa's ICT infrastructure through her work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She also worked with the Association for Progressive Communications to provide email connectivity to more than 10 countries there. In 2006 she co-edited "Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society," with Sophia Huyer and in 2012 she authored a chapter on gender issues for "Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations," edited by George Sadowsky.
About OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international sister organization of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. OWSD is headed by eminent women scientists from the south, consisting of more than 4,000 members. Created in 1989, OWSD's overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in science and technology. The central role is to promote women's access to science and technology, enhancing their greater involvement in decision-making for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. OWSD promotes leadership, exchanges and networking for women scientists to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. http://www.owsdw.org
About WISAT
Women in Global Science and Technology is a international non profit which promotes innovation, science and technology strategies that enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to actively participate in technology and innovation for development. Women should be able to benefit from access to technologies and full participation in innovation systems. http://www.wisat.org
About The Elsevier Foundation
The Elsevier Foundation is a corporate charity funded by Elsevier, a global provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The Elsevier Foundation provides grants to knowledge centered institutions around the world, with a focus on developing world libraries, nurse faculty and scholars in the early stages of their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 60 grants worth millions of dollars to non-profit organizations working in these fields. Through gift-matching, the Foundation also supports the efforts of Elsevier employees to play a positive role in their local and global communities. http://www.elsevierfoundation.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New gender benchmarking study finds women greatly under-represented in South Korean STIPublic release date: 7-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Numbers of women in engineering, physics and computer science are on the decline in Korea
Seoul, March 7, 2013 In the first gender benchmarking study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in others, including the United States. South Korea's low ranking in the study results reflects a substantial underrepresentation of females in public and economic life.
South Korean ranks last of the countries in the study in female economic status, access to resources, supportive policy, and participation in the knowledge and STI sectors. While it shows strong participation of women in education at all levels, the country is failing to adequately support women to participate in its growing economic success. A low level of female participation in the knowledge society overall demonstrates a clear lack of correlation between a country's GDP and gender equality.
The full gender benchmarking study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science in Brazil, South Africa, India, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, the US, the EU. The study was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology (WISAT) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), and funded by the Elsevier Foundation. The research was led by Dr. Sophia Huyer, Executive Director of WISAT and Dr. Nancy Hafkin, Senior Associate of WISAT.
Despite efforts by many of the countries in this study to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. In South Korea:
Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields less than 30% in most countries and less than 15% in South Korea.
Overall science and engineering enrollments (including bio and health sciences) are under 21%. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board, dropping to 11% in South Korea.
Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace.
In Korea, the share of women in professional fields remains substantially lower than men, and at less than 50%, is well below the average for member countries of the OECD.
Women make up less than 18% of IT workers.
In the private sector progress has also been slow, with women making up less than 1% of corporate board directors, and the percentage of women-run businesses with more than one employee at 21%.
"These economies are operating under the existing paradigm that if we give girls and women greater access to education they will eventually gain parity with men in these fields," states Sophia Huyer, the lead researcher and founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology. "This has dictated our approach to the problem for over a decade and we are still only seeing incremental changes. The report indicates that access to education is not a solution in and of itself. It's only one part of what should be a multi-dimensional policymaking approach. There is no simple solution."
The data show that women's parity in the science, technology and innovation fields is tied to multiple empowerment factors, with the most influential being participation in the labour force, larger roles in government and politics, access to economic, productive and technological resources, quality healthcare and financial resources. Findings also show that women have greater parity in countries with government policies that support childcare, equal pay, and gender mainstreaming. One of the main findings is that few countries collect consistent and reliable sex-disaggregated data in all of these areas, which inhibits their ability to implement effective supporting policies and programs.
"We found that the absence of any one of these elements creates a situation of vulnerability for economies that want to be competitively positioned in the knowledge economy," Huyer says. "No one country or region is ticking off all the boxes, and some are falling dismally short. This is a tremendous waste of resources. We are wasting resources educating women without following through, and we are missing out on the enormous potential that women represent."
"This broad and ambitious assessment is a critical starting point for measuring the participation of women and girls in science, technology and innovation in emerging and developing worlds," said David Ruth, Executive Director of the Elsevier Foundation, "This study identifies key areas of national strength and weakness, and we hope it will help form the basis of evidence-based policy making and aid going forward."
The report, funded by The Elsevier Foundation, which provides grant programs targeting women scientists in the early stages of their careers, was also supported by futureInnovate.net, a non-profit that supports initiatives that strengthen innovation systems in Canada and around the world.
###
Notes to Editors
The project summary and Key Findings, the Gender Equality and the Knowledge Society Scorecard, as well as graphical scorecards for each country studied, can be found at http://www.wisat.org Please contact Ylann Schemm (y.schemm@elsevier.com) for more information or to arrange an interview with lead researchers Sophia Huyer and Nancy Hafkin.
About the Researchers
As founding executive director of Women in Global Science & Technology, Sophia Huyer has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology policy, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and social development. She is also research director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. She was a major contributor to the UNCTAD report Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation (2011) and the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender (2007).
Recently inducted into the Internet Society's Internet Hall of Fame, Nancy Hafkin played a key role in developing Africa's ICT infrastructure through her work with the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She also worked with the Association for Progressive Communications to provide email connectivity to more than 10 countries there. In 2006 she co-edited "Cinderella or Cyberella: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society," with Sophia Huyer and in 2012 she authored a chapter on gender issues for "Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations," edited by George Sadowsky.
About OWSD
The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) is an international sister organization of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. OWSD is headed by eminent women scientists from the south, consisting of more than 4,000 members. Created in 1989, OWSD's overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in science and technology. The central role is to promote women's access to science and technology, enhancing their greater involvement in decision-making for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. OWSD promotes leadership, exchanges and networking for women scientists to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. http://www.owsdw.org
About WISAT
Women in Global Science and Technology is a international non profit which promotes innovation, science and technology strategies that enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to actively participate in technology and innovation for development. Women should be able to benefit from access to technologies and full participation in innovation systems. http://www.wisat.org
About The Elsevier Foundation
The Elsevier Foundation is a corporate charity funded by Elsevier, a global provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The Elsevier Foundation provides grants to knowledge centered institutions around the world, with a focus on developing world libraries, nurse faculty and scholars in the early stages of their careers. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 60 grants worth millions of dollars to non-profit organizations working in these fields. Through gift-matching, the Foundation also supports the efforts of Elsevier employees to play a positive role in their local and global communities. http://www.elsevierfoundation.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 11-Mar-2013
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In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed making high-quality preschool available to all children in the United States.