World Optimism Over Obama: The wave of good feeling about the Obama administration reaches well beyond the borders of the United States. A survey of people in 17 nations found that solid majorities in most think his administration will lead to improved relations between the United States and the rest of the world. The survey, conducted for the BBC World Service, found that 67 percent believe relations will improve, up 21 percentage points from six months ago. Asked to rank priorities for the Obama White House, respondents placed the world financial crisis first, followed by withdrawal from Iraq, climate change, improving relations between the United States and the respondent's country, peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and support for Afghanistan. In only two countries did optimism fail to reach majority levels. In Japan, 48 percent expressed optimism, and in Russia, 47 percent. The poll was based on responses from more than 17,000 adults in such countries as Germany, Britain, Mexico, Nigeria, India, Chile, and Egypt.
Women Best at Spotting Cute Babies: When it comes to spotting cute babies, some women are better than others, a study has found. Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland found that women between the ages of 19 to 26 and 45 to 51 were better able to spot cute babies than men in the same age groups. However, women 53 to 60 performed at the same level as men. "Because average age at menopause is 51 years in the U.K., these findings suggest the possible involvement of reproductive hormones in cuteness sensitivity," said Reiner Sprengelmeyer, a coauthor of the report on the study, published in Psychological Science. He added that "pre-menopausal women and young women taking oral contraceptives, which raise hormone levels artificially, were more sensitive to variations of cuteness than their respective comparison groups." Sprengelmeyer concludes: "Given that cuteness is considered an indicator of being young, helpless, and in need of care, we hypothesize that the ability to detect small variations in the degree of cuteness may have evolved to guide the allocation of necessary maternal resources to the infant."
More Than 1,200 Alleged Incidents of Human Trafficking Reported: Between January 2007 and September 2008, there were 1,229 alleged incidents of human trafficking in the United States, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. The bureau says that 83 percent of the incidents involved sex trafficking, 32 percent involved sex trafficking of children, and 12 percent involved labor trafficking. Women were most likely to be victims, accounting for 90 percent of all trafficking victims and 99 percent of those involved in sex trafficking. Men made up 40 percent of the victims of labor trafficking. Hispanics and Asians were the most affected, with Hispanics making up 37 percent of the alleged sex trafficking victims and 56 percent of labor victims. Perpetrators were overwhelming male, making up nearly 8 in 10 of the suspects.
Freedom in Retreat: For the third year in a row, political rights and civil liberties declined in 2008, according to a recent survey. "Freedom in the World 2009," conducted by Freedom House, an independent group that has monitored rights since 1972, examined freedoms in all 193 countries and 16 strategic territories and found that rights declined in 34 countries and improved in just 14. The former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa had the largest reversals, while South Asia showed the most improvement. "The advance of freedom in South Asia was a rare bright spot in a year that was otherwise marked by setbacks and stagnation," said Arch Puddington, Freedom House's director of research. The number of countries judged free totaled 89,while 62 were judged partly free and 42 were ruled not free. The eight countries that received the survey's lowest rankings were North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Libya, Sudan, Burma, Equatorial Guinea, and Somalia.
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