STA, 11 February - Women remain under-represented in scientific and technical professions, especially at senior levels. Unconscious bias, double standards and gender stereotypes are some of the reasons why headway towards gender equality in this field remains sluggish. Indeed, in some areas there has not been any progress at all.

Worldwide only about a third of research staff are women and only about 30% of women opt for programmes that fall under the umbrella of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), according to UNESCO data.

University of Nova Gorica astrophysicist Andreja Gomboc, who chairs a commission for equal opportunities in science, says low representation of women in STEM is bad not just for women but for these fields of scientific endeavour in general.

"Women significantly contribute to tackling the big issues humanity faces in the 21st century and it is necessary to create opportunities for their full participation in science. Addressing these issues requires leveraging the entire human potential," Gomboc told the STA ahead of the 11 January International Day of Girls and Women in Science.

For women, not choosing a career in STEM limits their career options since the high-tech society of today offers huge employment opportunities for STEM graduates. "If girls do not chose these fields, they don't have the opportunities."

Gomboc says gender discrimination is no longer as explicit as it used to be, but there is still a lot of bias, double standards and gender stereotypes that dissuade women from pursuing a career in science.

Slovenia's largest university, the University of Ljubljana, has been dominated by men since it was established a century ago. The latest figures show the ratio of men to women among faculty is roughly 60:40, with the share of women declining the farther up the career ladder one goes.

In 2018, there were 56% of men among assistant professors, 60% among associate professors and 69% among tenured professors, according to Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrčela, professor of sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Despite the persistent imbalance, she believes that the situation will gradually improve as the share of men has been declining. "It is expected that in the coming years the gender structure will be balanced across all job segments," she says.

Gomboc believes that in order to improve the conditions for female researchers, it is necessary to consistently comply with gender equality provisions at all levels. This does not mean men and women have to be the same, it means that "we are equal in practice, that we have equal opportunities and equally participate in all spheres of public and private life".

She says Slovenia has some good baseline solutions, for example 12-month parental leave, but new steps are being made very slowly. "We know what we have to put down in the sections on gender equality in applications for EU projects and strategy documents ... but then many ignore that."

Indeed, she says there has been a negative trends in certain areas, for example in top national awards for science. "Among last year's recipients of Zois and Puch prizes, there were only 12% of women and few women were nominated. This means that the environments in which women researchers work do not value their achievements the same way they value the achievements of their male colleagues."

Our other stories tagged “women in Slovenia” are here

STA, 10 February 2020 - Slovenia's industrial output increased by 3% last year, the sixth consecutive year of growth. The output in December was 1% higher than in the same month a year ago but 1.8% lower than in November.

Fresh data from the Statistics Office show an annual growth in the value of industrial production, stocks and turnover in industry.

The 3% growth rate in industrial output last year is a slowdown compared to the 5% growth rate recorded in 2018 and a six-year high rate of 8.4% in 2017.

The growth was driven by a 3.4% growth in manufacturing, while the electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector and mining and quarrying contracted by 0.8% and 3.6%, respectively.

Industrial turnover increased by 2.3%, owing to a 3.1% growth in the foreign market and a 1% growth in the domestic market. Sales revenue rose across all main industrial groupings, the most in consumer goods industries, at 4.5%.

In December, industrial turnover was 1.8% lower than in November and 1.5% higher than in December 2018.

The value of stocks rose by 4.1% last year. In December their value fell by 0.5% compared to the month before but rose by 2.9% year-on-year.

More on the data can be found here

STA, 11 February 2020 - The opposition Democrats (SDS) are expected to conduct a fresh round of coalition talks with three parliamentary parties after the resignation of PM Marjan Šarec. The potential coalition partners, Modern Centre Party (SMC), New Slovenia (NSi) and Pensioners' Party (DeSUS), have not officially confirmed the talks.

The first round of talks was held last Friday and SDS head Janez Janša announced the second round for today in the invitation to that meeting.

DeSUS leader Aleksandra Pivec labelled the first meeting as "the SDS testing the ground to see if there was readiness to continue", noting content or staff had not been on the table yet.

So this is expected to be on the agenda today. It should therefore become clear in the coming days if the parties will be able to overcome their differences. For now, all parties are tight-lipped about the talks.

The three parties are still checking the sentiment among their members, with the situation being the most turbulent in the SMC.

Its vice president, Ksenija Klampfer, the outgoing labour minister, left the party yesterday in protest of the talks with the SDS. The party's former president and founder, Miro Cerar, has also ruled out being part of a Janša-led government.

SMC head Zdravko Počivalšek said it was perfectly understandable that opinions differ but he thinks issues should be discussed rather than "doors slammed".

He has been arguing that the way to an operative and strong government leads through dialogue not a policy of exclusions.

Check the date at the top of the page, and you can find all the "morning headlines" stories here. You can also follow us on Facebook and get all the news in your feed.

A schedule of all the main events involving Slovenia this week can be found here

This summary is provided by the STA:

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Pust, carnival, also Mardi Gras, this year begins on Fat Thursday, February 20, and concludes on Ash Wednesday, February 26.

Around 1300 AD the Christian authorities, unable to get rid of the pagan festivities celebrating the end of winter and beginning of spring, pushed them into the time before Lent and the 40 days of fasting, when pretty much everyone (except perhaps the head of the house) ate very little, if at all, until Easter.

Pust has long been time of decadence, heavy eating (and drinking), crossdressing and, since the masks mean you have no idea who is who, the opportunity for all sorts of shenanigans, crime included.

This also isn’t a festival of political correctness, for example on the website of kurentovanje in Ptuj we learn that among traditional ethnographic characters we also find Gypsies: “Gypsies from Dornava at Ptujsko polje are unique in this region. Almost all villagers dress up in Gypsies, the habit which has been alive for decades now. They assume many different roles, such as fortune-telling, knife-grinding, music playing, chicken-stealing, and the like.”

Kurentovanje (named after perhaps best known traditional maškara – the kurent, since 2017 on UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage list) of Ptuj, the first place to begin the carnival has already started on February 7^th. Please click here for more information in English on pust in Ptuj and this year’s programme.

Want a world record for the most countries visited in a short period of time? Then add Slovenia to the list. Andrej Roza Rozman has a comic poem that calls Slovenia the nation with the best location, and while that could be argued pro and con from a variety of angles, it’s an undeniable truth that Slovenia is easy to traverse and neighbours four countries. It’s even got the Tromeje (Triple Border), where it meets Italy and Austria, giving the rare opportunity to be in three countries at once.

Tromeje, or Tri confini in Italian, where can visit three countries in no time

What follows are thus the nine records in the current Guinness Book of World Records that make use of Slovenia’s strategic location to achieve feats of considerable planning and ultimate success.

In 2011 Greg Parmley, from the UK, lived his dream and became the current world record for the most music festivals visited in 30 days. Parmley went to shows in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland and the UK. I’m not sure, but it looks like the one in Slovenia was Metal Days, then known as Metal Camp.

2013 is the year that will stay in the minds of Kasper De Wulf and Alexander Hautekiet (two Belgians) as the one in which they entered the record books with the distinction of playing the most full 18-hole rounds of golf in different countries in 24 hours. History was made when the duo teed off in Slovenia (at the Bled Golf & Country Club, which saw the lowest round of the day, 80), Austria, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Skiing isn’t a sport associated with the UK, but that in March 2014 that didn’t stop Jamie Stevenson from enjoying the slopes in a powdery fresh 17 countries in a single month. He set out on his journey from Scotland, and then visited Spain, Andorra, France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

If I told you that in 2014 Leo Tergujeff, a Finn, made history’s longest journey on a telescopic handler would you know what I was talking about? Here’s a telescopic handler:

Wikimedia: Alf van Beem, CC-by-1.0

It on one of these that Mr Tergujeff brought honour to his community by travelling 4,296 km. He started in Italy and spent a few days over the month of May to travel back to his homeland, like a salmon returning to spawn. In total he drove through Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and Finland, seven countries overall.

Back in the heady days of 2015, when Britain’s continued engagement in the remarkable and highly beneficial EU was not in serious question, two natives of that land, Andrew Frankel and Rebecca Jackson, managed to visit the most countries on a single tank of fuel. The couple took advantage of the Schengen agreement and enjoyed freedom of movement through a total of 14 sovereign states. Starting in the Netherlands, the couple – whose automatic right to live, work and retire in many of these nations has just been lost – drove on to Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia then Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Hungary.

In 2016 a Belgian with the wonderful name of Frederik Van Overloop fully charged a Tesla Model S and set out on a 16-hour, 585.7 km journey that took in seven countries: Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia.

2016 also saw the record set for the most countries visited by bicycle in 24 hours by a team, in this case two guys, James van der Hoorn and Thomas Reynolds, both British. The pair cycled through Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, before finishing in Poland, with six countries covered

Much the same records, most countries by bicycle in 24 hours – were set for the men by the Hungarian David Kovari in 2017, peddling into Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia, for a total of seven. The female record was set the same year, and by another Hungarian, Maja Tóth, who powered herself into five nations, namely Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia.

Updated at 18:00

STA, 10 February 2020 - The Slovenian Foreign Ministry has condemned a smear campaign in which the Italian neo-Fascist movement CasaPound put up banners describing World War II Partisans as assassins, issuing a protest following a recent attempt to deny the suffering of Slovenians at the hands of Fascists.

CasaPound put up banners reading Tito's partisans, villains and assassins (Partigiani Titini infami e assassini) across Italy on the eve of today's remembrance day dedicated to the victims of foibe, the Italian for karst chasms where the victims of post-WWII killings by Yugoslav Communists were thrown.

The banners, which carry the emblem of the Fascist movement, were also stuck to the facades of the Slovenian cultural home in Opicina, the France Prešeren Theatre in Bagnoli della Rosandra, both villages in the Trieste province populated by the Slovenian ethnic minority, the Trieste-based Slovenian newspaper Primorski Dnevnik reported.

Tatjana Rojc, the ethnic Slovenian senator in Rome, condemned the campaign as the latest attempt "to smear the Slovenian community, an addition to the worrying presence of CasaPound, which is raising its head through violent talk and by harming co-existence," she was quoted as saying by the Italian press agency Ansa.

"With today's smear campaign in Slovenian villages, the neo-Fascist organisation CasaPound has again demonstrated its intolerance of Slovenians and the suffering of the Slovenian nation under Fascism," the Slovenian Foreign Ministry commented.

Noting that the organisation carried out a similar campaign in December 2019, the ministry said that CasaPound deserved "condemnation by the democratic authorities of free Europe". The ministry urged the Italian authorities to respond and "take measures in accordance with their powers".

The ministry added that Slovenia respected the Italian remembrance day for the foibe victims. "We expect the same respect for Slovenian and other victims of the resistance against the occupying Fascism, in particular civilian victims who massively perished in Italian concentration camps."

The ministry said such mutual respect was not aided by panel debates organised under the sponsorship of the local authorities in Trieste, including one scornfully themed as "Slovenians' false self-pity", and another at which speakers claimed Slovenians burnt down themselves their National Home in Trieste in 1920.

"We cannot and will not allow the denying of the suffering by Slovenians and the distortion of history," the ministry said.

Last year the day marking the remembrance day for the foibe victims caused a major controversy between Slovenia and Italy after Antonio Tajani, serving as European Parliament president at the time, made what were interpreted as territorial claims in his address to a foibe victims remembrance ceremony. Tajani later apologised for his comments.

President Borut Pahor said in a press release today he had protested with Italian President Sergio Mattarella against the "unacceptable statements by senior representatives of Italy" made on last year's foibe remembrance day.

Pahor also said that Mattarella had agreed that the statements made last year had been inappropriate, and could create an impression of territorial claims.

He said he had called on his Italian counterpart to respect the historical truths. Pahor thinks an ideal opportunity "for our joint trip to the past and looking at the future" will be the upcoming ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the torching of the Trieste National Home.

The Council of Slovenian Organisations (SSO), the umbrella organisation of Slovenians in Italy, also strongly condemned CasaPound's smear campaign today, saying the "fascist act" was a "severe blow to the democratic values and freedoms on which we are building our future here".

The SSO moreover called on the Italian authorities to investigate the matter and punish the perpetrators.

The Social Democratic Party (SD) joined the call for action, saying CasaPound was trying to rehabilitate fascism, an "ideology that took the lives of millions around the world".

The Left also spoke of rehabilitation of fascism, saying that the recent misinterpretations of history, which are being promoted even by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, were inciting hatred between the two nations.

President Pahor & Speaker Židan Express Concern After Neo-Fascist Rally in Trieste (Video)

STA, 7 February 2020 - Two women from Koroška region have set a new world record in endurance crocheting. They managed to crochet for 28 hours non-stop, beating the previous record by a full four hours.

 Anita Kac and Jadranka Smiljić started crocheting at 8am on Thursday and persisted until midday on Friday, having gone through 4.5 kilo or roughly 13 kilometres of wool, Zdravko Kac, the husband of one of the crocheters, told the STA.

Kac, who has been doing crochet for over 40 years, was working on hats, scarves, headbands and a blanket, while Smiljić, who turned 40 on Thursday, tackled the coat-of-arms of Slovenj Gradec municipality.

But due to the complexity of the design and fatigue, she abandoned the coat-of-arms in the middle of the night to tackle simpler projects.

Their record is not official yet, with the Guinness Book of World Records expected to take about a month to examine all the evidence of their endeavour.

The previous record is held by an Englishwoman, Natalie Morrison, who crocheted non-stop for 24 hours in 2019 to raise funds for charity.

STA, 10 February 2020 - Ksenija Klampfer, the outgoing labour minister, has stepped aside as a vice-leader of the Modern Centre Party (SMC), quitting the party in protest at tentative coalition talks with the Democrats (SDS). Meanwhile, Miro Cerar, the former leader of the SMC, has ruled out being part of a government led by SDS leader Janez Janša.

STA, 6 February 2020 - The parliamentary Justice Committee unanimously decided on Thursday to table an amended proposal to change the sexual abuse provisions of the penal code. The reform, proposed by New Slovenia (NSi), envisages the statute of limitations for gravest sexual offences to be tripled.

According to the initial NSi proposal, sex offences would never become statute-barred, with the party aiming to help establish a zero-tolerance policy on such acts.

Under the existing penal code, such criminal acts fall under the statute of limitations in 10 to 30 years, depending on the expected prison sentence.

After submitting the proposal, NSi acknowledged that different types of sexual violence should fall under different statute of limitations categories and tabled the amended document, envisaging gravest sexual offences to become statute-barred in 30 to 90 years.

The parliamentary legal service said that the party had thus acknowledged its reservations.

Justice Minister Andreja Katič said that the outgoing caretaker government agreed with the proposal as well, adding that such changes had been already planned by the ministry.

She highlighted that a task force at the ministry had been drafting more extensive changes to the penal code, also in relation to sexual offences.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court judge Marjeta Švab Širok called for the issue to be tackled as part of a systemic reform of criminal law.