Population control gets govt priority in Bangladesh
A six-point recommendation had been put forward from Thursday’s(September 2) meeting of the National Population Council to keep the country’s population growth rate at a balanced level. The Population Council, which held its first meeting in the last 14 years Thursday at the PM’s Office, also reorganised its committee consisting of 60 members with Prime [...]
Jakarta ‘cannot accommodate’ any more people
In a efforts to control the seasonal influx of newcomers to the capital, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo recently urged the public not to bring friends or relatives back with them after the Idul Fitri exodus. “In Tambora there are so many people that you trip over children when you walk,” Fauzi said as quoted by [...]
China rapidly aging after 30 years of birth control policy
China, the world’s most populous country, is rapidly aging after it enforced a one-child policy 30 years ago, statistics showed Wednesday. According to the China Population and Development Research, 350 million out of the expected total population of 1.45 billion will be aged over 65 by 2050. The number is equivalent to nearly one out [...]
UK: Record population increase is ‘the biggest since the Sixties’
The population of England and Wales took a record leap upwards last year, official estimates showed yesterday. The number topped 55million - a rise of more than 400,000 on the 2008 figure. The 0.74 per cent rise was the highest percentage annual increase since the Sixties. It also meant that the population for the UK [...]
Road to cut off Serengeti migration route
Look out wildebeest, here come the cars. Tanzania’s government plans to build a commercial road in the north of Serengeti National Park, cutting through the migratory route of 2 million wildebeest and zebra. The road would cut the animals off from their dry-season watering holes, causing the wildebeest population to dwindle to just a quarter [...]
Kenya’s population soars by 10 million
Kenya announced on Tuesday its population stands at 38.6 million after a national census conducted last year, marking an increase of around 10 million since the last census in 1999. Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya said the increase of about one million people per year puts pressure on resources and he urged for more investment and [...]
Beijing asks parents to register second child
Beijing has urged parents to register the birth of their second child before Nov 1 — if they don’t, they will be liable to pay fines, a media report said Monday. China’s family planning policies encourages urban residents to limit their family size to one child. Families who register their second child now will face [...]
Qatari women are delaying getting married and having fewer children
Women in Qatar are delaying getting married and having fewer children, as education and career now play a bigger role in their everyday lives. The recently published Millennium Development Goals in Qatar 2010 (MDG Qatar 2010) report shows that the fertility rate of Qatari women has decreased from 5.7 children per woman in 1999, to [...]
A world too full of people
Leucadia Quispe, a 60-year-old mother-of-eight, was born and raised in Botijlaca, a settlement that sits in the foothills of the Chacaltaya and Huayna Potosí mountains in Bolivia. High above, the Chacaltaya glacier is retreating at an unexpected pace: three times as fast as predicted ten years ago. It will be gone in a generation.
Seven out [...]
Good Companies Guide: easing the planet’s growing pains will help business to profit
A few diehards in the City still think sustainability is just for sandal-wearers. But how we deal with the major ecological and social challenges facing the world will have enormous implications for the global economy and for the prospects of the UK’s leading companies. It will also have an impact on the pension savings and [...]
Recession may have pushed US birth rate to new low
The U.S. birth rate has fallen to its lowest level in at least a century as many people apparently decided they couldn’t afford more mouths to feed. The birth rate dropped for the second year in a row since the recession began in 2007. Births fell 2.6 percent last year even as the population grew, [...]
Turkmenistan: Population policy – guarantee of prosperity
According to the data collected for many years by different countries, in particular the CIS states, population challenges that have a direct impact on an economic growth, competitiveness and stability of states and, ultimately, the welfare of citizens is urgent in the modern world. Taking this fact into account, the UN agencies identified strategic support [...]
Niger: Small steps towards a sustainable future
Nigerien women have an average of seven children. Photo: Catherine Lune-Grayson, IRIN
The population of Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, is growing at an unsustainable rate, according to the authorities and civil society groups. If current growth rates of 3.3 percent per year remain unchanged, by 2050 Niger’s population will have reached [...]
Wales’ dense population could have economic benefits, researchers say
Wales has become one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, figures reveal. It has more people per square kilometre than Northern Ireland, Poland, France and Spain. The figures also show that England has become the most densely populated large country in Europe – overtaking Holland, traditionally the most highly populated. Researchers from the [...]
UK: Net migration up by 20% in 2009
The UK population swelled by nearly 200,000 last year - one of the largest increases during Labour’s 13 years in power. There were 196,000 more immigrants than Britons leaving for abroad, according to official figures released on Thursday. That meant the overall population of Britain rose by the equivalent of a city the size of [...]
Seeing a Time (Soon) When We’ll All Be Dieting [Book review]
Fifty years ago, a billion people were undernourished or starving; the number is about the same today. That’s actually progress, since a billion represented a third of the human race then, and “only” a sixth now. Today we have another worry: roughly the same number of people eat too much. But, says Julian Cribb, a [...]
The Shape of Things to Come
All populations, like all individuals, must address issues of age. Unlike people, however, populations can stay young indefinitely and can even grow younger with time. This report is about the ages of populations, how age is structured within populations, why that matters, and how governments and societies can influence population age structure.
The Shape of Things [...]
S. Korea’s childbirth declines for 2nd consecutive year in 2009
The number of infants born in South Korea declined for the second straight year in 2009 as a result of a fall in the population of women of childbearing age and the number of marriages, government data showed Tuesday. The number of newborns stood at 445,000 last year, down 4.5 percent from a year before, [...]
Brazil Aims for World’s “Most Perfect” Population Census
Come Dec. 31, about 68 countries are expected to complete the arduous task of taking an accurate head count of the number of people living within their geographical borders. The demographic census, which traditionally takes place every 10 years in different countries in different time frames, will this year cover nearly half the world’s population [...]
The ten-day traffic jam driving China mad
In a list of the top places to spend the summer, a motorway just outside Beijing beneath a pall of smog and battered by ferocious heat would probably not feature. But some have little choice. For five days, thousands of Chinese motorists have been stuck in the world’s worst traffic jam that stretches for 60 [...]
India Tries Using Cash Bonuses to Slow Birthrates
Dr. Archana R. Khade, left, and a nurse, Sunita Laxman Jadhav, right, explained incentives to delay childbirth to a new bride near Satara this month.
Sunita Laxman Jadhav is a door-to-door saleswoman who sells waiting. She sweeps along muddy village lanes in her nurse’s white sari, calling on newly married couples with an unblushing proposition: [...]
Jakarta’s population surpasses 15-year forecast
The Jakarta branch of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed the city’s population had reached 9.5 million, or 4 percent of the country’s total population of 237.6 million. “The total population in the city is 9,588,198 people, with 3 percent more males in the ratio of male to female,” agency head Agus Suherman told The [...]
Resource wars: the global crisis behind a hostile takeover battle
BHP Billiton’s £28bn hostile bid for Canada’s Potash Corporation sets the scene for one of mining’s biggest takeover battles. But this is more than a clash between multinationals intent on self-aggrandisement.
Certainly, the usual arguments are wheeled out by the predator about diversification, synergies and the prospect of fatter profits, while the target company complains about [...]
Syria grapples with surging population
Ibrahim Issa, a jovial Syrian taxi-driver who wears a blue robe over an ample belly, has nine children from two wives. He plans to marry a third wife soon. He says it is up to Allah whether more children arrive, and not for him to interfere, say, by using contraception. Like all Damascus taxi-drivers, he [...]
Good Riddance to the Population Explosion: Keys to Prevent Unsustainable Growth
Every day, about 350,000 people are born and 150,000 die. Run this loop for a few decades, and the United Nations projects that we’re on track to increase global population by about one-third by 2050.
Most of that growth will happen in the poorest countries on Earth. Despite their poverty, those two billion people will add to [...]
Earth Overshoot Day: a day to forget or a day to remember?
Photo: AFP
How best to communicate the various environmental crises – climate change, loss of biodiversity and habitats, resource depletion, watercourse contamination, to name but a few – facing us today?
It’s an open question aired frequently by environmentalists. Do you repeatedly present to the world the stark future we face if we continue to ignore these [...]
New Report on Population Asks Americans to Start Talking About What Really Matters
When a man and a woman have unprotected sex, babies are quite often the result. Sexual decisions not only impact the lives of those involved, but impact the planet we all share. Currently the world’s population is growing by 80 million people every year. On a planet with finite resources this means we either take [...]
Can demography save Afghanistan?
Link to an article by Richard P. Cincotta of the National Intelligence Council:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bxq-A-AsZDhmYTNmZTU1ZjMtODg1Ny00ODA0LTg2NTMtZmIzZDE3ODIxYjM4&hl=en&authkey=CLDGrJoI&pli=1
Australia: Food for thought on population
Eons before Jesus and Solomon walked the Earth, humans called Australia home. They were here tens of thousands of years before the last ice age held the world in its grip. Apart from vegetation changes caused by repeated firing of bushland, the original Australians trod lightly upon the land. Early Europeans remarked how well they blended [...]
‘Only children’ are not socially disadvantaged, research suggests
Being an ‘only child’ does not result in any disadvantage when it comes to making friends, the research suggested. Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, co-author of the study and assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University’s Marion campus, said: “I don’t think anyone has to be concerned that if you don’t have siblings, you won’t learn the [...]
Korea: Low birthrate calls for more women to return to work
Korea is in dire need of raising women’s participation in economic activities, considering the rate has gone down to the level seen 10 years ago against the gloomy outlook of a population decrease expected to start in 2008. The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) sounded an alarm in a recent report, calling [...]
Artificial meat? Food for thought by 2050
Artificial meat grown in vats may be needed if the 9 billion people expected to be alive in 2050 are to be adequately fed without destroying the earth, some of the world’s leading scientists report today. But a major academic assessment of future global food supplies, led by John Beddington, the UK government chief scientist, [...]
Stephen Hawking: only space travel can save mankind
The renowned astrophysicist said he fears mankind is in great danger and its future ”must be in space” if it is to survive. In an interview with website Big Think he said threats to the existence of the human race such as the 1963 Cuban missile crisis are likely to increase in the future and [...]
A Referendum on “Big Australia”
With polls showing Australia’s general election too close to call, it’s uncertain whether Labor Party Prime Minister Julia Gillard will keep her job or be replaced by Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal-National coalition. Either way, it appears one group will lose: immigrants.
For six decades, Australia has had a political consensus in favor of immigration. [...]
Slogans won’t stop Taiwan’s falling birthrate
Taiwan’s population is graying very fast, while its young people do not want to get married early enough to bear more children. As a matter of fact, Taiwan’s birthrate is the lowest in the world. That’s why the government is doing what it can to encourage our younger generation to have more kids. The special [...]
Bangladesh court seeks report on population growth control initiatives
A High Court Division bench of Bangladesh Thursday directed the government to submit a report within a month on the country’s population growth rate in the last 10 years. The court also issued a rule upon the government to explain within four weeks why it should not be directed to take additional measures to control [...]
Family planning: Andhra Pradesh set to go slow
Andhra Pradesh has decided to go slow on family planning. The government has belatedly discovered that the state has the lowest fertility rate in the country and, hence, promoting family planning could lead to a reduction in AP’s population. As a first step, it has now discontinued the incentive given to women for tubectomies.
“The ‘hum [...]
Australia: $1m for person who reduces population
Until now, Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith says he has never seen $1 million laid out in cold hard cash. The aviation aficionado, five blonde bombshells and a chihuahua named Chilli gathered in Sydney’s financial district on Wednesday with a suitcase filled with money to launch his new global award. The Wilberforce Award, and the $1 [...]
Jordan:National Population Strategy not meeting goals
Despite efforts in Jordan to achieve the goals of the National Population Strategy, the total fertility rate (TFR) dropped by only 0.1 per cent during the last five years, according to a recently released study. The population has grown by 2.5 per cent annually in the last decade, and is expected to double by the [...]
Jamaica: Two still better than too many - Principals advocate campaign to address overcrowded classrooms
President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Sharon Reid, is calling for the implementation of a national family-planning policy as a long-term solution for the overcrowding in the nation’s classrooms. Reid believes this intervention is needed because Jamaicans are having too many children.
She also is of the view that the shortage of [...]
Population explosion in Pakistan
Pakistan is facing numerous problems, including food, drinking water, education, health, unemployment and shelter. The reasons are well-known, but nobody even once tried to understand that behind all these problems, there is one major reason and that is the population explosion.
The world’s financial experts have placed Pakistan on a list of 36 countries that face [...]
Food inflation is a rumble that won’t go away
Is the era of cheap food coming to an end? With wheat prices jumping 20pc last week after the failure of the Russian harvest, fears of an imminent food shock have once again emerged. Things aren’t as bad as they seem. The current steep jump in prices is likely to be temporary - but the [...]
UN study warns of failure to plan for rapid urbanization
Job seekers, Brazil
Governmental policies aimed at retarding urban growth and depriving the poor of benefits and services increase poverty and environmental degradation, creating serious long-term problems that could be avoided by enlightened planning, according to a new United Nations study. The study, published today by the United Nations Population Fund and the International Institute for [...]
So there are now 10,000 centenarians in Britain? This ageing business is getting out of control
The Queen’s practice of sending telegrams to people on their 100th birthdays can hardly continue for ever when the country is to be flooded with centenarians. Official statistics published recently showed life expectancy increasing at such a rate that a quarter of all babies born this year are expected to live to more than 100. [...]
Indonesia: Government forgets its population control program allegation
University of Indonesia economist Dorodjatun Kuntjoro Jakti said that the government was too busy with its reforms programs so that it forgot to control the growth of population. “The family planning program nowadays has been forgotten while in fact it would take a long time to begin the program again,” Dorodjatun said in his scientific oration [...]
Is Africa’s wildlife being eaten to extinction?
We’ve all heard how the illegal trade in elephant ivory, rhino horn and other high value products is threatening Africa’s wildlife. However, the impact of these products is dwarfed by the trade in bushmeat, defined as meat from Africa’s wild animals traded for human consumption. According to the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, the hunting of [...]
UK population ‘to increase by 24%’
The UK will be the biggest country in Western Europe by 2050, overtaking both France and Germany, figures showed. The UK’s population will increase to 77 million in just 40 years’ time from 62.2 million today, a rise of almost 24%, the US-based Population Reference Bureau projected on Friday. The surge would make it bigger [...]
The women who choose not to be mothers
More women in the developed world are choosing not to have children. So why do friends, family, colleagues and even strangers think it’s OK to question their decision? We’ve come a long way, baby. Until a few decades ago, it was widely assumed that a woman would marry and, soon after, the stork would arrive [...]
Fears for unique wildlife of Galapagos as UN drops islands’ protected status
One of the iconic species of Galapagos, the marine iguana, Amblyrhynchus cristatus, is found nowhere else in the world and is unique among lizards in that it can live and hunt for food (much of it kelp) in the sea, with the ability to dive down to depths of 30ft. It has spread to all [...]
Iran to pay for new babies to boost population
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy on Tuesday to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran’s decades of internationally-acclaimed family planning as ungodly and a Western import. The new government initiative will pay families for every new child and deposit money into the newborn’s bank account until they reach 18, effectively rolling back years of [...]
Immigration sees UK’s population growth outstrip the rest of Europe
Britain’s population growth is outpacing the rest of Europe, according to figures released yesterday. This country gained more people last year thanks to immigration and rising birth rates than anywhere in the continent. The rise in population in Britain accounted for nearly a third of the 1.4million increase in the number of people living in [...]
Push for review of maternity leave law to increase Emirati birth rate
Abu Dhabi: A member of the Federal National Council has said the maternity leave law must be reconsidered to encourage more Emiratis to have children.
“The number of Emiratis is not going to grow,” Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, FNC member and head of the Committee of Education, Youth Culture and Media, said. “This is due to [...]
Yemeni population increased fivefold in last half century
The population of Yemen has multiplied five times in the last 54 years, and is predicted to triple again by 2035, according to the Health and Population Committee of the Yemeni Parliament. The committee produced a report which was discussed earlier this month on the occasion of World Population Day, July 11, highlighting the dangers [...]
Death rates at lowest ever levels in England and Wales
Death rates in England and Wales are at their lowest-ever recorded levels, official figures show. Despite health concerns surrounding rising levels of obesity and alcohol use, death rates for both men and women fell by about 5% in 2009 from 2008. There were under half a million deaths registered - the last time the figure [...]
Viet Nam: Young workforce poses challenges
Viet Nam’s population is entering a period of “demographic bonus”, in which the number of people of working age is larger than that of the dependants. “While this is a phase of unique opportunities in terms of human resources, which is a great advantage to the country’s socio-economic development, it could pose employment, education and [...]
The most crowded nations on Earth
Singapore is the most crowded country in the world, according to the Overpopulation Index. The index also finds that countries like United Kingdom, Netherlands and Switzerland are more crowded than India or China, which are the most populous nations on Aarth.
The index was published by the Optimum Population Trust which has been campaigning for measures [...]
Australian PM Questions Immigration Policies
It is generally accepted that Australia’s strong economy is driven largely by immigration but now Prime Minister Julia Gillard is questioning that assumption in a move that has angered business leaders. Speaking yesterday at the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, the Australian Prime Minister questioned whether cities such as Sydney and the Queensland state [...]
New Zealand: Couples without children to become most common family
Childless or empty-nest couples have replaced iconic families of Mum, Dad and the kids as New Zealand’s most common kind of household. Statistics New Zealand’s latest family and household projections show that couples without children at home overtook couples with children at home in 2008 for the first time since at least World War II. [...]
Letters: Perspectives on global population
Consumption is unsustainable
Scratch the surface of any environmental problem and population growth and unsustainable levels of consumption are the root cause (report, 12 July). We are already in breach of the planet’s capacity to support 6.8bn people, with over 1bn people without access [...]
UK experts to examine global population trends
Britain’s science academy, The Royal Society, has announced it will launch a major analysis of the world’s population. The study will focus on the role of population in securing sustainable development.
Britain’s science academy, the Royal Society said this week that the implications of global population growth would be the focus of its [...]
Hamish McRae: We have to plan for a bigger population
So by 2051 Britain’s population is to grow to nearly 78 million and ethnic minorities will rise from 8 per cent at the 2001 census to 20 per cent. These are two key conclusions from some research by a team in the geography department at the University of Leeds – a [...]
Can the UK cope with a 78m population?
A new survey predicts the UK population will reach 78m by 2051. What will that mean for the UK?
The study by the University of Leeds says by 2051 a growing birth rate, coupled with high levels of immigration from Europe, Australasia and the US, as well as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, [...]
Global population is still a problem
Fred Pearce argues in his book Peoplequake that fears about population growth are overblown. Earth to Fred: they aren’t
Fred Pearce keeps on saying that population growth is no longer a problem. He said it again yesterday as part of his World Population Day message.
In Fred’s view, it’s very simple. Fertility rates have [...]
UK’s Royal Society to undertake ‘comprehensive review’ of population growth
The UK’s Royal Society has announced that it will begin a major study into the impacts of human population. A largely taboo topic for decades, the Royal Society wants to provide a ‘comprehensive review of the science’ of population growth, according to a press release. The study, due in 2012, [...]
CIWEM ‘condemns’ lack of leadership to reduce UK population
World Population Day at the weekend saw renewed calls for couples in the UK to have no more than two children.
The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) called on the coalition government to do a complete review of all fiscal policies aimed at helping people more than two children.
To [...]
World Population Day Observed
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) holds the World Population Day each year on July 11 in order to draw attention to various issues surrounding population, women, and children.
This year’s theme is “Everyone Counts,” and will bring people together in countries with UNFPA offices around the world for lectures, rallies, [...]
Global population study launched by Royal Society
The human population is far higher than any other primate at any time in history
The UK’s Royal Society is launching a major study into human population growth and how it may affect social and economic development in coming decades.
The world’s population has risen from two billion in 1930 to 6.8 [...]
Population explosion scrutinised as scientists urge politicians to act
Britain’s premier scientific organisation has launched a two-year study into global population levels. A growing body of scientists believe the time has come for politicians to confront the problems posed by the future increase in human numbers.
The Royal Society has established a working group of leading experts to draw up a [...]
BRITAIN IS MORE CROWDED THAN INDIA AND CHINA
BRITAIN is one of the most overpopulated countries in the world – ahead of even China and India.
And England is the most crowded country in Europe and the fourth most crowded in the world as our population soars relentlessly towards the 70 million mark.
That is an increase in population equivalent to 10 [...]
Morning Line: Population growth and scorched public services – an explosive mix?
At not much more than 200,000 square kilometres, and around 70 million of us expected to share it by 2030, space is at something of a premium in Britain.
But what happens when the rocketing number of people – there are projected to be nine million more of us in 2030 than there [...]
Top 10: the world’s most overpopulated countries
New index ranks countries according to the strains their population is placing on resources.
Research newly published lists the most overpopulated countries. When we talk about “overpopulation” (as opposed to population size), we are referring to the link between the human population and its environment. Therefore, it’s not just the size or [...]
Housing Shortage Makes Australian Home Prices Almost Twice U.S.
Tamara Jenkins has been outbid about 20 times in her nine-month quest to buy an apartment in Melbourne’s inner suburbs.
“I started with such enthusiasm,” the 36-year-old public relations director said in an interview. “I’m so frustrated with the process. I’m ready to buy, but I keep missing out.”
The source of her frustration — a shortage [...]
China’s urban dwellers to exceed rural population
China’s urban population is expected to surpass 700 million in the next five years, exceeding the number of rural dwellers for the first time, the country’s top population policy official was cited as saying.
The shift has major implications for the government at a time when Chinese cities are already struggling [...]
UK Immigration news
Population Growth Led by UK Immigration
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the population has grown by 394,000 people in the span of one year. It seems that growing birth rates within the UK have been pushing the population numbers up due to a larger amount of migrant mothers are of [...]
Family planning offset scheme backs first wave of projects
Companies looking to offset their carbon emissions will from today be offered access to an innovative yet controversial new model for tackling greenhouse gas emissions that allows them to fund projects designed to curb population growth.
The initiative is the work of UK-based charity the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), which campaigns for [...]
Genes predict living beyond 100
US scientists have developed a way of predicting how likely a person is to live beyond the age of 100.
The breakthrough, described in the journal Science, is based on 150 genetic “signposts” found in exceptionally long-lived people.
The Boston team created a mathematical model, which takes information from these signposts to work out [...]
Is Immigration Really the Main Cause of Australia’s Population Growth?
Information released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today seems to confirm that Australian immigration is the driving force behind Australia’s population growth. But does it bear closer scrutiny? As Julia Gillard rejects Rudd’s ‘big Australia’ plans, the opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says that a ‘big Australia’ is inevitable unless drastic action is taken [...]
‘Childfree’ is new word of reproductive choice
Nearly one in five U.S. women see their child-bearing years come and go without having a baby, up from just one in 10 in the 1970s. The dramatic increase, described in a new report by the Pew Research Center, is consistent across all racial and ethnic groups, and most education levels.
But at the same time [...]
Balancing the weights of poverty and population
Image: Slapbcn/Flickr
The 21st century began on an inspiring note: The United Nations set a goal of reducing the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty by half by 2015. By early 2007 the world looked to be on track to meet this goal, but as the economic crisis unfolds and the outlook darkens, [...]
“China right to link population to climate”
All but the crankiest conspiracy theorists now accept that the world is warming and humans are causing it. But the baffling, illogical and scary thing is that political leaders seem blind to a critical element of the human causation – the more humans we have the more carbon emissions we will have. A search of [...]
UK population increases by 394,000 in 12 months
The population of the UK was 61,792,000 in mid-2009. This is an increase of 394,000 (0.6 per cent) on mid-2008 and is equivalent to an average increase of over 1,000 people a day. Population growth has increased over recent decades. This latest increase compares with an average annual growth of: 0.6 per cent since 2001; [...]
Murder of an ancient matriarch
Who cannot love old-growth groves where enormous trees soar skyward like turrets and flying buttresses. Shafts of golden light angle down to a dusky forest floor that is rich with sword ferns, moss-covered logs and witch’s hair dangling from branches. When I am amongst these gentle giants I feel a spirituality, a deep closeness with [...]
Fish farming set to grow as demand for food rises
Despite two decades of hardship, war and a loss of markets, Matko Jasprica has kept his Croatian fish farm alive and now hopes to start exporting sea bass and sea bream to the European Union. It’s just as well, because officials and researchers say fish farming, known as aquaculture, is set to become the world’s [...]
Philippines: New family planning drive targets 1.3% growth rate
This year, the country’s population growth rate has been pegged at 1.9 percent. The government needs to bring it down further to 1.3-1.4 percent for the population to stabilize, said Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral on Monday. This could be achieved, Cabral said, by employing, among other strategies, an “intensified family planning campaign” that focuses on [...]
19 Kids and Counting – Who Cares?
An editorial distributed to 800 U.S. newspapers and magazines by the Cagle Syndication Service.
18 Kids and Counting. That’s the name of a popular “reality” television show about a couple, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, who last fall had 18 children. This week, it was announced that Michelle is pregnant again…so now it’s 19 kids [...]
Sterilisation on rise as India seeks escape from poverty
Sterilisation is making a comeback in India. Economic pressures and a desire to move out of poverty is prompting growing numbers of women and men to voluntarily end their reproductive days early.
Little more than three decades after India coerced thousands of people into being sterilised, creating a generation deeply suspicious of all contraceptive means, the [...]
China’s one and only
This long article from Al Jazeera presents a balanced view of the pros and cons of ’stopping at one’.
In the three decades that China’s one-child policy has been in place, the Chinese government claims it has prevented 400 million births. Its implementation has been relaxed over the years with numerous exemptions now permitted, but its longer-term consequences [...]
Human race ‘will be extinct within 100 years’, claims leading scientist
As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction. And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years. He has claimed that the human race will be unable to [...]
China: Patter of tiny feet not welcome until income secured
More and more residents in both urban and rural areas are holding off on having a child because of financial concerns, according to a recent survey. The study, conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy Group (HRCG), polled 3,262 people above the age of 18. It found that the purchase of a home and securing a reasonably [...]
Overcoming Pakistan’s population challenge
According to the UN’s latest mid-range demographic projections for Pakistan, the country’s population–currently about 185 million–will rise to 335 million by 2050. This explosive increase, however, represents the best-case scenario: Should fertility rates remain constant, the UN estimates this figure could approach 460 million. Such soaring population growth, coupled with youthful demographics, a dismal education [...]
Higher average farm prices expected, food security concerns persist, say OECD and FAO
Farm commodity prices have fallen from their record peaks of two years ago but are unlikely to drop back to their average levels of the past decade, according to the annual joint report from the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2010-19 sees average wheat and coarse grain prices [...]
Namibia: Government to scale up birth registration
Although over 80 per cent of children in Namibia are born at hospitals and clinics, the country has seen a dramatic decrease in birth registration figures over the last five years, according to the local Unicef office.
“The lowest percentage of registered births is in the northern rural regions with 26 per cent registration of children [...]
How India’s six-child family became three
Oldest of four children, 16-year-old Amruta is determined not to have any more than one or two children, pictured in her house in a local slum called Goutam Nagar, in Agra
AGRA, INDIA—Amruta, a shy teenager with large eyes and a pretty smile, sleeps on the dirt floor of her family’s home in a gritty slum, [...]
‘Population of Cardiff to rocket to nearly half-a-million’
THE population of Cardiff will increase by more than 40% between 2008 and 2033 if current trends continue, according to new projections made by the Assembly Government. Calculations by statisticians suggest that the number of people living in Cardiff will rise over the period from 330,500 to 468,200, while four other council areas, including Carmarthenshire [...]
Saving suburban gardens will make Britain’s housing problems worse
Who could possibly want to destroy gardens? What black-hearted villain could want to rob a street of its flowers and birds in order to build brick boxes? Enough, according to the government, for 180,000 such homes to be built in the past five years, but no longer. The decentralisation minister, Greg Clark, has announced that [...]
Immigration and Pensions
Summary
Claims that immigration is needed to support the provision of pensions and care for the elderly are deeply misleading. As immigrants tend to be young, their arrival does reduce the average age of the population. But to maintain any substantial and enduring effect on the age-structure requires a constant increase in the number of immigrants, [...]
S.Korea seeks to cut work hours, encourage more babies
Workaholic South Korea will encourage its labor force to work less overtime in order to create morejobs and boost productivity and the dwindling birth rate, a top labor policy group said Wednesday. As of 2008 South Koreans worked 2,256 hours a year, the longest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develoment where [...]
Tanzania: Population Control Key to Development, UNFPA
The representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr Julitta Onabanjo, said yesterday that there was need for Tanzania to control population growth in order to achieve proportional economic development. Coincidentally, population control is one of the most important issues that will be addressed in the second phase of Tanzania’s National Strategy for Growth [...]
Britain will struggle to handle ‘catastrophic’ population growth unless changes are made
Britain will struggle to handle ‘catastrophic’ population growth in future unless urgent action is taken, a report has warned. The predicted increase to 70million by 2029 will put unsustainable pressure on housing, schools and hospitals as well as natural resources such as food and water, experts said. Current trends will see a city the size [...]
Sting in the tail of farming revolution
Dr Spencer Wells is a geneticist, anthropologist and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society. In a new book, Pandora’s Seed, he charts the unforeseen costs of farming, which began to transform society 10,000 years ago, but brought with it illnesses such as diabetes and obesity. BBC science reporter Paul Rincon met Dr Wells to find [...]
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