Former Guatemalan Soccer Head Fined $350,000 in FIFA Scandal
Brayan Jimenez, a former head of Guatemalan soccer’s governing body, was sentenced Tuesday to time served and fined $350,000 after pleading guilty for his role in the FIFA corruption scandal uncovered by U.S. prosecutors.
Judge Pamela K. Chen issued the sentence during a 70-minute hearing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Jimenez faced up to 40 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy, and while Chen explained that federal guidelines called for a sentence of 41 to 51 months, she concluded Jimenez’s cooperation and remorse mitigated the situation.
Chen noted Jimenez had been held in custody for 50 days and spent four to five months under home detention and about three years in Miami living under a court-ordered curfew.
Jimenez is now subject to two years of supervised release. The sentence included a lifetime ban from holding any position in professional soccer — he previously was banned by FIFA.
His lawyer, Justine A. Harris, said Jimenez intends to leave the United States and return to Guatemala within 30 days. He already has paid $100,000 of the fine and will pay 10 percent of his monthly income after resuming his dental practice to cover the remainder. The $350,000 matches about what Jimenez received in bribes, assistant U.S. attorney M. Kristin Mace said.
Jimenez was president of the National Football Federation of Guatemala from December 2009 until May 2015.
‘Tormented’ by mistake
“There are no excuse and no justification for my actions,” he told the court, his words translated from Spanish. “My actions have brought shame to the world of football.”
Jimenez said that at the time of the crime, he had been a longtime alcoholic. He said he had been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, undergoing counseling and had been sober for 1,118 days.
“Every day I’ve had to fight in order to not fall off a cliff,” he said.
His wife and three children watched from the front row, and a woman in his family delegation broke into tears and made the sign of a cross when Chen read the sentence.
Jimenez dabbed his eyes with a tissue and blew his nose while reading his statement.
“In accepting these payments, I violated my moral principles, my honesty and my honor,” he said. “I’ve been tormented by this great mistake I made.”
He was charged in November 2015 as part of the second wave of indictments in the Justice Department’s investigation into soccer corruption. He pleaded guilty in July 2016 to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of wire fraud conspiracy. Each count carried a possible sentence of 20 years to be served either concurrently or consecutively. The other seven counts against him were dismissed Wednesday.
Jimenez’s sentence showed the benefit of cooperation with prosecutors.
‘Rampant’ corruption
Juan Angel Napout, a former president of Paraguay’s federation and the South American governing body CONMEBOL, was sentenced to nine years in prison last summer after being found guilty at trial. Jose Maria Marin, a former president of Brazil’s soccer federation, also was found guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison, ordered to forfeit $3.3 million and pay a $1.2 million fine.
Hector Trujillo, the former secretary of Guatemala’s federation, pleaded guilty and received an eight-month prison term in 2017 in the first sentence in the case.
Chen said there was a “rampant nature of bribery and corruption in FIFA” and its constituents.
Jimenez said he arranged to obtain bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself and another federation official during negotiations with the Miami-based company Media World, later known as Imagina US. He said the money was wired from Media World in the U.S. to other people’s accounts in Guatemala, and his share was then distributed to him. Jimenez said the payments were in exchange for media rights for Guatemala’s home World Cup qualifiers in 2018 and ’22, and for giving two individuals the right to organize exhibition games involving Guatemala’s national team.
“This is a very serious crime or crimes,” Chen said, noting Jimenez had taken an extra $200,000 bribe that he kept secret from his co-conspirators.
Jimenez, a member of the FIFA committee for fair play and social responsibility, was banned from soccer for life in April 2017 after the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee said he violated the FIFA code of ethics’ articles on general rules of conduct; loyalty; duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting; conflicts of interest; and bribery and corruption.
Imagina US, majority owned by the Spanish company Imagina Media Audiovisual, pleaded guilty on July 18 to two counts of wire fraud conspiracy in connection with the participation by two of its executives in more than $6.5 million in bribes to officials of the Caribbean Football Union and four Central American national federations. Imagina US agreed to forfeit $5,279,000 in proceeds, of which $790,000 was restitution to Guatemala’s federation. In addition, Imagina Media agreed to pay a fine of $12,883,320 on behalf of Imagina US as part of a non-prosecution agreement.
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Oscars Show to Go Hostless for Only Second Time
This year’s Oscar ceremony will go ahead without an official host for only the second time in its history, an ABC television executive said Tuesday.
Speaking just three weeks before the highest honors in the movie industry are handed out, ABC entertainment president Karey Burke said the Feb. 24 event would forgo a host and “just have presenters host the Oscars.”
ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co, televises the Oscars ceremony annually and is closely involved in planning the telecast.
Comedian Kevin Hart in December stepped down from hosting the Oscars after past homophobic tweets resurfaced. No replacement was announced but there had been no official statements on how the ceremony would proceed.
The Oscars ceremony has gone without a host only once before in its 91-year history, in 1989.
Burke said the decision was taken after what she called “the messiness” over the Hart withdrawal and an attempt to revive his chances.
“After that, it was pretty clear that we were going to stay the course and just have presenters host the Oscars. We all got on board with that idea pretty quickly,” Burke told reporters at the Television Critics Association meeting in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena.
She said the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Oscars, had promised ABC last year to keep the telecast to three hours — about 30 minutes shorter than in recent years.
“So the producers, I think, decided wisely to not have a host and to go back to having the presenters and the movies being the stars,” Burke said.
The Oscars host traditionally opens the ceremony with a comedic monologue focusing on celebrities, the state of the movie industry, and cultural and political issues.
Burke said she would hear details from the show producers later this week but said there were plans for “a pretty exciting opening” to the telecast.
She added that speculation over the shape of the ceremony was an encouraging sign that the Oscars were still relevant.
Audiences have dropped in recent years with the 2018 show attracting just 26.5 million viewers, the smallest number ever.
“I have found that the lack of clarity around the Oscars has kept the Oscars in the conversation and that the mystery has been really compelling. People really care,” she said.
Mexican drama Roma and British historical comedy The Favourite lead the Oscars nominations with 10 nods apiece.
Burke noted that three of the other best picture nominees — Disney’s Black Panther, Warner Bros A Star is Born and 21st Century Fox musical Bohemian Rhapsody — had each taken in more than $200 million at the North American box office alone.
“I think we are going to see a big turnout for this because these are big popular movies that have been nominated,” she said.
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Polluted Bangkok’s Year of the Pig Curbs on Incense Go Up in Smoke
Thais of Chinese descent largely ignored Bangkok’s call for restraint in burning of incense and “spirit money” to mark the Lunar New Year as the city fights choking pollution.
Most people celebrating the Year of the Pig, which began Tuesday, shrugged off health concerns as they burnt offerings to ancestors at shrines, many wearing anti-pollution masks.
“It’s impossible to completely stop burning incense,” said Romnalin Wangteeranon, 61, from behind a mask. “It’s a festival that we descendants cannot do without.”
Air quality in Bangkok has been hovering at unhealthy levels as the amount of hazardous dust particles known as PM 2.5 exceeded the safe level in several districts where face masks have sold out at most drug stores.
PM 2.5 is a mixture of liquid droplets and solid particles that can include dust, soot and smoke, one of the main measures of the Air Quality Index (AQI).
Tuesday’s AQI was 110 in the afternoon, according to airvisual.com, which measures levels in cities worldwide, placing Bangkok among the world’s most polluted cities.
Bangkok’s index has improved from last week due to a change in wind direction. But measures taken by the government, including seeding rain clouds, regulating truck traffic and hosing down streets, have helped little.
There was only slightly less incense burning this year compared to 2018, which was not enough to make a difference, said an official at the Poh Teck Tung Foundation, which runs the Tai Hong Kong Shrine in Bangkok’s Chinatown.
“Since we could only ask for cooperation, not impose a ban, most people are still doing it,” the official said.
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Study: Two Thirds of Himalayan Glaciers Could Melt if Global Climate Goals Fail
Failure to meet global climate goals could lead to warming of five degrees celsius in the Himalayan mountains and a loss of two-thirds of the region’s glaciers by the year 2100, with disastrous consequences for water supplies and food production for about two billion people in eight Asian countries, warns a new study.
Meeting the Paris agreement goals of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius will slow down the process, but one third of the region’s glaciers are still set to disappear according to the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, which conducted the five-year study. The problem is being exacerbated by severe air pollution in parts of the region.
“Big hit on agriculture, changing rainfall patterns, so what this translates into is sometimes too much water, sometimes too little water, and so we see the hazard of floods increasing or landslides, ” according to David Molden, Director General of ICIMOD. Pointing out that there has been far too little attention on this mountain hotspot, he says “It’s basically a highly vulnerable region to disasters because of these changes.”
The Hindu Kush Himalayan region covered by the study spans 3,500 kilometers across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.
According to the report, the ice masses on the Himalayas have been thinning and retreating since global warming set in and the present pace of warming will spike temperatures in mountain areas by 5 degrees celsius, whereas limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century would lead to a 2.1 degree spike in temperatures as mountains heat up faster.
“This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,” said Philippus Wester of the ICIMOD, who led the report, the “Hindu Kush Assessment.” Saying that global warming is on track to transform mountain peaks to bare rocks in a little less than a century, he says “projected reductions in pre-monsoon river flows and changes in the monsoon that will hit hardest, throwing urban water systems and food and energy production off kilt.”
The people affected would include some of the world’s most vulnerable communities in mountains and those living in the plains who rely on river systems that originate in the mountains — known as the water towers of Asia, the Himalayas feed 10 major rivers such as the Yangtze, the Ganges and the Indus.
“If glaciers are melting then first people get a little bit more water, but then there comes a time when actually there will be a reduction in contribution of glacier melt into our river systems,” according to Molden. “Some of the poorest people and most vulnerable people are living there, who do not really add to greenhouse gases but who are impacted by this kind of change.”
The study says that one-third of the 250 million people living in the mountains live on less that $2 a day.
Besides global warming, air pollution from the Indo-Gangetic Plains—one of the world’s most polluted regions is also impacting the mountains as these pollutants deposit black carbon and dust on the glaciers, hastening their melting according to the study.
The steps needed to prepare for the changes are altering existing agriculture systems, preparing for droughts, putting up early flood warning systems and protecting high mountain eco systems.
It also calls for greater attention to mountain areas in efforts to tackle global climate change and urges governments in the eight Asian countries to work together to turn the tide against melting glaciers.
“Its an urgent action needed at the global scale,” said Molden. “Mountains are these faraway places, great for holidays, beautiful locations, but I think we have not seen the level of science on mountains as say in the plains, or say in the Arctics.”
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Choir from Fire-Ravaged Community Sings of Hope
Music is helping to heal students displaced by the fires that raged through Northern California in November. More than 100 students from five schools in the fire-ravaged region are sharing their message of hope through song and dance.
Called Voices Strong United, the choir of more than 100 students has performed in affected communities since December. Half of the performers lost their homes, and all have been affected by the massive dislocation.
“On Nov. 8,” recalled retired music teacher Seth Gronseth, “the fire burned our hometown of Paradise and scattered 50,000 people from that ridge all over California and Oregon and Washington.”
Several other local communities were also devastated. Gronseth lost his home, as did thousands of his neighbors. He traveled with the choir to Southern California to perform for the National Association of Music Merchants in Anaheim, or NAMM. With more than 100,000 attendees, it’s one of the largest music trade shows in the world.
The so-called Camp Fire was one of a several destructive blazes that raged throughout California late last year and was the deadliest in state’s history. The fire killed more than 80 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, leaving much of the town of Paradise in ashes.
At the suggestion of a school administrator, Gronseth, who had retired from teaching at Paradise High School, helped create the choir to lift the community’s spirits. Their repertoire includes the Broadway show tune You Will Be Found and the inspirational anthem Rise Up, popularized by singer Andra Day.
Choir member Aaron Cagle also lost her home and is thrilled to be involved in the musical project.
It is “awesome,” she said, “that I get to be part of this thing that everybody is contributing to,” adding that “everyone is pulling together after the fire and helping each other out.”
Among the displaced teens was a Brazilian exchange student who was evacuated from Paradise, along with her host family, as the flames approached.
The choir “is a way of reconstructing not only the community, but ourselves, after what happened,” said Thais Santana. “It’s very, very healing,” she added.
This musical performance is important “because it’s a way to unite people,” said student and choir member Kya Beltran. She didn’t lose her home, but many of her neighbors and family members did. The choir allows students to “connect” with each other and their community after “something that’s traumatic, something that has destroyed everything,” she said.
Student and choir member Sofia DiBenedetto said it is difficult to talk about the future,”but I think people are starting to, not get over it, but the pain is going away a little bit.”
The community response to the fire has also been “uplifting,” said student Andy Thompson, because people have welcomed displaced neighbors into their homes.
“A lot of companies donated money, giving people gift cards and discounts at their stores, and it’s really awesome to see everyone come together,” she added.
Public performances like these give the students an opportunity to share their healing music with others, she said.
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More Grammy Nominees Makes Winning a Greater Challenge
When the Grammys added more nominees to its top four categories, the Recording Academy said the expansion from five to eight nominees would add more “flexibility” for voters. But for those artists competing for the night’s biggest awards, the change made it a little harder for any one nominee to win, statistically speaking.
For the first time in the history of the awards, eight nominees will compete in album of the year, record of the year, song of the year and best new artist. The change came after the Grammys were criticized for the lack of female winners on last year’s awards show and often rap and R&B artists don’t end up winning in the all-genre categories even when they are considered favorites.
Here’s a look at how expanding the number of nominees will affect the 2019 Grammys, airing live Sunday from Los Angeles.
Adding Diversity
When the nominations came out in December, the immediate effect was that women were a majority of the nominees in two of the top categories. In record of the year, five nominees are rap songs.
Neil Portnow, the academy’s president and CEO, said they wanted to expand the all-genre categories because those were the categories that got the most entries and had the largest number of voting members. Academy voters are performers, songwriters, producers, engineers, musicians and others currently working in the music industry. Last year, the academy also invited hundreds of new people to become voting members, which can also affect voting this year.
Portnow said adding three more slots for voters to choose from would “broaden the ability of entries to be more diverse,” not only in terms of gender and ethnicity but also the genres of music.
“I do think it’s had the positive change and impact we’re looking for,” he said.
Adding Competition
But just increasing the nominees doesn’t necessarily mean women and rap artists have a greater chance of winning. In fact, adding competition has made it harder for any single nominee to win, explains Ben Zauzmer, an awards analyst. Zauzmer is a freelance journalist who works for The Hollywood Reporter and has been using data to predict, often correctly, the winners of the Academy Awards.
Zauzmer says that these award shows are often hard to predict because they don’t release their vote totals, so he can’t predict winners with certainty, but uses logic and voting patterns to make speculations.
By increasing the number of nominees, the minimum percentage of the total votes an artist or song or album needs in order to win falls from a little over 20 percent to a little over 12.5 percent. But Zauzmer explains those numbers are misleading because that only happens when there is a near perfect tie among all the nominees, which is very unlikely, Zauzmer said.
“Even though you probably need fewer votes to win, there’s now a lot more competition in order to get those votes,” he said. “My best guess is this will reward songs or artists that have a truly devoted following.”
Unequal Odds
In the best new artist category, six female acts (H.E.R., Margo Price, Dua Lipa, Bebe Rexha, Chloe x Halle and Jorja Smith) are up against a male singer and male rock group (Luke Combs and Greta Van Fleet), which looks like good odds for a woman to win.
“If we assume that every artist has an equal chance of winning that category, it would be a 75 percent chance that a female artist wins new artist,” Zauzmer said. “That said, starting from the assumption that every artist has an equal probability is likely incorrect.”
For instance, one new artist nominee, the R&B singer H.E.R., is also nominated for album of the year, which would indicate a higher probability of being a Grammy voter favorite, Zauzmer noted.
Vote Splitting
The Grammys’ top categories are different than an awards show like the Oscars, in which voters rank their best picture nominees. Zauzmer said that a ranked choice voting system often results in rewarding movies that have a lot of consensus among the voters.
“A voting system that allows each person to vote for one favorite tends to reward songs that have a truly passionate following,” he said.
By expanding the nominees, vote splitting along genre lines or between two artists or songs that are similar becomes a real risk, Zauzmer said. Record of the year nominees include five rappers — Drake, Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone and Childish Gambino — competing against Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “Shallow,” Brandi Carlile’s “The Joke,” and the Zedd-Maren Morris-Grey collaboration “The Middle.” That’s a scenario where a split vote could hurt a rap song’s chances of winning.
Portnow noted that vote splitting happens whether there are five or eight nominees and is always a dynamic of the voting process.
Upsetting Results
But one long-term effect of the expansion of the nominees in these categories is a greater chance for upsets, Zauzmer said, although he doesn’t expect that to happen right away.
“I think a lot of people expect ‘Shallow’ to win at least one in the song or record categories,” he said. “But let’s give it time. If you watch the Grammys for the next decade, two decades, three decades, I do believe in the long run more nominees should lead to more surprises. The fact that you probably don’t need as many votes to win, the fact that some nominees might be splitting votes with each other who might otherwise be favorites, that can definitely lead to more so-called upsets.”
Portnow said until the results are announced, there’s no way to know how the additional nominees might affect the voting long-term. But he said they will definitely be looking at the results and evaluating how the process worked.
“Time will tell,” Portnow said.
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Handheld Cancer Detector Works in Hours Not Days
February 4 is designated as World Cancer Day, and the disease remains one of the world’s leading causes of death. Last year, there were close to two million new cases of cancer worldwide and more than 600-thousand people died of the disease. But progress is being made. Cancer mortality rates have been going down for decades, and new technology is making early detection easier. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Choir from Fire-Ravaged California Community Sings of Hope
The town of Paradise, California was ravaged by a fire in November that killed more than 80 people and drove thousands from their homes. Now music is helping survivors with their recovery, as we hear from Mike O’Sullivan.
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Chronic Pain Given as Top Reason for Using Medical Marijuana
Chronic pain is the most common reason people give when they enroll in state-approved medical marijuana programs.
That’s followed by stiffness from multiple sclerosis and chemotherapy-related nausea, according to an analysis of 15 states published Monday in the journal Health Affairs.
The study didn’t measure whether marijuana actually helped anyone with their problems, but the patients’ reasons match up with what’s known about the science of marijuana and its chemical components.
“The majority of patients for whom we have data are using cannabis for reasons where the science is the strongest,” said lead author Kevin Boehnke of University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
California became the first state to allow medical use of marijuana in 1996. More than 30 states now allow marijuana for dozens of health problems. Lists of allowable conditions vary by state, but in general, a doctor must certify a patient has an approved diagnosis.
While the U.S. government has approved medicines based on compounds found in the plant, it considers marijuana illegal and imposes limits on research. That’s led to states allowing some diseases and symptoms where rigorous science is lacking. Most of the evidence comes from studying pharmaceuticals based on marijuana ingredients, not from studies of smoked marijuana or edible forms.
Dementia and glaucoma, for example, are conditions where marijuana hasn’t proved valuable, but some states include them. Many states allow Parkinson’s disease or post-traumatic stress disorder where evidence is limited.
The analysis is based on 2016 data from the 15 states that reported the reasons given for using marijuana. Researchers compared the symptoms and conditions with a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence: a 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
About 85 percent of patients’ reasons were supported by substantial or conclusive evidence in the National Academies report.
The study shows people are learning about the evidence for cannabis and its chemical components, said Ziva Cooper of University of California Los Angeles’ Cannabis Research Initiative. Cooper served on the National Academies report committee, but wasn’t involved in the new study.
About two-thirds of the about 730,000 reasons were related to chronic pain, the study found. Patients could report more than one pain condition, so the figure may overestimate patient numbers.
Patients include 37-year-old Brandian Smith of Pana, Illinois, who qualifies because she has fibromyalgia. On bad days, her muscles feel like they’re being squeezed in a vise. She said she has stopped taking opioid painkillers because marijuana works better for her. She spends about $300 a month at her marijuana dispensary.
“Cannabis is the first thing I’ve found that actually makes the pain go away and not leave me so high that I can’t enjoy my day,” Smith said.
The study also found:
Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon saw a decline in medical marijuana patients after legalization of recreational marijuana in those states.
More than 800,000 patients were enrolled in medical marijuana programs in 2017 in 19 states. That doesn't count California and Maine, which don't require patients to register. Other estimates have put the number at more than 2 million.
From Dorm to Dominance: Growing Pains as Facebook Turns 15
Facebook, trudging through its awkward teenage years, is turning 15 on Monday.
Launched in 2004 as “TheFacebook,” the service was originally intended only for Harvard students. It’s now a massive global business that connects some 2.3 billion users. It was born in an era of desktop computers, years before the iPhone, and ran no ads.
At the time it was impossible to imagine that someday countries like Russia and Iran would try to use it for sophisticated information operations in order to influence elections around the world.
In 2004, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest problem may have been almost getting kicked out of Harvard. Zuckerberg’s 2019 worries include the threat of government regulation of the empire he has built and the gnawing possibility that despite its stated lofty goals around connecting people and building community, Facebook may not be good for the world.
Today, it’s hard to take a subway in New York or a tram in Budapest, Hungary without overhearing the word “Facebook” or “Instagram” in conversation or seeing their apps open on passenger phones. The social network has transformed the world, for better and for worse, and its effect will be debated for years.
Here are some numbers that give an idea of Facebook’s past, present and future:
Number of monthly users as of Dec. 31, 2018: 2.32 billion
Number of daily users as of this date: 1.5 billion
Number of people in the world with internet access: 3.9 billion
Year Facebook reached 1 billion users: 2012
Number of users affected by the Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal: up to 87 million
2018 revenue: $55 billion
2018 profit: $22 billion
Number of employees in 2018: 35,587
Number of employees in 2004: About 7
Year the iPhone launched: 2007
Year Facebook launched its iPhone app: 2008
Year Facebook bought Instagram: 2012
Money it paid to buy it: $1 billion
Money it paid to buy WhatsApp a year later: $19 billion
Amount Facebook spent lobbying the U.S. government in 2018: $12.6 million
Amount it spent lobbying the U.S. government in 2010: $259,507
Initial public offering stock price on May 18, 2012: $38
Lowest stock price, reached on Sept. 4, 2012: $17.55
Highest stock price, reached on July 25, 2018: $218.62
Market value Facebook lost the next day , a stock market record: $119 billion
Kuwait's GDP: $120 billion
Mark Zuckerberg's net worth as of Friday: $62.4 billion
Date he said the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced elections was "pretty crazy": Nov. 10, 2016
Date he wrote on Facebook he regrets saying that: Sept. 27, 2017
Number of hours Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April 2018 on election interference, privacy and other issues: 10
Number of followers he has on Facebook: 119 million
Number of kids he has: 2
Sources: Facebook, International Telecommunications Union, Forbes, FactSet, lobbying disclosure forms
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Tech Women in Silicon Valley Likely to Be Foreign-Born
Pushpa Ithal may not fit the stereotype of the typical Silicon Valley CEO — she’s female, foreign-born, and a mother.
Nevertheless, Ithal is an entrepreneur, living the Silicon Valley dream of running her own startup.
Like her, many foreign-born tech women are finding a place in the Valley — as tech companies have become more and more dependent on foreign-born workers to create their products and services.
Silicon Valley, the global center for high-tech innovation, could be renamed “Immigrant Valley.” When it comes to technical talent, the engine of Silicon Valley is fueled by foreign-born workers, many of whom are from humble roots. And having worked hard to get here, many have ambitions beyond their day jobs.
One of them is Ithal.
On Sundays, she and her two children, ages 5 and 10, pick out the clothes the kids will wear the coming week. Each outfit is placed on a labeled hanger. Then she does the same with the week’s snacks.
“So there are no surprises for the kids,” Ithal said.
Being organized is one of Ithal’s strategies for juggling parenting and running her own startup. And while that juggle is commonplace in Silicon Valley, Ithal is part of a distinct club — foreign-born women in tech.
Hailing from countries such as India and China, these women make up the majority of all women in certain Silicon Valley fields and are often the only females on male-dominated teams in tech companies.
Their uniqueness does not stop there. Foreign-born women in tech are more likely to be married and have children than their U.S.-born female coworkers.
Immigrant Valley
Born in Bangalore, India, Ithal has worked for big tech companies and startups. Her husband, also from India, has built successful startups. Starting her own firm, however, was a leap.
“I came here all the way, let’s risk it,” recalled Ithal, founder and CEO of a company called MarketBeam, which is an AI-driven social marketing company.
More than 60 percent of tech workers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, home to Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other U.S. tech firms, are immigrants, according to the Silicon Valley Institute of Regional Studies. Immigrants work at all levels of the industry. Many are executives, company founders and venture capitalists.
But foreign-born women stand out. In an industry where women make up about 20 percent of the technical workforce, many of these jobs are filled by foreign-born women.
Technical roles
Nearly three-quarters of all women in their prime working year and in technical occupations in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, according to the institute. In computers and mathematics, foreign-born women make up nearly 80 percent of the female workforce.
The numbers surprised Rachel Massaro, vice president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley and senior researcher at the institute. It’s her job to contribute to an annual index of Silicon Valley that looks at housing, transportation and population.
“I double-checked, triple-checked the number just to make sure it was even real,” Massaro said.
Many things contribute to foreign-born women dominating tech — the dearth of women seeking a technical education in the United States, and an emphasis on tech education for girls in other countries, with many seeing technical skills as a path to financial independence and possibly a work visa in the U.S.
There are also stereotypes of what women can and should do with their lives both in the U.S. and overseas.
Working and raising children
Looking more closely at these women, Massaro found a few other surprises — 71 percent of foreign-born female tech workers ages 25-44 are married, compared to 39 percent of native-born female tech workers.
And they are more likely to be mothers — 44 percent have children, compared to 27 percent of U.S.-born female workers.
One of those women is Lingling Shi, who was born in China. She saw studying computer science as her ticket.
“Computer science, for most of us, it’s easier to apply for a green card,” she said. “It’s not my main interest, I’ll be honest.”
But Shi has succeeded in each of her jobs — she brushes up on any new technical areas online in the evenings — and is now vice president of digital banking technology at East West Bank. With her husband, who is also from China and in tech, she is raising her son.
“I guess for Chinese, the family building is most important thing,” she said.
No amount of career success would fulfill her parents’ desire for grandchildren. The message from family is clear, Shi said — “Oh, you are VP of Engineering now, but you don’t have a kid?”
Many women from India and China are “under a set of cultural expectations and norms that they will have a family right away — and they will excel in their careers,” said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information, who has written about immigrants in tech.
“These women are really kind of super women in the tasks that they take on,” she added.
As Silicon Valley looks to bring more women into the technical workforce, these women provide a model of how to thrive.
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Check Your Compass: Magnetic North Pole Is on Move
True north isn’t quite where it used to be.
Earth’s north magnetic pole has been drifting so fast in the last few decades that scientists that past estimates are no longer accurate enough for precise navigation. On Monday, they released an update of where true north really was, nearly a year ahead of schedule.
The magnetic north pole is wandering about 34 miles (55 kilometers) a year. It crossed the international date line in 2017, and is leaving the Canadian Arctic on its way to Siberia.
The constant shift is a problem for compasses in smartphones and some consumer electronics. Airplanes and boats also rely on magnetic north, usually as backup navigation, said University of Colorado geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat, lead author of the newly issued World Magnetic Model. GPS isn’t affected because it’s satellite-based.
Magnetic north has military uses
The military depends on where magnetic north is for navigation and parachute drops, while NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Forest Service also use it. Airport runway names are based on their direction toward magnetic north and their names change when the poles moved. For example, the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska, renamed a runway 1L-19R to 2L-20R in 2009.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and United Kingdom tend to update the location of the magnetic north pole every five years in December, but this update came early because of the pole’s faster movement.
The movement of the magnetic north pole “is pretty fast,” Chulliat said.
Pole’s pace has increased
Since 1831 when it was first measured in the Canadian Arctic it has moved about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) toward Siberia. Its speed jumped from about 9 mph (15 kph) to 34 mph (55 kph) since 2000.
The reason is turbulence in Earth’s liquid outer core. There is a hot liquid ocean of iron and nickel in the planet’s core where the motion generates an electric field, said University of Maryland geophysicist Daniel Lathrop, who wasn’t part of the team monitoring the magnetic north pole.
“It has changes akin to weather,” Lathrop said. “We might just call it magnetic weather.”
The magnetic south pole is moving far slower than the north.
In general Earth’s magnetic field is getting weaker, leading scientists to say that it will eventually flip, where north and south pole changes polarity, like a bar magnet flipping over. It has happened numerous times in Earth’s past, but not in the last 780,000 years.
“It’s not a question of if it’s going to reverse, the question is when it’s going to reverse,” Lathrop said.
Flip will take time
When it reverses, it won’t be like a coin flip, but take 1,000 or more years, experts said.
Lathrop sees a flip coming sooner rather than later because of the weakened magnetic field and an area over the South Atlantic has already reversed beneath Earth’s surface.
That could bother some birds that use magnetic fields to navigate. And an overall weakening of the magnetic field isn’t good for people and especially satellites and astronauts. The magnetic field shields Earth from some dangerous radiation, Lathrop said.
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Report: Norway’s Arctic Islands at Risk of ‘Devastating’ Warming
Arctic islands north of Norway are warming faster than almost anywhere on Earth and more avalanches, rain and mud may cause “devastating” changes by 2100, a Norwegian report said on Monday.
The thaw on the remote Svalbard islands, home to 2,300 people and where the main village of Longyearbyen is 1,300 kms (800 miles) from the North Pole, highlights risks in other parts of the Arctic from Alaska to Siberia.
Average temperatures on Svalbard have leapt between three and five degrees Celsius (5.4-9.0 Fahrenheit) since the early 1970s and could rise by a total of 10C (18F) by 2100 if world greenhouse gas emissions keep climbing, the study said.
Almost 200 governments promised in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit a rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times by 2100. Worldwide, temperatures are up about 1C (1.8F).
On Svalbard, the envisaged rise in temperatures would thaw the frozen ground underpinning many buildings, roads and airports, cause more avalanches, “slushflows” and landslides, melt glaciers and threaten wildlife such as polar bears and seals that rely on sea ice to hunt.
“A 10 degree warming, with the implications for Arctic nature, ice-dependent species, will be devastating,” Climate and Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen told Reuters.
Norway will have to increase investment to relocate buildings from avalanche paths and drill deeper infrastructure foundations as permafrost thaws, the report said.
Two people died in 2015 when an avalanche destroyed 10 houses in Longyearbyen.
Many other parts of the Arctic, especially its islands, are also warming far quicker than the world average as the retreat of snow and sea ice exposes darker water and ground that soaks up ever more of the sun’s heat.
Temperatures on Svalbard would stay around current levels only if governments make unprecedented cuts in global emissions, the report said. Not enough
“No one is doing enough” to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Elvestuen said of government actions. “We have to do more … The use of oil and gas has to go down.” Norway is western Europe’s biggest oil and gas exporter.
Inger Hanssen-Bauer, head of the Norwegian Centre for Climate Services, which produced the report, said the findings were a warning for the rest of the Arctic.
“The main message is that these changes are happening so fast,” she told Reuters.
Ketil Isaksen, a lead author at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, urged researchers to pay more attention to landslides as the permafrost melts. “There is now a lot of focus on snow avalanches, but landslides in summer should be taken more into account,” he said.
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Social Media Giants Blamed for British Teenage Suicides
“She had so much to offer.”
Ian Russell is speaking of his 14-year-old daughter Molly, the youngest of three sisters, who committed suicide in 2017, leaving a note that read, “I am sorry. I did this because of me.”
After Molly’s suicide, her parents examined the teenager’s social media use and discovered she was interacting with other teenage users caught in the grip of depression and who were suicidal and self-harming. The users were almost grooming themselves and goading each other to take drastic action.
“I have no doubt that Instagram helped kill my daughter,” Molly’s father told the BBC in an explosive interview that drew a public apology from U.S. social media giant Facebook, owner of the photo sharing site Instagram, as well as a promise to do more to tackle suicide and self-harming posts.
“We’re going to look at this from top to bottom and change everything we’re doing, if necessary, to get this right,” Nick Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister and now Facebook’s head of global affairs, said in a statement.
The promise, though, has done little to tamp down criticism.
In the past eight years, the suicide rate among British teenagers has nearly doubled. Last year around 200 schoolchildren killed themselves. Tech giants do not bear all of the responsibility for the deaths, their critics say, but they are abetting them by not doing enough to help stop them.
Amid growing public uproar, the British government has said next month, it will unveil groundbreaking legislation designed to enforce a legal duty of care on such firms.
“Social media companies clearly need to do more to ensure they are not promoting harmful content to vulnerable people,” said a government official.
The British plan to order social media providers to protect users against material that promotes suicide methods and self-harm will be watched closely by policymakers in other European countries, who are also grappling with how to cope with malign consequences of social media use.
Germany is cracking down on what Facebook does with users’ personal data. In France, the government is “embedding” regulators inside social media companies to investigate how they combat online hate speech.
Since January, Facebook, in particular, has been targeted for criticism in the United States. The company operates a unique suite of apps, but U.S. critics say the social media giant is too casual about social responsibilities.
U.S. lawmakers accuse Facebook of doing too little to stop Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race, and along with YouTube and Twitter, it has been attacked for being slow in taking down jihadist posts and videos.
Laying the groundwork for the British measure, the country’s chief medical officer will announce this week that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp figure as important links in a dangerous chain leading from self-harm to suicide.
Sally Davies will urge parents to be more alert and to limit, as well as monitor, their children’s screen time.
The legislation is likely to be based on recommendations from a British parliamentary committee which wrapped up an inquiry last week and concluded social media use is disrupting young users’ sleep patterns, distorting their body image and leaving them exposed to bullying, grooming and sexting.
The panel said that self-regulation will no longer suffice.
“We must see an independent, statutory regulator established as soon as possible, one which has the full support of the government to take strong and effective actions against companies who do not comply,” the committee said.
Clegg said some of the criticism is over-wrought. In a television interview last week, he said the company had “saved the lives” of thousands of potentially suicidal users by flagging them to authorities.
Recent academic studies, including one by psychologists at Oxford University, suggest that social media use has no major adverse impact on mental health. The Oxford University study concluded that “wearing glasses has more negative effect on adolescent mental health.”
But the academic studies are not assuaging critics, and some lawmakers cast doubt on their overall accuracy, saying they do not look closely enough on teenage girls, who seem the most vulnerable.
“Worryingly, social media companies — who have a clear responsibility toward particularly young users — seem to be in no rush to share vital data with academics that could help tackle the very real harms our young people face in the virtual world,” said lawmaker Norman Lamb.
More than 30 British families have complained that social media giants have blocked or hindered their access to social media data after their children’s suicides. A requirement on firms to share data which can help identify and protect teenagers at risk will likely be among the new legal requirements the government unveils, officials said.
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Grammy-Nominated Rapper 21 Savage Arrested, Faces Deportation
UPDATE 2-Grammy-nominated rapper 21 Savage arrested, faces deportation
Grammy-nominated Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage was arrested on Sunday by U.S. immigration officials, who said he was illegally in the country and a convicted felon.
The rapper, whose real name is Sha Yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, came to the United States from the UK in 2005, overstaying his visa to settle in Atlanta, said Bryan Cox, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Cox said Abraham-Joseph, whose 21 Savage Facebook page shows several upcoming concerts, was in custody in Georgia and faced deportation proceedings in federal immigration courts.
He said Abraham-Joseph was convicted on felony drug charges in Georgia in 2014, and was arrested on Sunday as part of a targeted operation with the cooperation of local law enforcement.
“Our staff are in contact with the lawyer of a British man following his detention in the USA,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in statement. British officials only get involved in such cases if the person involved is a British passport holder.
The rapper’s lawyer, Dina LaPolt, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on Sunday, but told the entertainment publication Variety that Abraham-Joseph was a “role model” who was working on financial literacy programs aimed at helping underprivileged youth.
“We are working diligently to get Mr. Abraham-Joseph out of detention while we work with authorities to clear up any misunderstanding,” she said, according to Variety.
Cox said he did not know whether Abraham-Joseph, who media reports said is 26, would have been eligible for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, which protects “Dreamers”, young immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children. DACA does not cover people convicted of felonies.
Variety said the rapper performed as recently as Thursday in Atlanta as part of the run-up to Sunday’s Super Bowl game in the city. His most recent album, “I Am > I Was”, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the publication said.
An ICE official told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that when Abraham-Joseph was arrested in 2014, ICE was not aware of his immigration status. It only learned later that he is allegedly from the UK, the official said.
your ad hereAfrica’s Growing Economies, Youth Create E-Waste Challenge
A new report says the world produces at least 50 million tons of electronic waste each year, and that number is expected to double 30 years from now. The impact of all that electronic junk is especially felt in Africa.
Mobile phones are increasingly common gadgets across Africa. You can get a phone for as little as $10 in the streets of Nairobi.
Most Kenyans, however, don’t know how to safely dispose of their old phones when they get a new one.
“I have a spoiled phone. I have kept at home maybe for future use or dispose it one day…mostly if it’s not working, I can decide to throw it away. It depends on how it has spoiled. I throw it away,” Winnie says.
It’s this kind of behavior that has environmentalists concerned, as many phones, once thrown away, end up in rivers and oceans.
The U.N. Environmental Program estimates that 50 million tons of electronic waste was produced in 2018. It says that number could climb to 120 million tons by the year 2050.
One half of so-called e-waste comprises personal devices like computers, smartphones and tablets.
Simon Omengo uses unorthodox means to dispose of his electronic gadgets.
“Since its motherboard failed then automatically I disposed it. I threw it in the toilet. I burn it, I break into pieces because it’s useless to me now,” Omengo says.
Winnie says the government needs to come up with ways to safely dispose of old devices.
“Our government (needs) to come up with a place where we can take all the gadgets, especially the phones which are spoiled. We go and dispose them there and they will know how they will dispose them, rather than just scattering around because some of the people they just throw them in the dust pin and its hazard to the environment,” Winnie says.
Experts say electronic devices are becoming complicated to repair and some don’t last long.
With more devices being thrown away, one Kenya-based group, Enviroserve, is trying to change how Africa’s e-waste is managed by stripping down re-useable metals and plastics from phones. Some materials remain in Kenya, while other parts like batteries are shipped abroad.
Shaun Mumford, the head of the company, says old phones have been simply dumped in Kenya for years.
“It wasn’t done in a way that is useful, and also it was staying here. So what we are able to do instead of Africa being the dumping ground, which historically been the case, we are able to deal with what makes sense here and send back out of the country things that need to be dealt with properly,” Mumford says.
More than half the population is under the age of 30 and the demand for the latest electronics – and dumping the old ones – is only growing.
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New England Patriots Win Low-Scoring Super Bowl
The New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in Sunday’s Super Bowl in Atlanta, capturing their third National Football League championship in the span of five years.
For Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, the victory was his sixth in a Super Bowl, extending a record he already owned.
The 41-year-old star has struck down talk that he might retire after having now played in his 19th NFL season, saying during the postgame trophy ceremony, “How could this not motivate you?”
Both teams struggled to score throughout the game, with the Patriots holding a 3-0 lead at halftime and scoring the game’s only touchdown with seven minutes remaining in the final quarter.
Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman was named the game’s most valuable player after catching 10 passes for 141 yards.
”He deserves it,” Brady said. “That was one of the best games he ever played.”
The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched television events each year, as many Americans host or attend parties to watch the game.
For many, the commercials shown during breaks in the action are a bigger draw than the game itself. Many companies roll out new television ads created especially for the big game, and they pay big money to get those ads in front of viewers. This year a 30-second advertising spot cost more than $5 million, according to AdWeek.
The halftime show is also another big draw for many people. This year the NFL had some difficulty finding big-name performers for the show. Several performers, including Jay-Z, Cardi B and Rihanna, spurned the league’s offer to appear at the event as a show of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick is a black player who accused the NFL of conspiring to keep teams from signing him over his protests of racism and police brutality during the national anthem played before games.
Rappers Travis Scott and Big Boi, as well as the pop group Maroon 5, eventually signed on to perform, but Scott and Maroon 5 agreed to appear only after the league agreed to make contributions to various charities.
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Grammy-Nominated Rapper 21 Savage Arrested in US
Grammy-nominated Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage was arrested by U.S. immigration officials on Sunday, who said he was illegally in the country and a convicted felon.
The rapper, whose real name is Sha Yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, came to the United States from the UK as a teenager in 2005, overstaying his visa to settle in Atlanta, said Bryan Cox, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Cox said Abraham-Joseph, whose 21 Savage Facebook page shows several upcoming concerts, was in custody in Georgia and faced deportation proceedings in federal immigration courts.
He said Abraham-Joseph was convicted on felony drug charges in Georgia in 2014, and was arrested on Sunday as part of a targeted operation with the cooperation of local law enforcement.
The rapper’s lawyer, Dina LaPolt, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on Sunday, but told the entertainment publication Variety that Abraham-Joseph was a “role model” who was working on financial literacy programs aimed at helping underprivileged youth.
“We are working diligently to get Mr. Abraham-Joseph out of detention while we work with authorities to clear up any misunderstanding,” she said, according to Variety.
Cox said he did not know whether Abraham-Joseph, who media reports said is 26, would have been eligible for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, which protects “Dreamers,” young immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children. DACA does not cover people convicted of felonies.
Variety said the rapper performed as recently as Thursday in Atlanta as part of the run-up to Sunday’s Super Bowl game in the city. His most recent album, “I Am > I Was,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the publication said.
An ICE official told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that when Abraham-Joseph was arrested in 2014, ICE was not aware of his immigration status. It only learned later that he is allegedly from the UK, the official said.
your ad hereAmericans Set for a Super Sunday
Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the day of the national championship for American football. This year the New England Patriots will play the Los Angeles Rams in Atlanta for the National Football League’s (NFL) Vince Lombardi Trophy.
This will be the 11th time the Patriots compete in the Super Bowl, and the third straight year they’ve contended for the title. They lost last year’s game to the Philadelphia Eagles.
It’s the fourth appearance for the Rams, who last played in the Super Bowl in 2002 when they were defeated by the Patriots. At that time the Rams were based in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched television events each year, as many Americans host or attend parties to watch the game. For many, the commercials shown during breaks in the action on the field are a bigger draw than the game itself. Many companies roll out new television ads created especially for the big game, and they pay big money to get those ads in front of viewers. This year a 30-second advertising spot will cost more than $5 million, according to AdWeek.
The halftime show is also another big draw for many people. This year the NFL had some difficulty finding big-name performers for the show. Several performers, including Jay-Z, Cardi B and Rihanna, spurned the league’s offer to appear at the event as a show of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick is a black player who accused the NFL of conspiring to keep teams from signing him because of his protests of racism and police brutality during the national anthem played before games.
Rappers Travis Scott and Big Boi, as well as the pop group Maroon 5, eventually signed on to perform, but Scott and Maroon 5 agreed to appear only after the league agreed to make contributions to various charities.
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Chicago Beach Keeps Locals Warm During Polar Vortex
Spending a cold winter day at the beach is not something most people would choose to do … unless it is The Beach Chicago, where visitors can laugh at the weather. The peculiar art installation allows locals and tourists to stay warm during the abnormally cold temperatures. Reporter Yekaterina Yalovetskaya joined the beach-goers, and Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Robots Dance, Tell Jokes, Serve Dinner, Give Us a Glimpse of the Future
Owners of a new café in the Hungarian capital Budapest are using robotics as a way of giving their customers a new experience. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Start a Start-up: University in Texas Helps Students Become Entrepreneurs
In December 2018, Apple announced its plans to build a new campus in Austin. Texas is rapidly becoming more and more attractive for tech companies and is often called a second Silicon Valley, thanks to affordable housing, highly qualified workers and the abundance of universities that train IT professionals. Mariia Prus traveled to Dallas to see how universities help their students become entrepreneurs. Joy Wagner has her report.
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Scientists Enlist Incredibly Tiny Allies in Cancer Fight
Researchers and doctors are using incredibly tiny particles — fluorescent nanoparticles — in a quest for new ways to fight cancer. Some nanoparticles, just billionths of a meter across, are engineered to carry special dye that glows when it hits cancer cells. Oregon State University scientists say this makes it easier for surgeons to find and remove tumors. Iryna Matviichuk visited Portland and learned the new procedure is closer to testing in human patients. Anna Rice narrates her report.
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Egypt Unveils Ancient Burial Site, Home to 50 Mummies
Egyptian archaeologists uncovered a tomb containing 50 mummies dating to the Ptolemaic era, in Minya, south of Cairo, the Ministry of Antiquities said Saturday.
The mummies, 12 of which were of children, were discovered inside four, 9-meter-deep burial chambers in the Tuna el-Gebel archaeological site.
The identities of the mummies aren’t known, said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
“We have not found names written in hieroglyphics,” he said, adding it was obvious from the mummification method that the individuals whose remains were found had to some extent held important or prestigious positions.
Visitors, including ambassadors from several countries, gathered at the discovery site, where 40 of the mummies were exhibited during the announcement ceremony.
Some of the mummies were found wrapped in linen while others had been placed in stone coffins or wooden sarcophagi.
The archaeological finding was the first of 2019 and was unearthed through a joint mission with the Research Center for Archaeological Studies of Minya University.
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