World Population Awareness

Food for 9 Billion: Turning the Population Tide in the Philippines

This story also appeared on PBS NEWSHOUR. A related story can be found on American Public Media's Marketplace.

Fishing villages near the Danajon Double Barrier Reef off of Bohol Island in the southern Philippines are embracing birth control for the first time, not just as a means to plan their families but as a path to long-term food security, ensuring that future generations enjoy the same abundance of fish. The area is one of the richest marine biodiversity hot spots in the world. More than a million people depend on these fishing grounds for their main source of protein and livelihoods. As the population of this area has nearly tripled in the last three decades, the effect on the reef has been devastating.

Illegal fishing has become rampant. Many use dynamite or cyanide, indiscriminately killing everything within their reach.

The shift to smaller families in the rural fishing village Humayhumay is already paying dividends. Fishermen have created a marine preserve to help revive fish stocks. With smaller families, thinking about future generations is a luxury fishermen can afford.

Every year the Philippines, now with 100 million people, adds about 2 million more mouths to feed and isn't expected to stabilize its population until 2080, at 200 million. The country is already beyond its carrying capacity.

Jason Bostero: Family planning is helpful because if you control the number of your children, you don't need as many fish to support your family. If you have many children, it's difficult to support them." .. "My income is just right to feed us three times a day. It's really, really different when you have a small family."

Crisna Bostero: "In my case, we were really hard up before. Sometimes, we would only eat once a day because we were so poor. We couldn't go to school. I did not finish my school because there were just so many of us."

A community-based family planning programs has made birth control options like the pill accessible and affordable - at about 70 cents a month. Distributors are able to sell pills and condoms anytime. They are as easy as buying soft drinks or matches.

PATH Foundation Philippines, a group funded mostly through USAID, has made this possible, placing its emphasis on local partners and bringing access to the people. In just six years since the program was first established here, family sizes have dropped from as many as 12 children to a maximum of about four today.

The program shows how closely tied family planning is with environmental conservation and putting food on the table.

Jason and Crisna Bostero, both practicing Catholics, don't see a conflict between their religious beliefs and family planning. For them, it's about something much more immediate, like what kind of future they're going to pass on to their two children. " I don't want them to be like us, just to fish the sea, just to farm the land. This is not an easy way to earn a living."

Outside of Humayhumay, where birth control remains largely out of reach, the struggle to put food on the table from one day to the next dominates life. People have to collect government assistance checks for food.

Countries like Thailand and Indonesia have largely avoided this scene, thanks to state-sponsored family planning programs. But Congressman Walden Bello says in the Philippines, any efforts to do the same have faced stiff resistance.

The country is 80% Catholic and the Catholic church leadership opposes any form of artificial contraception and has rallied for a decade against a reproductive health bill in Congress that would guarantee universal access to birth control. Recently, it even threatened the president with excommunication for supporting the bill.

Filipino Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz says "if you have more mouths to feed, then produce more food to eat! Not the other way around."

But trying to produce more food tests the limits of ecosystems, both on land and sea. Today, the Philippines imports more rice than any other nation on the planet. And according to the World Bank, every major species of fish here shows signs of severe overfishing.

Technological advances to boost the food supply have not kept pace with the Philippine's surging population growth.

More than half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Instititute.

The future of the people in the Philippines could easily be overwhelmed by outside forces, in a world that's projected to have 9 billion mouths to feed by the middle of the century.

China's Urban Population Exceeds Countryside for First Time

Today in China, 690.79 million people live in urban areas, compared with 656.56 million in the countryside, the 2011 report of China's National Bureau of Statistics said. Three decades of economic development has encouraged farmers to seek better living standards in towns and cities. The number of people in China's urban areas is twice the the total U.S. population.

Capitalist reforms in the late 1970s have taken more than 200 million people out of poverty, fueled a more than 90-fold increase in the economy since 1979, and transformed the nation into the world's second-largest economy and its biggest consumer of steel, copper and coal.

Chang Jian, an economist at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong said "Urbanization in China still has a long way to go, maybe for another 20 years."

Nobel economics laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz has cited urbanization in China, along with technology developments in the U.S., as the two most important issues that will shape the world's development during the 21st century.

China's urbanization has already benefited companies such as excavators makers Caterpillar Inc. and Komatsu Ltd., and iron ore miners BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Plc. Changing consumer tastes and growing wealth have also fueled demand for products sold by Apple Inc., General Motors Co. and Yum! Brands Inc.

China's city dwellers have 3 times the income of rural residents. Per capita urban disposable income increased 8.4% last year while per capita cash income increased 11.4% for rural people. Disposable income statistics for rural residents because much of their annual earnings aren't in cash, such as food they grow themselves. Rural income also grew faster than urban in come in 2010.

As the nation's urban population surges, China now faces the challenge of providing jobs, welfare and other social services to its city dwellers.

Nagorno-Karabakh: The National Womb

Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed region in the southern Caucasus which has suffered a devastating war. It's government in 2008 introduced a birth encouragement program to replace the population. Each newlywed couple gets about $780 at their wedding. For each newborn, newlyweds get cash payments. Families with six or more children under 18 are given a house.

The conflict started in 1988 and escalated in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenians, with backing from neighboring Armenia, fought Azerbaijan. 65,000 ethnic Armenians and 40,000 ethnic Azeris were displaced. The Muslim Azeri population never returned, and neither did many of the Armenians who had fled. A cease-fire was declared in May 1994 and on Sept. 2, Nagorno-Karabakh celebrated 20 years of independence, though it remains unrecognized by the international community.

Unemployment is high in the area, salaries are low, opportunities are few; the young continue to leave in search of better futures abroad. The average monthly salary is $50.

In a region as economically deprived as Nagorno-Karabakh, is the solution simply to increase the birthrate? Without first improving education, infrastructure and employment opportunities for future generations, and raising the standard of living, the children of today's baby boom may grow up to leave in search of better lives abroad, just like the youths of today.

From Russia Without Love

Russian women have been able to rely on legal abortion for birth control for decades. At 73 per 100 births in 2009, its abortion rate is the highest in the world. However, Russia's population is dropping, and in July, President Dmitri Medvedev signed into law measures that require advertisements for abortion to focus on alleged health risks. In October a measure to cap abortions at 12 weeks and impose waiting periods, ultrasounds and counseling on those seeking abortion cleared two of the three legislative hurdles required before becoming law.

The effect will be largely on women's autonomy and rights, with no guarantee that the decline in population will reverse. In Russia contraception has always been harder to come by than safe abortion. It is said that contraception is a Western imposition, a danger to women's health and a threat to the social fabric. The Soviet system rightly saw that modern contraceptive methods promoted individual women's autonomy, and preferred to keep reproductive health care in the hands of state medical providers. Birth control pills, IUDs and condoms were of poor quality and hard to access.

According to a Reuters report published on November 8, "With the arrival to the market of modern methods of contraception in the 1990s, abortion rates fell by almost a third but have since dropped more slowly." But the debt crisis of 1998 resulted in lack of state funding for family planning programs, which contributed to the low rates of contraceptive usage. And doctors tend to give patients negative information about contraception, in part because they are not adequately reimbursed for contraceptive counseling.

If Russia is serious about reversing population decline, it should be serious about reducing maternal and infant mortality rates - among the highest in Europe. And Russia still has far to go in closing the gender wage gap and in meeting the need for child care and early-childhood education. These are the very factors women consider when making childbearing decisions.

Thankfully, proposed legislation that would have required a husband's consent for a married woman seeking an abortion or parental consent for women under 18, as well an amendment to strike abortion from the national health plan were dropped after proving unpopular in the polls.

There is no easy answer to demographic decline, and making abortion the scapegoat for decades of neglect to women's well-being will not help. Building a stronger society that supports women and children is the long, slow, sure road to a thriving Russia.

Thai Prime Minister Warns of Bangkok Flooding

Thailand's prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, said of Thailand's capital, Bangkok: "We cannot block the water forever," adding that the government would choose which parts of the city to allow the water through to minimise the impact.

"The longer we block the water the higher it gets," she said. "We need areas that water can be drained through so the water can flow out to the sea."

The city's floodwalls have been reinforced in an attempt to prevent the floods pouring into the densely populated city from the central plains which are several metres under water in places. Water has been diverted to areas outside the main capital in a bid to prevent the Chao Phraya River bursting its banks.

Efforts to keep the city of 12 million people dry have been complicated by a seasonal high tide.

Three months of heavy monsoon rains have killed 320 people, damaged the homes and livelihoods of millions of people, mostly in northern and central Thailand, and forced tens of thousands to seek refuge in shelters. Currently, about one-third of Thailand's provinces are affected.

A government spokesman, said: "You have to understand that flood is about 38 per cent more than last year's…There is a huge volume of water coming down [equal to] the size of Hurricane Katrina and our existing plans is incapable of handling such situations.

To protect the commercial heart of the city, some areas to the north and east may be sacrificed. "Evacuations have not been ordered yet, but the people have been ordered to be on standby and get their belongings to higher grounds."

Indonesia: Overpopulation Puts Java at Risk of Water Shortage

Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said a population overload has put Java at risk of suffering a water shortage.

Java has around 128 million people, which is equal to 59% of Indonesia's population.­ More and more forests have been converted into farming areas. The environmental carrying capacity based on the ecological footprint method shows that the environmental carrying capacity has been surpassed," Nugroho said.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has predicted that the average rainfall in the 2010-2020 period would be less than the 1978-2007 period.

The Fake Environmentalists and Their Pretend-Game

Regional planners, under the direction of their political overlords---the proxies of developers - are trying to shove tens of thousands more people into the North Vancouver Island region. And they don't want people to grasp the full implications of their devious plans. What is transpiring here is transpiring across Canada and the continent of North America--and elsewhere. New subdivisions are sprouting up all over the map in place of greenbelts, woodlands and marshes and the people have little say in the matter.

The most frustrating thing is that fake environmentalists are able to pose as resisting this imposition. But their issue is not with population growth, but with "sprawl"---even though at least half of sprawl is driven by population growth and not by poor land-use planning. They want to 'manage' growth and steer it away from farmland, while packing the unending stream of newcomers into tighter and denser lots alongside existing residents, who are encouraged to surrender their living space in the interests of food security and the environment.

Thus people are presented with a false antithesis. Either accept growth with sprawl or so-called 'smart' growth without it. The local NDP (New Democratic Party), Greens and environmentalists tell people that population growth is something not in their jurisdiction, that immigration (or child benefits) policy is a federal matter and that nothing can prevent inter-provincial migration as guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, growth out of their hands.

Yet which political parties receive top marks from the Sierra Club? The federal Greens and the federal NDP. And what is their immigration policy? To increase the absurdly high immigration intake quota of the Harper Government by 25%, while matching or besting its pro-natalist programs.

This is the pretend-game that environmental NGOs play. Either population growth is not controllable, or even if it is, they have nothing to do with it--- and in any case, it has little bearing on environmental degradation, whether farmland or species loss, or GHG emissions. "It's not whether we grow", they argue, "but how we grow". Just squeeze tighter in the sardine can so that incoming migrants can snuggle up to you. And above all, feel guilty about having extra space in the backyard for your son to play in or a nature trail at the end of your block to take your dog. If it is nature that you want, well, you can get that on the Outdoor Living Channel, can't you?

Let me confess that, whether it is the white-flight "Freedom 55s" from Alberta or California, or people from across the world, I've never felt lonely enough to want them living under my nose, and neither do most of us who chose our 'low-density" lifestyle. Some may call that selfish, I call it a human right. Is it my demand for space that is unreasonable, or the demand that I accept as reasonable a human population level that is 250% higher now than when I was born? Why are we being forced to accept population growth? Because population growth is thought to be a necessary agent of economic growth, our Great God.

The myth that continued economic growth is necessary, desirable, inevitable or even possible remains our major stumbling block, the first domino of misconceptions that must fall before we can reclaim any semblance of the quality of life that we once enjoyed. We are in a foot race with Mother Nature. If we don't stop growth, she will stop us. Time is almost up. Don't let the Pied Pipers of Fake Environmentalism lead you down a futile path. Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth. rw

Beijing: in Defence of Sex Education in Schools

While older Chinese may be shocked by the idea of sex education, in recent years China has seen a dramatic increase in premarital sex, and unwanted pregnancies and abortions among young girls.

For that reason sex education classes, complete with graphic drawings of sexual organs, will be introduced to a primary school in Beijing from this session on an experimental basis.

Medical clinics in China perform an estimated 13 million abortions a year. Add to that the abortions performed in unregistered medical clinics and then there are the 10 million abortion-inducing pills are sold every year.

Many people in China lack even the basic knowledge to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Li Ying, a professor at Peking University, says that young people need to acquire better knowledge about sex.

Nearly two-thirds of the abortions in the country's hospitals are performed on single women aged between 20 and 29 and nearly half of the women who underwent abortions said they did not use contraceptives, according to a study and a government official.

In countries like the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and Singapore, all schools have sex education courses which begin from the early grades, even in primary schools.

Sex education in schools doesn't necessarily mean encouraging "sexual liberation". In China, where people are relatively conservative about sex, introducing sex education in schools in the early grades will help youngsters avoid unsafe sex rather than encourage them to have sex.

Because parents do not tell their offspring the facts about sexual activity and how to engage in it responsibly, every generation believes it "invented" sex. Sex is a normal activity that is on the minds of both men and women, therefore, humans do not have sex just for procreation. Sex serves multiple purposes, including personal pleasure, social bonding - as seen among live-in partners and spouses - and procreation.

Children and teenagers images and stories about romance and sex in the media almost every day. But the information they get may not be wholesome or accurate. Avoiding discussions on the subject won't prevent young people from taking interest in or having sex. It will only force them to get information from other sources which could be misleading and even dangerous, and could lead to unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

Sex education should be appropriate to the age of the student. For older teens, the topics could include the physical mechanics of sex or "what sex is", the nature of sexual attraction, sexual feelings and sexual pleasure, various approaches to values related to sex, sexually transmissible diseases and how to prevent them, safe sex practices, sexual preferences, how to say "no" to sex and how to accept a "no", and actions to take if one becomes pregnant.

Sex - like other aspects of our lives - be dealt with frankly and appropriately in the educational process.

Philippines: UN to Stop Funding Philippine Population Plan

The United Nations is planning to cut back its $1 million aid to the Philippine governments birth control program. The UN is cutting back next year due to lack of funding from members.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin said that the fund was used for birth control injectable drugs and pills especially to those who just gave birth. She feared that the Philippines could experience a spike in its population growth rate recently pegged at 2.4% per annum.

This makes the passage of the Reproductive Health bill more urgent to ensure sustained funding for family planning programs.

The Main Threat to the Economy of Tajikistan in 2011

Tajikistan is a war-ravaged Central Asian country that is the poorest of the CIS states. Over the last 10 years the population grew from 5.5 million to 6.25 million while the domestic product decreased from 4 billion 615 million to 1 billion 900 million Somoni (approximately 674 million dollars). 74.4% of the population are rural dwellers, which is growing faster than the urban population. The population is forecast to reach 8 million by 2020, according to President Rakhmonov.

In June 2010 the Parliament of Tajikistan adopted the "Law on Reproductive Health", which includes a number of measures to control fertility.

According to various international organizations, 2 million Tajiks are starving. 80% of the population lives below the poverty line. In rural areas industry has collapsed and there is lack of demand for labor.

During the years of independence, agriculture in Tajikistan was degraded and the country almost completely lost the culture of farming. In addition, in recent years have sharply deteriorated, and weather conditions are constant heavy rain, hail and floods, locust invasion.

However rainfall in the mountains over last fall and winter was only 5 to 15% of average annual norms. The current lack of rainfall is like the winter of 2001, when Tajikistan was faced with severe drought, which caused damage to the economy hundreds of millions of dollars. Some experts are already saying that harvest thousands of hectares of rain-fed (no irrigation) fields in Tajikistan in autumn sown winter wheat are irretrievably lost.

The irrigation system in the country, established during the Soviet Union did not receive funding and has been virtually destroyed.

Tajikistan now exports most of its grain from Kazakhstan and Russia. Increase in exports may lead to depletion of foreign reserves in Tajikistan.

Many of the country's able-bodied male population are leaving the country because of the failure of agriculture.The fields of the republic are run by women and children. Over 90% of Tajik migrants are currently in Russia and their number could reach 2 million.

Corruption is keeping grants from international financial organizations and donor countries, dedicated to improving the efficiency of agriculture, from being used for their original purpose.

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In Pakistan, Birth Control and Religion Clash

Nearly 4 million babies are born in Pakistan every year, and most are born into poverty. The World Bank says 60% of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day, according to a new government survey,

Yet clerics in religiously conservative Pakistan tell the Muslim majority that the Quran instructs women to keep bearing as many babies as possible and say that modern family planning is a Western convention that offends Islam.

But a woman can temporarily put off becoming pregnant. The mufti says the Quran encourages mothers to space their pregnancies and to breast-feed their babies for prolonged periods. During that time the man may also use condoms and the rhythm method.

The mufti Zakaria says being poor should in no way limit having babies. Referencing the Quran, he says, "God will provide the resources and no one will starve." The Quran also instructs that children must not be deprived of a proper upbringing. However, in Pakistan 38% of all children under 5 are underweight, and according to government data, malnutrition is widespread among mothers.

The mufti answers: "Every society has its own value system. You should not judge us by yours. Children in the West lead a luxurious life. Earth is their heaven. Our children should not be compared with them," the mufti says. "Muslims don't pay much heed to the mundane pleasures of this world. Our reward will come in the next life."

The mufti adds that the West has taken modern contraception too far by removing the fear of getting pregnant and therefore removing women's sexual inhibitions. In Pakistan, "if a woman's fear is removed," says the mufti, she will stray into bad behavior "and offend God."

70% of married women use no birth control method at all. While the government is ineffectual in promoting family planning, Dr. Yasmin Raashid, a leader in obstetrics and gynecology in Pakistan says if properly followed, the Quran's teachings about spacing pregnancies would automatically mean smaller families. She says more than anything else illiteracy undermines family planning in Pakistan.

"Educated mothers limit their families," she says. "The tragedy in our country has been that the majority of women in Pakistan are not educated." She says educating young girls is the single best policy for reducing the country's high fertility rate and for achieving smaller, healthier families.

In Sri Lanka the literacy rate is 91%. and the fertility rate is 2.3, compared with Pakistan, where it is 3.9. In Pakistan, infant mortality is nearly six times as high as in Sri Lanka - a smaller, poorer country.

"And the only thing that you see different there is that women are educated there," Raashid says. "They know about their rights. They know what has to be done where their children are concerned. They know what to do where their own health is concerned.

In Pakistan, less than 1% of GDP is spent on health care. 12,000 mothers die in childbirth in Pakistan each year. Pakistan must invest in more midwives. Only 25% of women being delivered by skilled birth attendants.

Islamic law prevalent in Pakistan says the soul is deemed to come into the fetus at four months, and so up to four months, abortion may be induced for "good cause." But abortion has become a dangerous form of birth control as women submit themselves to unskilled practitioners. It's the fifth-leading cause of maternal death in Pakistan because of the infections related to incomplete abortions and septic abortions.

On woman the interviewer met said she was already ill and overburdened with seven children. But she's pregnant again. She wants to stop having babies, and told her husband so. But her husband wanted a second daughter.

Philippines: Family Planning a 'Sacred' Choice for 82% of Pinoys

A survey of 1,200 adults by Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed that 82% of those polled consider family planning as a "sacred" personal choice that should not be interfered with. The poll showed that Filipinos want the government to provide information and subsidize family planning methods.

The rating was 21 points higher than the 61% rating on the same issue in November 1990.

82% agreed with the statement "the choice of a family planning method is a personal choice of couples and no one should interfere with it." Only 8% disagreed while 9% were undecided.

The RH bill currently pending in Congress promotes both natural and artificial means of family planning and pushes for sex education in schools. But the bill is opposed by the Catholic Church which allows only natural family planning.

73% also said if a couple wanted to practice family planning, relevant information on "all legal methods" should be provided by the government. And 68% agreed that "the government should fund all means of family planning, be it natural or artificial means."

About half of the respondents disagreed that the use of pills, condoms, and intra-uterine devices can be considered as abortifacients.

Japan's Food Chain Threat Multiplies as Radiation Spreads

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan's food chain. 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets. 4,108 kilograms of beef suspected of being contaminated was inadvertantly put on sale at 174 stores across Japan

The government on July 19 banned cattle shipments from Fukushima prefecture, though not before some had been slaughtered and shipped to supermarkets. A ban on shiitake mushrooms from another part of Fukushima was introduced on July 23 because of cesium levels, the health ministry said.

Seafood is another concern after cesium-134 in seawater near the Fukushima plant climbed to levels 30 times the allowed safety standards last week,

Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in central Japan, said "It's possible that contaminated groundwater leaked from the plant."

Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests. Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi.

On June 6, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant released about 770,000 tera becquerels of radioactive material into the air between March 11 and March 16, doubling an earlier estimate.

That's about 14% of the radiation emitted in the Chernobyl disaster in modern-day Ukraine. About 2 million people in Ukraine are under permanent medical monitoring, 25 years after the accident, according to the nation's embassy in Tokyo.

Cases of thyroid cancer in Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine, increased for at least 10 years after 1986 in children younger than 14 and for almost 20 years among 20-24 year olds, according to research by Shunichi Yamashita of Nagasaki University.

China Tones Down Family Planning Slogans, Enforcement

Ten years ago harsh-sounding family planning slogans could be seen painted on the sides of buildings. "One more baby means one more tomb" and "first baby delivered, litigation imposed after the second, and the third and fourth killed!" were used on the signs to deter parents from having additional children after the adoption of China's one-child policy.

Today China's National Population and Family Planning Commission is working to replace the phrases with kinder, gentler suggestions. The new slogans will appeal to people's positive emotions and express humanity while using concise, standardized language.

The slogans started out "relatively mild" when the one-child policy was implemented in 1979, saying things like: "one child is fairly adequate, two are just enough and three are excessive."

Family planning efforts encountered great obstacles in the countryside during the 1980s and 1990s because rural families tended to have more children when the cost of raising a child was low. Authorities resored to harsh and illicit means to crack down on excess births. Teams of anonymous thugs were hired to confiscate livestock and food from families who violated the policy, with some of the families even held in detention..

In 1995 the National Population and Family Planning Commission banned the practice of detaining and torturing families with excess children, as well as the practices of confiscating their property and levying nonexistent fines.

Now there is a tendency to reward families that have strictly followed population control policies. For example, households with a single child or two female children receive cash grants, with their children entitled to receive free insurance and education.

In one Province family planning authorities provide free services such as premarital counseling, reproductive risk assessments, parental training classes for parents-to-be and early education for children under three years of age.

In 2007, the slogans included warmer-sounding sentiments such as "the Mother Earth is too tired to sustain more children" and "both boys and girls are in their parents' hearts."

NYC's Newest Rush Hour: 24/7

Long Islanders may be spending more time in their cars and trains by 2030.

By 2030, every major infrastructure system in our city will be more than a century old, and pushed to its limits, The city could expect to gain about a million more residents by that time, He also predicted 750,000 new jobs and Long Islanders may be commuting in record numbers.

The infrastructure's components must work seamlessly for all of us to survive.

The Long Island Railroad began along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn in 1832.

As our population grows and our infrastructure ages, our environment will be pushed to new and possibly precarious limits. Unfortunately for Long Islanders who commute to the city daily, there will be nothing to combat the frustration of a daily commute to a city bursting at the seams. rw

California Seal Pups Beat Kids in Battle Over Beach

This week San Diego officials roped off a prime stretch of the La Jolla shoreline to keep people from disturbing the harbor seals who have taken up residence.

Any move can spook the animals to flee into the ocean and abandon their newborn babies, violating federal marine mammal protection laws.

Seals need adequate sun and sand time in order to maintain good health. The city was urged to act after receiving an increase in complaints that angry residents were harassing the marine mammals.The council voted to erect the barrier each year from January 1 through May 1. Federal officials have installed 24-hour surveillance cameras to watch for people deliberately swimming, kayaking or sunbathing in the area.

Many residents said they were undeterred as it's the only place around with a lifeguard station and bathrooms. A steady stream of tourists and environmental activists clusters around the roped area, unfazed by the stench. The cove has been a popular La Jolla spot since the early 1930s. Nobody knows why the animals began flocking to the shore in the late 1990s but about 200 seals live there. The rope barrier is also meant as a warning to stay away from seal fecal matter and birth byproducts.

A California judge ordered the city to dredge and clean up the beach but the decision has been tied up in litigation and a foul fishy stench remains.

San Diego Council president Scott Peters said he did not feel there was evidence of seal harassment. "The issue isn't so much that people can't get along with seals, it's that people can't get along with people," Peters said. rw

Asia's 163 Million Missing Girls

Mara Hvistendahl is the author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. She puts the number of missing girls in Asia at 163 million, more than the entire female population in the U.S. The imbalance was made possible by gender-selection abortion practices not only in China, but in India and other developing countries -- and in ethnic Asian communities in the U.S.

As a result, tens of millions of men in Asia, 'surplus males,' who, without female counterparts, may purchase women from poorer countries.

Sex selection has taken hold thanks to technology, lower birth rates, and deep-seated cultural biases that require a boy to carry on a family's lineage.

Abortion is accessible and widely used in most cultures, easier to obtain than in the U.S. There are nearly three abortions for every birth in some countries. "The availability of relatively inexpensive screening with unconditional abortion is a game changer," says Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at American Enterprise Institute.

Falling birth rates in developing countries, which improve the health and education of mothers and children, have the unintended consequence of encouraging sex-selection abortion. When a woman gave birth to six children, the odds were 99% that one would be a boy. With two children, it's only a 24% chance. "It's not that women want more boys, they have less chance of getting them," says Hvistendahl. Eberstadt says that women will take whatever sex with the first child, but after that, it's "very apparent there?s a massive parental intervention going on."

Sex selection happens more frequently with the urban, educated middle-class, says Hvistendahl, adding that it seems paradoxical that educated women are more likely to abort a fetus. Women in China are doing better than ever before, with more women in Ph.D. programs than men. "Yet this is happening at the same time,? she says. "If you don?t have a boy, you lose status."

Birth Control Fits the Bill in the Philippines

In the case of the Philippines population growth is out of control.

You can argue from superstition, from authority or from fact (science). Where religion is involved many folks in the Philippines are going to appeal to No 2: authority, which winds up being the Pope.

But the Pope doesn't have the right to speak for the Philippines as a whole. Catholics predominate, but there are lots of Muslims, breakaway Christians and mainstream Christians who happen not to be Catholic.

Father Joaquin Bernas, priest and former president of Ateneo de Manila University is supporting the Reproductive Health Bill, despite vituperative denunciations.

The bill, RH4244 or "An Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and For Other Purposes", establishes means of educating school kids on sex and their choices ahead and provide non-abortive methods of birth control. Governments would ensure the availability of reproductive healthcare services, including family planning and prenatal care.

Most countries would have no problem with this bill. And Catholics almost nowhere else give a hoot what the Pope or church say on birth control.

Now that the president, the most authoritative ex-president and numerous writers and teachers are on board in support of RH4244, things are changing.

But, meantime, one reads arguments attempting to show that more mouths to feed doesn't mean more mouths to feed, but more people to farm the (almost disappearing) soil. Or that the overflow people should move to uninhabited areas in the archipelago, even uninhabited islands. Are there roads into these places? Schools? Hospitals?

Supporters of the bill are being threatened with excommunication. Some proclaim a condom is a "murder weapon".

In 1970, the Philippines and Thailand were about equal in numbers and wealth. Thailand introduced family planning; the Philippines maintained its voodoo attitude. Thailand stabilized not much above the 1970s level and doubled its income relative to the Philippines.

It is funny that Malta just voted to permit divorce while only the Philippines remains. Most of my younger friends grew up not knowing their fathers, who just drifted off to start a new family somewhere else. So much for the status quo protecting the family.

The fact that the president who has proposed this bill is the son of late president Cory Aquino, protégée of Cardinal Sin and dead set against family planning, may be good news enough.

The overall majority popular support for the bill may finally just be enough to give the Congress enough teeth to withstand the clawing of the church and its advocates.

Global Food Crisis: China Land Deal Causes Unease in Argentina

A Chinese-owned agribusiness firm Beidahuang signed an agreement last year to buy a large swath of land in Patagonia. Critics claim the Chinese plan will result in heavy agrochemical use, ecological degradation, and strained water resources.

Diets in China's urban areas are diets are changing rapidly as the economy grows. People are eating more industrially produced meat and dairy products, and buying more processed foods.

China can no longer provide the soya that is the feedstock for this revolution, so Beidahuang has joined the global scramble for land and water that has accelerated since food prices spiked in 2008.

Up to 790,000 acres of privately owned farmland, along with irrigation rights and a concession on the San Antonio port will be acquired.

Beidahuang will also buy palm oil plantations and grain terminals on 200,000 ha in the Philippines.

Beidahuang is the leading soya producer in China and one of the country's five largest soya processors. It also raises more than 600,000 cows, 1.3m pigs and more than 6m chickens at any one time.

Manuel Accatino, the region's deputy secretary for agriculture in Río Negro, said. "We can foresee global shortages of land, water and energy, and Río Negro can offer all three."

Argentinian environmental groups and constitutional experts are outraged an have been working with the federal government that would restrict foreign ownership of Argentinian land.

President Barcesat said, "We need our own people to eat well first, and after that we can feed the rest of the world. We want more small and middle-sized owners, we don't like the excessive concentration, and we want farmers who will be careful with the land, not exploit it."

Research from the International Land Coalition, and Oxfam Novib, the Netherlands affiliate of Oxfam International, has identified more than 1,200 international land deals covering more than 80m hectares since 2000 - the vast majority of them after 2007. More than 60% of the land targeted was in Africa.

The Río Negro region is famous for its fruit orchards, which produce 70% of the country's apples and pears, exports eaten in northern Europe when the fruit season in that continent ends.

Dams have already cut the flow of the Negro rive and Chinese plans to invest $20m immediately to build irrigation infrastructure would strain resources further. Opponents claim that since soya cultivation is highly mechanised it will prompt unemployment in the area, as it has elsewhere in the country where many rural communities have seen an increase in deep poverty as jobs are lost.

Elvio Mendioroz, president of Uñopatún, an agro-ecoclogical group that opposes the Chinese deal, said the agreement had been kept secret. "China has run out of land to feed its people, and is suffering drought and soil erosion, so they come here.

Philippines: Senate Version of RH Bill Reaches Plenary

The Philippine's controversial reproductive health (RH) bill - Senate Bill 2865 - has been sponsored on the Senate floor 2 days before the first regular session of the 15th Congress ends.

Senate health and demography committee chair Pia Cayetano is a sponsor of the bill and emphasized that the bill seeks to save the lives of both mothers and the unborn, provide Filipinos with information and education on reproductive health, and give people access to reproductive health care facilities.

The bill does not legalize abortion, impose any mode of family planning method on families, require a certain family size, or promote sexual activity among the youth, she said.

"This bill will not solve all the problems of our country. Like most of the bills filed in the Senate, it is just one measure that will address a particular problem. In this case, it is the reproductive health of all Filipinos, particularly the woman and her child," Cayetano told the Senate.

She noted that the Philippines has a high maternal death rate. "A child who loses a mother at childbirth is ten times more likely to perish. Without a mother, who will now care for the child?" she said. "No other human being can take the place of the mother....and I dare say neither can the State."

Dispelling Myths: Population Growth – Problem Or Hype?

This video is 48 minutes long, but it is well worth waiting for the last speaker, Dr Eliya Zulu, who does an excellent job of dispeling some common misconceptions about population, mainly that the North is imposing population control upon the south. Dr Zulu is the Executive Director of the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) and President of the Union for African Population Studies, with over 20 years' experience in international development, population change, urbanization, health systems and policy analysis.

Philippines: Salves Life a Strong Case for Reproductive Health Bill

Salve, a 37-year-old woman in Valenzuela City, has eight children and is pregnant again. She is also hungry; she and her partner of 22 years, Alfredo, do not take much.

Salve works in a plastics factory and earns P1,500 on good days; P700 on bad days. She and her partner make about P5,200 a month. After expenses for the house, electricity, and water, there is enought for rice porridge, bought at P3 a cup. Small fish, bought at P20 a handful, are delicacies.

Not one of her children has been able to finish his or her studies, due to money restraints. The highest grade one of her children reached was 6th.

The family lives in a 32-square-meter enclosed space with two tables and a makeshift wooden bed. A hole in the ground serves as the toilet.

She and her children barely fit on the bed. Alfredo sleeps on the floor. She has had to throw out two of her elder sons several times in the past.

Salve has given birth to 12 of Alfredos children. Three died of sepsis, or the invasion of the body by pathogenic microorganisms. Another, an 18 year old, was run over by a bus.

Salve admits that her family experiences financial difficulties primarily because she has too many children.

In an effort to lessen the number of mouths they were obligated to feed, she and her partner tried abstinence. But the attempt did not work.

She is not opposed to sex education. Had she known about the importance of family planning much earlier, she would not have allowed herself to get pregnant so many times, she says.

This view is in line with some of the provisions of the measure that proposes the integration of sexual awareness in school curriculums and offers couples an informed choice in ways to plan their families. The proposed legislation is being debated upon in the plenary in the House of Representatives.

President Aquino has expressed support for the RH bill. But the Catholic Church and a number of lawmakers remain firmly opposed to the measure and have vowed to block its passage.

Salve plans to undergo tubal ligation to avoid getting pregnant again.

Why is an overpopulation group interested in Aids?

Answer: AIDS is prevalent in Africa, where some of the world's biggest population growth is
taking place. In Sub-Sahara Africa, it often the norm for unmarried females
to have children to prove fertility so that they can be eligible for
marriage. So, with the high promiscuity rate, the resulting high growth
rate, and the high concentration of AIDS, there is the possibility that AIDS
will mutate into a disease that is airborne (think: "Black Death", the
Bubonic plague)

Swine Flu - Dependent on Large Population

The major deadly infectious diseases of humanity through history - smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera - evolved from animals. Such diseases need a numerous and densely packed human population to sustain themselves lest they wane from lack of new nearby victims who have not had time to develop resistence.

Growing by 82 million a year, and on our way to 9 billion by 2050, and with jet travel, how can we be surprised that infectious diseases easily sweep across the planet with fearful speed?

Most scientists and ecologists say that Earth is over-populated by billions and that the carrying capacity of the United States will support far less than our current 306 million.

Looming catastrophes of climate instability, ecological impoverishment and resource shortages like oil, food, and fresh water are happening on that same population battle ground as Swine Flu.

If we don't get a handle on our population, death and disease will become more the norm than the exception.

Family Planning Hits Culture Gap in Rural Nepal

Mrs. Chepang, 42, has conceived 26 children during the last 30 years. Her husband promised to feed her and the children and if she dies in the process, will take care of her cremation.

She was married at age 12 and believed that frequent births were natural.

Only two of her infants are alive today. "Some died in the womb, some within a few days of their birth and some after six months," she said. She often had no help during labor.

After her 23rd child, she suffered from uterine prolapse, which caused regular bleeding, dizziness and pain. But she continued to give birth. Eventually, her ability to move became limited to dragging herself to the toilet.

Nepal's fertility rate fell from 6.3 in 1976 to 3.1 in 2006, and the contraceptive prevalancy rose from 26% in 1996 to 44% in 2006 thanks to family planning promotion, but "There is a dearth of family planning services, methods and devices at the health posts" in rural, remote and socially backward societies of Nepal, says Aswini Rana, a counsellor with the Family Planning Association of Nepal.

Mrs. Chepang's husband once had to carry her for more than an hour to reach a health post.

"We have started to promote appropriate methods of family planning targeted towards those who do not understand and are hence averse to surgical measures of family planning," Kiran Regmi, director of the Family Health Division under the Department of Health Services. He said family planning awareness is increasing in Nepal.

The government says radio is the most popular way to transmit family planning messages in rural areas, but women may be too shy and embarrassed to go to the local health post to obtain contraceptives, even if they do learned about them on the radio. Mrs. Chapang's husband told her that showing her private parts to others was shameful.

But then Kiran Gautam, assistant inspector general of the police, heard Chepang's story on the radio and offered to pay for the operation. She said: "Seeing a woman, who is barely 50, in such a state and knowing how she was compelled to lead this life of pain, I realized that the status of women in Nepal is still very lamentable."

Mrs. Chepang's uterus was surgically removed last year and she now promotes family planning and advised her daughter-in-law "not to have more than two children."

China Faces Challenges in Grain Production Despite Bumper Summer Harvest

Although China is likely to see a rise in summer grain output this year, it still faces challenges in grain production, Ma Xiaohe, deputy head of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning body, said recently.

With continued rising prices of producer goods, farmers' profit margins have been squeezed and dampened their enthusiasm for production. Labor costs have also risen meaning that farmers may abandon grain production to look for other jobs to earn more money.

The loss of arable land due to urbanization and the country's antiquated agricultural infrastructure also threaten grain security.

Ma said the government should increase financial support for agricultural production and take more measures, such as developing a commodity futures market, to ensure grain security.

National Geographic Magazine: Bangladesh, The Coming Storm

Home to 164 million, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated nations on Earth. By 2050, its population could reach 220 million, and meanwhile the sea is expected to rise to a point where millions of people will be displaced, forcing Bangladeshis to crowd even closer together or else flee the country as climate refugees.

Already on the Bay of Bengal they've seen sea levels rise, destructive river flooding, salinity infect their coastal aquifers, and more and more intense cyclones battering their coast, due to disruptions in the global climate. People fleeing river flooding in the north and cyclones in the south arrive in the capital Dhaka to live in slums or in parks or along the streets. Dhaka is already struggling to provide services and infrastructure.

But through all of the catastrophes Bangladesh has faced: war, famine, disease, killer cyclones, massive floods, coups and assassinations, poverty and deprivation - the people of Bangladesh have shown amazing resilience.

Bangladesh is home to BRAC, a nonprofit which provides basic health care and other services with an army of field-workers. Bangladesh also produced the global micro-finance movement started by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.

In addition, despite its poverty, illiteracy, and lack of economic development, Bangladesh developed a successful family-planning program that has lowered its fertility rate from 6.6 children per woman in the 1970s to the current 2.4. Part of the success of the program has been due to immunizing children against childhood diseases. The men, previously resistant to family planning, then realized they wouldn't need to have a bunch of babies just so a few would survive, and they liked the idea of fewer mouths to feed. Infant mortality dropped dramatically between 1990 and 2008.

BRAC and other NGOs have been working at finding new ways for people to make a go of it in their villages instead of moving to Dhaka. For example, they have found that the char (changing islands) dwellers have a way of life that adapts to the changing floodplains, providing a resilient way of life. Bangladesh has developed more salt-resistant strains of rice and built dikes to keep low-lying farms from being flooded with seawater, doubling its production of rice since the early 1970s.

Recently floating schools, hospitals, and libraries have been set up to function through the flooding. And people have found that they can raise shrimps or crabs instead of rice in the ponds and growing my vegetables on the embankments.

But none of these adaptations will be enough. Even at its sharply reduced rate of growth, Bangladesh's population will continue to expand-to perhaps more than 250 million by the turn of the next century.

Millions of Bangladeshis are already working abroad. India is building a 2,500-mile security fence along its border with Bangladesh to stop mass immigration. Some people believe that Bangladesh should train professionals to make them desirable as immigrants to other countries, hoping to reduce Bangladesh's population by 8 to 20 million people.

Water Wars? Thirsty, Energy-Short China Stirs Fear

Inhabitants along major rivers originating in China, the Brahmaputra and the Mekong, for example, blame China for the sudden flooding that took out homes, possessions and livestock, and the far-below-normal river levels.

The blame game, voiced in vulnerable river towns and Asian capitals from Pakistan to Vietnam, is rooted in fear that China's accelerating program of damming every major river flowing from the Tibetan plateau will trigger natural disasters, degrade fragile ecologies, and divert vital water supplies.

Almost 20 dams have been built or are under construction the eight great Tibetan rivers alone, while 40, more or less, are planned or proposed.

China is not the only one disrupting the region's water flows but China's vast thirst for power and water, its control over the sources of the rivers and its ever-growing political clout make it a singular target of criticism and suspicion. China could face the wrath of 1.8 billion people, from Pakistan to Vietnam, served by those eight Tibetan rivers.

Only China, along with Turkey, has refused to sign a key 1997 U.N. convention on transnational rivers. And China gave no notice when it began building three dams on the Mekong — the first completed in 1993 — or the $1.2 billion Zangmu dam, the first on the mainstream of the Brahmaputra which was started last November.

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, warned: "Since millions of Indians use water coming from the Himalayan glaciers… I think you (India) should express more serious concern. This is nothing to do with politics, just everybody's interests, including Chinese people."

Beijing said that the bulk of water from the Tibetan rivers springs from downstream tributaries, with only 13-16% originating in China, and that the dams can benefit their neighbors, easing droughts and floods by regulating flow, and that hydroelectric power reduces China's carbon footprint.

For some of China's neighbors have a host of other dams built or planned for downstream countries and feel they may look hypocritical if they criticize China too loudly.

But at the grass roots, and among activists and even some government technocrats, criticism is expressed more readily.

Beijing is signaling that it will relaunch mega-projects after a break of several years in efforts to meet skyrocketing demands for energy and water, reduce dependence on coal and lift some 300 million people out of poverty.

"There is no alternative to dams in sight in China," says Ed Grumbine, an American author on Chinese dams. China failed to meet its hydroelectric targets and is now playing catch-up in its 2011-2015 plan while striving to get 15% of energy needs from non-fossil sources, mainly hydroelectric and nuclear.

Because the Himalayan glaciers are melting due to global warming, India's Strategic Foresight Group last year estimated that in the coming 20 years India, China, Nepal and Bangladesh will face a depletion of almost 275 billion cubic meters of annual renewable water.

Some analysts believe China will divert water from Tibet to its dry eastern provinces, possibly rerouting the Brahmaputra away from India.

Kerala: a State in India with a Difference

by Carl Haub

Kerala, a narrow strip of territory along India's southwest coast, has long been one of India's most educated and progressive States. Its total fertility rate (TFR) is only 1.7 children per woman, a distinction it shares with its neighbor Tamil Nadu and a TFR lower than the U.S. and many European countries.

The state has a population of 33.4 million, and has grown by only 1.5 million since the 2001 Census. Kerala labor unions, unusual in India, largely due to the ruling Communist Party of India. As a result, few companies wish to locate there so many workers opt to leave to work in the Gulf and send remittances home.

In Cambodia, Women Fear Death at Childbirth

In Cambodia, home to 14 million people, giving birth is costly, risky and not safe for the mothers and the babies, with five women dying every day during childbirth, according to U.N. reports.

The high death toll is due to lack of sufficient midwives, limited health care centres, the cost of health services, and a bias in remote rural areas towards untrained traditional birth attendants.

The local Khmer language has an expression about the dangers of childbirth: 'crossing the river' likens childbirth to "the risk and the danger of crossing a river, a totally uncertain experience."

Philippines: Church Leaders Return to Talks, Agree to Sex Ed

At a high-level palace meeting withwith President Aquino, Church officials led by the Manila Archbishop acknowledged that sex education was necessary for teenagers and even for children who are on the eve of puberty aged 11 or 12.

The meeting was part of the continuing dialog with the administration on the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill that the Church strongly opposes.

Church officials suggested that the sex education being proposed by the RH bill should be accompanied by values formation, and that these should be taught in a graduated manner so as not to overwhelm young children. In typical modules the scientific techniques on reproduction were presented but nothing about values, nothing about discipline, and self-control.

Focus group discussions also need to be conducted on the so-called responsible parenthood bill, which is different from the RH bill that is already in the final stages of approval at the House of Representatives. Mr. Aquino told the priests that there would likely still be disagreements between the government and the Catholic leaders on the responsible parenthood bill.

For instance, the use of condoms, artificial contraceptives. It is the role of the state to provide all means of family planning to citizens, especially to the disadvantaged.

There was agreement at the meeting that condoms aren't abortifacients but the Church leaders still had concerns about them being distributed as contraceptives.

Serious Population Boom Threatens Indonesia

In Indonesia, the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) stated that the uncontrolled population boom could pose a serious threat to Indonesia due to its negative impacts on various sectors and immediate efforts are needed to suppress the population growth rate.

"The uncontrollable population growth can pose a serious threat and the outcome of an Indonesian population census in 2010 has clearly shown the signs of a population explosion."

Indonesia's population has increased 32.7 million in a decade, to 237.6 million, with a growth rate of 1.49%.

Trash, flooding and traffic congestion in residential areas, plus clean water, air and climate change issues are impacts of rapid population growth.

Sugiri, the head of BKKBN said: "You can imagine what will happen if the population continues to grow and approach 500 million." If the population growth rate remains at 1.49% it can be predicted that by 2045 the population reached 450 million.

"At that time the world population is projected to be nine billion people whereas one in every 20 people in the world is Indonesian," he said. "The high number of children will reduce the ability of human capital investment in the family, which will affect education and public health."

A large population with low human resources would destroy the the quality of natural resources, he said.

Pakistan: Overpopulation Burdens Economy and Environment

At 180 million people, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and fourth in Asia.

The Pew Research Center estimated that by 2030 Pakistan's population is expected to grow to 256 million, with an average annual rate of growth of 2.77%, one of the highest in the world.

Half of Pakistan's people are at risk of food shortages due to a recent surge in world food prices, according to the World Food Program. The price of wheat flour has more than doubled over three years. 24% of the population live below international poverty line. The inflation rate is 14.17% (2010) and the public debt is Rs9.473 trillion. The frequent increase in oil, electricity and gas tariffs has exerted an upward pressure on the general price level.

Overpopulation is putting a strain on the environment, infrastructure, and the country's natural resources. Industrial pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, rapid industrialisation, urbanisation, and land degradation are all worsening problems. Over-exploitation of the country's resources, be it land or water and the industrialisation process has resulted in environmental degradation of resources.

Air pollution kills tens of thousands every year, while many more suffer from breathing ailments, heart disease, lung infections and even cancer. Coal dust, or wood fires and unfiltered diesel engines are the most lethal forms of air pollution.

Millions of people suffer from diseases because of having no access to clean and drinking water. Waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and cholera are the main killers in Sindh province. Millions of people lack access to basic sanitation facilities which include clean sewerage services, toilets and wash basin.

The River Indus is being polluted from millions of litres of sewage, industrial and agricultural wastes. Heavy loads of biological and chemical pollutants usually enter the River Indus, to be consumed in some manner by the downstream user.

Sadly, our dangerously high rate of population growth is unaccompanied by complementary levels of economic expansion. One of the greatest problems of Pakistan is that many of them raise too many children without adequate income and plans on how to cater for them. Babies are now being abandoned at an alarming rate. This has proved that families should cut their coat according to their size.

The need of the hour is to intensify the family planning programme in the country. Pakistan should not wait till the population poses a greater danger like in China and India, before they act.

The ulema play a motivating role and change the social attitudes of the people towards gender equality and family size. And the government will have to improve the contraceptive delivery services in the country.

Get Men in the Delivery Room, Say Bangladesh's First Midwives

One out of 500 women die in childbirth in Bangladesh. Even though there is no law forbidding men to enter the delivery room, father's mother or another senior female member of the family provides the support, not fathers - an attitude that needs to change, say the country's first midwives.

Bangladesh, which is still heavily reliant on community skilled birth attendants, who lack the skill and the authority to perform more complicated deliveries, has started training midwives, who say "Men need to be involved in the labour process if we are to reduce maternal mortality."

"If could see firsthand the complications of childbirth, they would be more likely to send their pregnant wives to proper medical facilities and less likely to insist on early childbirth after marriage." 75% of deliveries take place at home, and the average age of women having their first child is just 16 years, according to the UN.

Wasted Food, Wasted Energy: the Embedded Energy in Food Waste in the United States

Food is not only a form of energy but also a consumer of fossil energy in its production, transportation, and preparation.

A study calculated the energy intensity of food production from agriculture, transportation, processing, food sales, storage, and preparation for 2007 as 8080 ± 760 trillion BTU. In 1995, approximately 27% of edible food was wasted (according to the USDA), and the study concluded from this that 2030 ± 160 trillion BTU of energy were embedded in the 2007 wasted food. This represents approximately 2% of annual energy consumption in the United States, which is substantial when compared to other energy conservation and production proposals.

Recent food shortages, blamed in part on the growth of the biofuels industry, have created a new awareness of the relationship between food and energy.

Over last 50 years we have seen increased agricultural productivity thanks to the adoption of new technologies and inputs, which are largely based on fossil fuels. The increase in the energy intensity of agriculture has brought with it unprecedented yields with minimal human labor.

Mechanization of the agriculture sector, improved fertilizers, more resilient crops, and the development of pesticides, all of which rely on fossil fuels, are the reasons for the increased productivity.

The 27% food waste figure does not include food wasted on the farm, in fisheries, and during processing and relies on outdated food consumption and waste data, some of which is from the 1970s.

Because of economic and population growth, the total amount of food production and consumption has grown since the latest food loss study for 1995, and the portion of income Americans spend on food has dropped. From this, the researchers hypothesized that the current amount of food wasted to be higher compared to the USDA's 1995 estimates. If this is true, addressing food waste represents an opportunity for avoided energy consumption.

Follow the link in the headline to read the complete report.

African Deaths Highlight Illegal Toxic-waste Trade

Activists campaigned against the dumping of toxic waste while regulations adopted in Basel in 1989 attempted to restrain the business.

The worst practices are back, but instead of toxic waste, the developed world is dumping old ships, and electronic goods on poorer countries ill-equipped to deal with them.

Trafigura Beheer BV, which chartered the tanker that offloaded the waste in Ivory Coast, rejects claims that the waste was high in poisonous hydrogen sulphide, but activists say the export of hazardous waste is widespread. The tanker concerned was Korean-built, Greek-managed, Panamanian-flagged and Dutch-chartered.

The chemical sludge it unloaded in Abidjan was dumped around the city in August, causing a foul stench and prompting tens of thousands of people to seek medical attention. Recyclers promise to find homes for the ever larger mountain of discarded electronic gadgets in the developing world.

A U.S. group campaigning for a crack-down on hazardous waste, said last year 500 containers of computers were being shipped into Lagos every month.

Seventy five per cent ended up being dumped and burned, releasing hazardous fumes. The UN estimates that 20 to 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is produced every year, and 48% of EU waste exports were illegal. rw

Sanitation in Ghana; a Far Cry From Millennium Development Goals

According to Mr Demedeme, the sanitation condition is "an indictment to Ghanaians" considering the magnitude of resources that have been disbursed towards containing the situation. In the 1990s, huge sums of money went into sanitation, but as of this day the condition is still deplorable. He blamed ignorance and indiscipline for the litter and disposal of waste, compounded by an obsolete legal regime. Seventy per cent of the diseases treated at health institutions are sanitation related and bring pressure on the National Health Insurance Scheme.

District Assemblies are directed to undertake updating by-laws and embark on aggressive marketing of construction and use of domestic latrines, and enforcing laws on provision of sanitation facilities by landlords.

As a solution to the problem, Mr Demedeme called for the streamlining of the fragmented approaches to the tackling of sanitation and urged that all efforts must be made to increase the collection of waste from its current 60% to 90%. The most critical problem facing Ghana currently is that of solid waste management and environmental sanitation. Waste generation, is estimated to grow at 2.7% in developing countries to the year 2010. Ghana's current population growth is estimated at 2.6%. One of the major factors is the rise in per capita incomes plus the rural to urban migration drift.

Accra, with an estimated population of four million, generates about 2000 metric tons of solid waste a day out of which it is able to collect 1500 tons. Constraints are inadequate resources, irregular payment of contracts, weak capacity for expansion, and serious negative impact on health delivery system. rw

Pakistan: Unsung Heroines Bring Health Care to Villages

The lady health worker (LHW) wears a black gown that shows only her eyes, she is shod in comfortable slippers and lugs a large black bag. She visits the city's poorest communities, visiting as many as 10 homes everyday, helping to raise awareness and improve maternal and child health.

She carries an assortment of medical supplies: oral rehydration salts, bandages, condoms, contraceptive pills, iron and folic acid tablets, and so on.

Employed by the government?s National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care, she may be the sole breadwinner in her family.

Launched in 1994, the programme now has 100,000 LHWs covering 60% of the population - the biggest outreach intervention in South Asia.

These women range from congested cities to far-flung and underdeveloped rural areas. Their work includes campaigns like administering polio drops to children, plus neonatal tetanus, measles, tuberculosis, and malaria control.

Their work is particularly important in the rural areas where 75% of Pakistan's population live, and a hike of a couple of hours to as much as a day may be required to reach a health clinic. Often customs prevent women from seeking health services without being chaperoned by a male family member.

Plastic Bottles Pile Up as Mountains of Waste

The biggest growth in bottled beverages is water. The recycling rate of plastic water bottles is extremely low yet the demand from recyclers is high. The recycling system hasn't kept up with consumption especially when it comes to water. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over the last decade, from 10.5 gallons in 1993 to 22.6 in 2003. The number of water bottles sold has risen from 3.3 billion in 1997 to 15 billion in 2002. But most bottled water is consumed in areas where there's usually no recycling. rw

Child Marriage Still Prevalent: UNICEF

Two-thirds of female adolescents are still getting married before the age of 18 in Bangladesh, with 30% getting married before reaching the age of 15, says a new UNICEF report: 'The State of the World's Children 2011: Adolescence An Age of Opportunity'. The percentage of child marriage in Bangladesh is one of the highest in the world.

One-third of teenage girls bear children, and the adolescent fertility in the poorest quintile is double that in the richest quintile of the population.

90% of marriage to female adolescents in Bangladesh was per their parent's decision.

According to the UNICEF global report, around 335 million adolescents live in South Asia while there are 33.9 million in Bangladesh, which is one fourth of country's population.

Investing in the world's 1.2 billion adolescents aged 10-19 now "can break entrenched cycles of poverty and inequality," the report said.

The 33% drop in the global under-five morality rate shows that many more young lives have been saved; in most of the world's regions girls are as likely as boys to go to primary school; and million of children now benefit from improved access to safe water and critical medicines such as routine vaccinations.

On the other hand, more than 70% of adolescents of lower secondary age are currently out of school, and at the global level, girls still lag behind boys in secondary school participation.

Without education,adolescents cannot develop the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the risks of exploitation, abuse and violence.

Bangladesh is planning to eliminate child labour in the country and to set up 'Adolescents Clubs'.

Philippines: As RH (Reproductive Health) Moves to Plenary, Women Tell Bishops: 'Respect Our Right to Life'

The Philippines House of Representatives session when the much awaited plenary debate for the highly debated reproductive health bill was set to be delivered was suspended, disappointing a group of women advocates pushing for the passage of House Bill 4244 or the "Responsible Parenthood (RP), Reproductive Health (RH) and Population Development Act of 2011" have appealed to Catholic bishops to respect women's right to life.

The NGO Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP) has expressed concern that Catholic bishops have been issuing statements on many issues but never a thing on addressing maternal deaths.

The Bishops are never concerned about "arresting maternal deaths. They say they are against the re-imposition of the death penalty, but seem not to care about the on-going massacre of poor Filipino women," a representative said. The deprivation of life-saving reproductive health services is like a death sentence hanging over the head of poor women.

"Even from a purely utilitarian point of view, this means: less human resource for the nation and more financial assistance needed for the orphaned family. The nation loses if we do nothing and allow the death of 11 mothers every day, due to pregnancy and pregnancy-related complications."

According to the DSWP, an effective Family Planning (FP) program can dramatically reduce maternal deaths by 32%. "This is because FP prevents mistimed, too early, too frequent, and too late pregnancies, and high risk pregnancies that have high probability of having complications."

A Guttmacher Institute study has shown that for every peso spent on FP, the state can save from three to one hundred pesos in addressing pregnancy and childbirth-related problems.

"If bishops are truly against the death penalty, they should be with us in working for the immediate passage of the RH bill into law".

Nepal: Breaking the Taboo

In Nepal, in 1996, a Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of 539 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births was reported. The number was reduced to 281 by 2006, representing a decline of 48% over a period of ten years.

In September 2010, Nepal became the recipient of a UN Award from among 49 least developed countries for the significant MMR reduction and subsequent contribution towards achieving UN Millennium Development Goal 5, which aims to improve maternal health by reducing the MMR by three quarters and achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

The Nepal MMR is the outcome of coordinated efforts in executing various targeted programmes and projects by governmental and non-governmental organisations, but it also has coincided with the period when abortion was legalised in 2002, so many health sector stakeholders have linked the achievement to abortion policy reform.

According the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 19 million abortions worldwide are unsafe. And anywhere from 10%-50% of women undergoing these abortions requires medical care for severe complications later, with more than 68,000 dying each year.

Unsafe abortion predominantly exists where abortion is illegal, or where it is legal but safe services are inadequate, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

Because of the stigma attached to abortion, women and girls in rural areas prefer to use traditional remedies, which beyond being unsafe, sometimes can be fatal. Unsafe abortion causes half of the maternal deaths in Nepali hospitals even today. Statistics on abortion suggest that unsafe abortion in Nepal was widely practiced as a family planning method before its legalization.

When abortion was legalised in 2002, a woman was allowed to terminate a pregnancy of up to 12 weeks of gestation, or longer (up to 18 weeks) in the event of rape or incest, or anytime if carrying the child puts the life of the mother at risk. There were a drastically increased number of registered abortions after abortion was legalised.

Providing better and equitable access to safe abortion has become even more important considering the still high fertility rate among adolescents. About 21% of adolescent girls are already pregnant or become mothers of their first child by the time they are 15-19 years old.

Empowering rural youth by providing formal and informal education on sexual and reproductive health and family planning would be an effective strategy to enable adolescent girls to make informed decisions on timely marriage, planned pregnancies and safe motherhood.

An intervention strategy featuring additional service centers, increased awareness-raising and targeted advocacy initiatives and capacity-building of female community health volunteers will help limit not only the number of fatal cases from unsafe abortion but also reduce unplanned pregnancies.

Law and Custom Press Afghan Women's Shelters

New rules being drafted by the Afghan government speak to the suspicions that women's shelters encourage girls to run away from home and at worst are fronts for brothels.

The changes in the law will deter the most vulnerable women and girls from seeking refuge, by requiring a woman to justify her flight to an eight-member government panel, which would determine whether she needed to be in a shelter or should be sent to jail or back home, where she would be at risk of a beating or even death. She would also have to undergo a physical exam that could include a virginity test.

Women's advocates see the effort as an example of government pandering to religious and social conservatives as President Hamid Karzai's administration starts reconciliation efforts with insurgents. Women's rights may be the first area in which the government makes compromises.

Manizha Naderi, the director of Women for Afghan Women, which runs three shelters and five family counseling centers around the country, says "Domestic violence is cultural and it takes time to change and it will change, but women need a safe place when they are a victim of violence."

Practices associated with the Taliban era, like arranged marriages for child brides, public flogging and mutilation of women, continue in rural areas.

Today, about 14 women's shelters exist, financed by a mix of international organizations, private donors and Western governments. Women's advocates fear a government-appointed panel will not be able to stand up to pressure from power brokers or others who may want their daughters sent home so that they can be punished in accord with Afghan customs. Even fleeing an abusive marriage is seen as bringing shame on a woman's family.

Under the new rules nongovernmental organizations would no longer run shelters. The Afghan cabinet appears to have given a clear order that all shelters should be run by the government.

The minister of labor, social affairs, martyrs and the disabled, Amina Afzali, was upset about the shelters' high profile in discussing abuse. Such publicity "humiliates us in the eyes of the world," she said.

In 90% of cases when girls return from the shelters to their villages, they will not be accepted by the community and will be suspected of having committed adultery, said a conservative member of Parliament would wants the shelters closed altogether.

China Says Its Population Has Passed 1.34 Billion

Author: ALEXA OLESEN

China announced that its population grew to 1.34 billion people last year marking a modest jump for a massive population.

China added about 6.3 million people last year. A more accurate figure is expected to be released within the next few months after the government tallies the results of its 2010 census.

The decline in growth could help convince policy makers to relax the government's strict family planning limits.

Since 1979, the government has limited families in cities to one child and rural parents to two to control its population.

"China's population now is mainly growing because people are living longer, not because people are having lots of babies," said Cai Yong, an expert on China's population in the U.S..

The U.S. Census Bureau has projected it will peak at slightly less than 1.4 billion in 2026, with India overtaking China as the world's most populous nation in 2025.

Experts attribute the slowing growth rate to the strict family planning limits and to the country's urbanization and growing prosperity. The government says its family planning rules have prevented more than 400 million births since it was implemented three decades ago.

"To have a stable society, you better start now, to think ahead of time because it takes 20 to 30 years to have another generation come down the line," Cai said.

13 Million Abortions a Year in China

Nearly a quarter of the world's abortions happen in China. Abortions in China peaked in the 1990s, with official figures saying 14 million were performed.

Abortion has long been the instrument of choice for married couples who do not want daughters and for officials enforcing China's one-child policy for the past 30 years.

It used to be that older, married women were the largest group getting abortions. But today it is mostly younger and unmarried women.

Ms Lily Liu, the Beijing-based country director of Marie Stopes International, a sex health charity, explained: due to better nutrition, girls reach puberty - and possibly become sexually active - earlier, at age 12-1/2 in the 1990s compared with 14-1/2 in the 1970s. And they are getting married later.

In a study it was found that more than 22% of young women were having premarital sex and more than half of this number did not use contraceptives. 20% of these sexually active women have gotten pregnant at least once, and 90% of these aborted the baby.

Another study of women aged 20 to 29 in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai found the abortion rate to be 62%. Only 2% of the women had used contraceptives. And another study showed that 90% of young women have had at least one abortion. One even had 11 within three years.

Most likely these women - migrant workers, white-collar workers and students - were more fearful of parental anger and the stigma of having a child before marriage than of having an abortion.

It is inexpensive and about a four hour procedure to get an abortion in China. But there are possible harmful health effects of abortion.

Most analysts agree that the lack of sex education is to blame. Only 3% of parents talk to their daughters about sex, says one poll. Another poll found that 85% of students learn about sex on the Internet.

Last year, several universities in Shanghai held their first-ever sex education talks, attracting packed audiences. But cheap contraceptives are not available to students.

China Urges Int'l Community to Promote Gender Equality Legislation

The 55th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women, was held from Feb. 22 to March 4 at the UN headquarters in New York.

Song Xiuyan, vice chair-person of the All China Women's Federation, said that the international community should continue to strengthen its efforts to enhance women's economic situation and political status, improve women's participation in society, education and labor market, eliminate violence against women, and guarantee women's rights and interests.

Song said the launching of UN Women, formally known as the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, clearly indicates the great importance that different parties have attached to, and the broad consensus reached on women issues.

She proposed that the UN Women should be committed to the realization of women's full development, with more input being made to alleviate poverty among women and to improve their education and health.

Condition of Adolescents in India Among the Worst

Twenty per cent of the world's adolescent population live in India, which has one of the worst track records in health and education, according to UNCIEF in its 'State of the World's Children' report.

47% of girls from 11 to 19 are underweight. 56% of girls and 30% of boys in the same age group are anaemic which places the country along with the least developed African nations.

This same age group comprises 25% (243 million) of India's population. Almost 40% of the section is out of school and 43% get married before the age of 18, out of whom 13% become teenage mothers.

86% of those 11-13 and 64% of 14-17 year olds attend school.

Fortunately the number of girls getting married before the age of 18 years has decreased from 54% in 1992-93. But the figure is the eight highest in the world and Pakistan fares much better with just 25% of girls getting married before the age of 18 years.

6,000 adolescent mothers die every year and there is a 50% higher risk of infant deaths among mothers who are under 20 years.

Correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS is held by 35% of adolescents boys and 28% of girls.

One-third of adolescents report physical abuse and and the same number report sexual abuse.

A representative said "health and reproductive services and knowledge" must be provided to every person in this age group.

Indonesia: Family Planning Board Expects Heavy Burden as Population Continues to Grow

Indonesia is expected to pass the United States to become the third-most populous country in the world. It's current population is 237 million, and growing at a rate of 1.49% says the National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN). The country's population will more than double to 475-500 million by 2050. "We already have the fourth-largest population in the world, but in terms of the quality of life for all citizens we are in 108th place out of 188 countries."

Sugiri Syarief, head of BKKBN, warned that Indonesia's high fertility rate was partly because of high poverty rates and poor families having more children. He warned the poverty rate would only increase as the population grew, hampering economic development and leading to a host of other problems. "The population boom will burden the central and regional governments in terms of having to provide more food, health care, education, jobs, transportation and other services for a far bigger population."

Sugiri suggested relocating the population to spread it more equally over the country to prevent overcrowding and overexploitation of resources in urban areas. He also called for revival of the national family-planning program that fell out of favor after the ouster of former President Suharto. This family-planning policy saw population growth fall from 2.32% between 1971 and 1980 to 1.97% from 1980 to 1990. The BKKBN will work with the Indonesian military (TNI), state-owned ferry operator Pelni and the State Ministry for the Acceleration of Development in Underdeveloped Regions to boost the family planning campaigns in remote locations.

Bangladeshi's Rural Sector May Collapse Within Decades: Analysts

A UNFPA report said that Bangladesh will face a severe food crisis within a couple of decades due to over exploitation and rapid decline of cultivable land due to excessive population and climate change. Bangladesh has 164.4 million people, growing at rate of 1.4%. The country's projected population is 222.5 million by 2050.

An agriculture expert says the country will have to adapt a multiple crop system in agriculture as it has no other alternative to increase food production. "Now, we are cultivating the High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of crops to produce more food grains, which increased the food production in the country. But it will never be the final solution to address the country's food demand considering the rapid growth of population." "The country's agriculture cannot survive in future as a whole."

The price of food grains has reached a record level in the global market, which also affects the local market. The food price in the country is increasing gradually, which is a sign of emerging food crisis. Food grains production has been decreasing not only in the country but all over the globe due to climate change. "Wheat production has declined in Russia, Canada and Australia due to drought in recent years and this trend will continue."

The agricultural production has already declined in the country due to drought, flash flood, storm surge, cyclone and erratic rainfall.

Cultivable land has declined from 21 million acres in 1980 to 18 million acres in 2007, most of it going to housing, infrastructure and the industrial sector. And, as people are exploiting the land, its fertility is falling gradually.

If the sea level rises meter, around 20-25% of agricultural land in the coastal belt will go under the sea water, which could happen within the next 30-40 years.

44,000 farmers have left agriculture farming per year over the last four decades. Around 155,000 fishermen have been forced to change their ancestral occupation per year over the last two decades.

Greg Mortenson: Five Cups of Hope, Heart, and Humility

Editor note: Recently Greg Mortenson has been in the news, with the television program 60 Minutes claiming he lied about certain things. One of the charges claims that 30 of Mortenson's 140 schools were found to be in shambles or built by someone else. I believe in Mortenson's work, his principles, and his vision, and if only 50 of his claimed 140 schools for girls are in operation, he is still a success, in my mind.

Greg Mortenson wrote the best-seller Three Cups of Tea and the sequel Stones into Schools, about establishing schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The author spoke to Mortenson as part of the National Geographic Traveler Conversations series and was impressed by his genuineness, honesty, humility, and devotion to serving others.

In addition, he has given us five lessons that are needed in this world of diverse cultures:

1. "The greatest challenge that we face is teaching people about tolerance." Mortenson said: Cultivate an open mind: Try to understand what others are doing and why; try not to judge.

2. "We should spend more time talking with our elders and learning from them."

In more traditional societies like Afghanistan and Pakistan, elders are still revered as leaders and teachers. They act as bridges not just to the past but to the future too -- for their keen insight can often reveal the hidden perils or potentials of a path.

3. "Wherever you go, before you do anything else, drink three cups of tea."

This means honor, respect, appreciation, and understanding at the local level. Mortenson works from the ground up, making sure that each village agrees to and participates in each project. "Communities have to put sweat equity in our schools," he said. Because of this, while the Taliban have destroyed some 24,000 schools, 3/4 of them girls schools, none of his schools have been harmed.

4. "Most women in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan want two things -- their babies not to die and their children to have an education."

Mortenson's mentor, Haji Ali said: "My life's greatest sadness is that I never learned to read or write. My life's greatest hope is that my children will learn to read and write." In 2000, 800,000 kids were in school in Pakistan; now there are 9 million, including 2.8 million females.

5. "If you really want to change a culture, the answer is to educate girls."

Mortenson said: "The Taliban see a powerful threat in educating girls. They recruit from illiterate families. Before going to do jihad, a son has to ask the permission of his mother. Literate women are far less likely to give their sons blessing to do jihad." Improving female education lowers populations and infant deaths, and delays the marriage age of girls. Educated women are much more likely than men to return to their villages and become advocates for and implementers of local improvements.

Philippines: WHO Lauds Pope on Condom Stand

The World Health Organization welcomed the relaxation of the Vatican's stance against condom use.

Pope Benedict XVI said the use of condoms is acceptable to help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

If used correctly and consistently, the male condom is the most efficient protection against the sexual transmission of transmitted infections, according to WHO

The papal statement would help ease the reluctance of several sectors to use condoms. The prevalence of HIV in Asia Pacific had reached 20% among sex workers and up to 30% among men having sex with men.

It was estimated that some 75 million men in Asia patronize sex from 10 million sex workers and, at the same time, have sex with 50 million regular or casual partners.

130,000 to 150,000 new infections related to high-risk lifestyle occur every year in the Western Pacific region.

It is estimated that some 1.4 million people in Western Pacific were diagnosed with the AIDS virus. Ten years ago, the number of cases was 680,000.

"While condom use remains the core strategy for preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections among sex workers, essential and affordable sexual and reproductive health services should also be made available to sex workers to address a host of other issues," WHO said.

Worldwide, some 33.4 million people are living with HIV.

Phillipine House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman welcomed the new papal statement on condom use, saying it signals the liberalization of the stand of the Catholic Church when it comes to condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The moderation of the Church's position on condoms to prevent the spread of a deadly disease may ultimately evolve to include the use of condoms and other contraceptives to prevent high risk pregnancies," he added.

Lagman said "Family planning and contraception save lives by helping women avoid high risk pregnancies which often end in maternal and infant death or morbidity." Maternal deaths in the Philippines account for one out of every seven deaths of women of reproductive age. One in three deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth could be prevented if women who want to use contraception are given access to it."

Helping women plan their families can prevent one million infant and child deaths every year worldwide because closely spaced pregnancies threaten infant survival.

A pregnancy that is planned and wanted will not be aborted. More women can avoid unintended and mistimed pregnancies through effective family planning, the less the incidence of abortion will be, he said. Despite the endorsement from the Vatican, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines vows to continue opposing the RH bill "because that is our moral duty," said Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles. rw

China: And Why Not a Baby Girl

Affluent urban couples in China are starting to think about having a second baby, hoping it is a girl.

Some are concerned that their first child will move away when he grows up, and a daughter can stay and take care of them.

An example given of such a couple are a woman and her husband who own a software company in Beijing that earns the couple about 500,000 yuan (74,828 U.S. dollars) a year - enough to afford circumventing the one-child policy. Under this policy, couples need to pay a fine, based on families' annual income, that has been reported to range from 45,000 dollars to more than 100,000 dollars.

The couple thought it was too expensive to raise a boy, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. "We have to buy him an apartment at least. Otherwise it will be difficult for him to find a girlfriend."

In China, where a historical preference for boys has led to a dramatic gender imbalance, attitudes about having girls are beginning to change in urban areas. According to a 2009 survey of 3,500 prospective parents in Shanghai, 15 percent of those interviewed wanted a baby daughter compared to 12 percent who wanted a baby boy. The rest had no preference.

China's gender imbalance has reached dangerous levels. The attitude that girls cannot accomplish as much as boys is becoming outdated. "Girls can also inherit a family business." "They can be as able as men."

A booming economy in the last decade has created more opportunities for woman, particularly in the cities. Rising incomes have rendered moot the traditional reasons for wanting a boy - namely that a boy will earn more money to support his parents in old age.

In 2005, the last year for which data is available, there were 119 boys born for every 100 girls. In some areas, the ratio was as high as 130 males for every 100 females.

In rural areas preference for boys has led to a number of selective abortion, prostitution and human trafficking. China has a surplus of some 32 million boys.

South Korea has had a shift in gender preference in the last 20 years. In 2006, Korea's gender ratio was 107.4 boys born for every 100 girls, down from a peak of 116.5 boys to every 100 girls in 1990, according to a 2007 World Bank study. (Demographers consider a 105 to 100 ratio normal).

Major shifts in Korea's economy created opportunities for women in the work force, changing long- held attitudes toward women?s role in society.

A study in 2010 by the government-supported Chinese Academy of Social Sciences named the gender imbalance among newborns - not overpopulation - the country's most serious demographic problem.

The study attributed the gender imbalance to China's three-decade-old one-child policy and to a poor social security system.

"The chance of getting married will be rare if a man is more than 40 years old in the countryside. They will be more dependent on social security as they age and have fewer household resources to rely on," another researcher said. Abductions and trafficking of women were "rampant" in areas with too many men.

China has made great strides in terms of gender equality. There are a growing number of women in government administrative positions, legislation on gender equality continues to rise and there are more women receiving education at high levels. rw

U.S.: FDA Policies for Gene-Altered Foods Faulted in Report

Genetically modified food could contain dangerous compounds because of the failure to regulate the production of such foods. The Food and Drug Administration made errors in reviewing GM crops, and the agency will not ensure the safety of food as more companies market transgenic foods. Experts fear "anti-nutrients," or harmful compounds, could appear in higher concentrations in genetically altered crops. These are common in miniscule amounts, the amount could increase when plants are genetically altered. The FDA has not established guidelines for testing in GM foods. rw

Thailand Persecuting the Victims

In Thailand the teen pregnancy rate here is the highest in Asia, despite what critics say is a punitive abortion law.

Women rights groups maintain that condemnation and legal punishment for abortion will not help ease the problem of unplanned pregnancy. Safe sex education and better services for pregnant women and young mums, they say, will.

Abortion is legal only when the pregnancy endangers a mother's life or when the pregnancy is caused by rape and incest. Otherwise, women who attempt abortion face a jail term of up to three years and/or a fine of up to 6,000 baht. Women who have an abortion also face harsh social stigma as sinners.

All previous attempts to amend the abortion law have failed due to fierce opposition from religious groups. But the anti-abortion law has failed to deter teenage pregnancy.

World Health Organisation figures show the global average number of pregnancies for every 1,000 girls in the 15-19 age group is 65. In Asia it is 56, but it rises to 70 in Thailand.

Abortion is inevitably a solution when unwed teenage girls face harsh social stigma in a society which fails to provide them with safe sex education, proper counselling and other services such as half-way homes for unwed mothers and foster and adoption services, said Nattaya Boonpakdee, coordinator of Women's Health Advocacy Foundation.

"Society still sees sex education as dirty talk about intercourse. Actually it is about gender relations, dating, the consequences of unsafe sex and how to protect yourself," she said.

Ms Nattaya said the abortion law is too narrow and forces women to seek abortion from underground abortion clinics.

Research shows that 60-70% of those seeking abortions do it because of economic and social pressures, she said. Many risk being fired or expelled from school when they are pregnant.

"Women face great health risks, even death, from underground abortion clinics because the safe and legal option is unavailable," she said.

Opponents insist the availability of legally safe and inexpensive abortions will aggravate the problem of teen pregnancy and abortion.

On the other hand, the Reproductive Health Bill allows pregnant students to continue in school during pregnancy and resume their studies after giving birth, promising a different approach.

Research has shown that when teenage girls see their friends fall pregnant and encounter difficulties in their lives as a result, they become more careful with their relationships.

While legal abortion remains too controversial, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security has opted instead to focus on teen pregnancy prevention, using safe sex education, information campaigns run on social media networks, monitoring high-risk groups, counselling, shelters, occupational training and giving teen mothers the right to resume school after they give birth. rw

Philippines: Catholic Bishops Warn of 'Civil Disobedience' Over Contraceptives

Roman Catholic bishops yesterday warned of "civil disobedience" against the administration should President Benigno C. Aquino III fulfill a promise to hand out artificial birth control methods.

Monsignor Juanito S. Figura, CBCP secretary-general said while Church principles state civil allegiance to state laws, "... if a law or a state policy is against Christian teachings, persons, Christians, Catholics are not bound by conscience to obey that."

He identified the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill and the distribution of artificial contraceptives to justify civil disobedience.

Msgr. Pedro C. Quitorio III, CBCP media director, was also quoted in the statement as saying that the CBCP had only invoked civil disobedience once in its 65-year history.

Pablo Virgilio S. David, San Fernando de Pampanga auxiliary bishop, said: "Does President Aquino know that many of the artificial methods are aborti-facients which means they were designed not only to prevent conception but terminate a conceived child because once you already have a fertilized embryo you already have a human being."

He also criticized what he claimed was state preference to follow the path of highly developed countries on the issue.

"These countries have already taken a new approach to population management because they have already experienced a demographic winter," the 51-year-old prelate said, noting that developed countries may become totally dependent on migrant workers due to an ageing population.

Lingayen-Dagupan Auxiliary Bishop Renato P. Mayugba, said bishops anchor their statements based on the Constitution which calls for the protection of the unborn child from the time of conception.

The CBCP statement further said that Lipa Archbishop Ramon V. Arguelles called on the faithful in his ecclesial province "to prepare to mobilize the laity for mass actions against the movement of the Aquino government to push for the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health Bill and all population control measures."

In a text message from Italy, the archbishop said he supports the Catholic laity in Cebu against the planned introduction of artificial methods to families.

Mr. Aquino has said in a small town-like meeting during his working visit to the United States two weeks ago that he may consider contraceptive methods to address population growth.

Abigail D. Valte, deputy presidential spokesman, said over state-owned radio: "The President's stand is for responsible parenthood. The administration is not advocating one method over the other. We will support all family planning methods based on the parents' free choice. It is incorrect to label the President as pro-life or anti-life."

The House of Representatives in the 14th Congress had passed the RH bill on third and final reading, but its counterpart in the Senate remained pending at the committee level.

"What should be done is to wait for the bill to be discussed then at the committee level the Church can participate and put forth their arguments," Mr. Arroyo said.

Senator Edgardo J. Angara said in the same radio interview, that threats of excommunication against Mr. Aquino "is the worst sign of intolerance." "Excommunication threats are something said by people who have nothing to say so they just intimidate," Mr. Angara said.

"The question also is if whether we are willing to spend to manage our population or to spend to develop a productive work force. This is not just a simple question of condom or no condom," Mr. Honasan said. rw

Afghan Women 'Depend' on Foreign Troops

A leading Afghan women's advocate has warned that pulling Western troops out of Afghanistan will condemn mothers and children to suffer, and that foreign soldiers were needed for at least another five years in a country where extremists deliberately poison the drinking water at schools to scare away children.

Dr Yacoobi said "As soon as allied soldiers walk out and leave Afghanistan, the first blood shed will be women and children." She said security in Afghanistan had deteriorated but insisted progress was being made. "For years and years, women of Afghanistan have been abused and are very submissive," she said. "But in reality, the women of Afghanistan are very intelligent - brilliant. "Once you give them opportunity, people are more responsible, they are taking action and trying to solve problems on their own."

Others say peace in Afghanistan may be only possible once Western troops had withdrawn.

Dr Yacoobi's organisation, Afghan Institute of Learning, teaches women about basic hygiene, coping with complications from childbirth, and how to run a small business, such as embroidery or carpet weaving. The aim is to help Afghan women better understand their rights to protect themselves and strengthen families. "It's a reality, when you have money you have power," she said. rw

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.

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 minimal fines, while those who fail to inform about the newborns will get no government benefit to raise them, China Daily reported.

'However, the revised penalties will be less than usual fines, which were often eight or nine times the average annual household income,' said Xi Kaili, spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning.

Unregistered children will also lose citizenship.

According to the Beijing Statistics Bureau, the average annual wage in the capital last year was 30,000 yuan ($4,413). The minimum penalty for breaking the policy is 90,000 yuan. rw

Philippines Women's Groups Call for Legalised Abortions

More and more women would die from complications arising from unsafe abortions in the Philippines, warned the country's women's groups, as they called for abortions to be legalised.

According to the Centre for Reproductive Rights, more than half a million Filipino women undergo illegal abortions every year. Of these, an estimated 90,000 women suffer complications, with about 1,000 dying eventually. The women's groups said it is time for the predominantly Roman Catholic country to allow for safe and legal abortion, to save thousands of women from undergoing crude and unsafe procedures. They said that criminalisation of abortion has not prevented the procedure, but made it unsafe. In the Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, Mmore than half of the women who seek treatment are for complications arising from illegal and unsafe abortions. Most abortion cases were due to unwanted pregnancy.

It's either they don't want the pregnancy, or they have reasons like they want to go abroad so they induced it. They take some medications to remove the pregnancy," he said. Women's rights groups are hoping that the new Congress would be able to pass a controversial Reproductive Health bill, which would uphold the use of artificial contraceptives and institutionalise sex education in schools.

That would hopefully help prevent more cases of unsafe abortion in the country. rw

Philippines Women's Groups Call for Legalised Abortions

More and more women would die from unsafe abortions in the Philippines, warned the country's women's groups. According to the Centre for Reproductive Rights, more than half a million Filipino women undergo illegal abortions every year. Of these, an estimated 90,000 women suffer complications with about 1,000 dying eventually.

The women's groups said it is time for the predominantly Roman Catholic country to allow for safe and legal abortion, to save thousands of women from undergoing crude and unsafe procedures. "The criminalisation of abortion has not prevented the procedure, but made it unsafe. In all cases, the ban leads to one frightening direction - that of painful risky and potentially fatal methods of pregnancy termination," Centre for Reproductive Rights Melissa Upreti said. Although abortion is illegal in the Philippines, government hospitals are mandated to provide post-abortion care treatment to women.

In the Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital for instance, more than half of the women who seek treatment are for complications arising from illegal and unsafe abortions.

Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital Dr Emmanel Ganal said most abortion cases were due to unwanted pregnancy.

"Those that are induced are usually unwanted pregnancies. It's either they don't want the pregnancy, or they have reasons like they want to go abroad so they induced it. They take some medications to remove the pregnancy," he said. For now, women's rights groups are hoping that the new Congress would be able to pass a controversial Reproductive Health bill, that the influential Catholic Church opposed last year.

That piece of legislation would uphold the use of artificial contraceptives and institutionalise sex education in schools.

That would hopefully help prevent more cases of unsafe abortion in the country. rw

Methane Hydrates Could Be Next Big Energy Source; Enviros Concerned

Methane hydrates under the ocean floor and the Alaskan permafrost may be the world's next energy source, if they can be extracted safely. Ten trillion tons of carbon are trapped in the compounds which form when methane is subjected to cold and high-pressure. They can explode or release methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Extracting and processing them is six times more expensive than traditional oil and gas drilling. The DoE is paying for technological advancements that could make it cheaper. Environmentalists worry as burning methane hydrates is like opening a Pandora's box with quite probably a genocidal genie within it. rw

Philippines: Why Population Matters - Now More Than Ever

Philippine population is projected to reach 112 million in another ten years. Dr. Mercedes B. Concepcion was conferred the rank and title of National Scientist in recognition of her achievements in the field of demographics and population. She was instrumental in crafting the country's national population policy which led to the creation of the Commission on Population, on whose board she still sits. She has watched Manilla expand from a small suburb to the large Metro Manila. And she has seen the population policy regress. "We're back almost to where we were in the 1970s," notes Concepcion.

When Marcos was ousted, the total fertility rate went down to about 4.5. Now it's about 3.3. Conception hopes that incoming president Noynoy Aquino will take a more progressive stance on population. Under President Corazon Aquino, conservative elements in the Catholic hierarchy cut off funding and support for the program.

Concepcion says of the incoming president: "He cannot alleviate poverty without doing something about population. It has to be a two-pronged approach: population management on the one hand, and poverty reduction on the other. When you reduce poverty you have to improve education, job creation, improve infrastructure - they're all connected. Until you can create jobs that give a better income, the level of living will not improve. Income growth is important, and if you do not manage population so that income is divided among less people, you cannot move forward."

The Church agrees that something has to be done to improve the conditions of the poor, but they say it should not be done in terms of contraception, and that it can only be done with natural family planning.

"We are saying, let the couples decide. If they decide to use natural family planning, so be it, but if they opt for one of the artificial methods, help them." There is a difference of one child between the desired family size of the poor and their actual number of children. Until that gap is closed, we will still have a problem. rw

Women and Higher Education Make Steady Progress in Afghanistan

Even some women from remote provinces of Afghanistan a allowed to attend Afghanistan's largest and most prestigious university in Kabul. However, professors are in short supply, and computers and other electronic equipment remain scarce. 7,000 students are enrolled; about 1,700 are women.

The number of young people enrolled in higher education has increased more than tenfold since 2001. Kabul University used to be a prime intellectual and scientific center for all of Asia, but during the mujahedeen phase of Afghanistan's civil war, from 1992 to 1996, the campus became a battlefield. When the Taliban came to power in 1996, many professors fled, and women were banned from education. Since Soviet forces invaded in 1979, about one million Afghans have died, and six million more have been displaced. 70% of the university professors had to leave the country controlled by Taliban.

Since the Taliban were routed by U.S. forces in 2001, changes for women have been sweeping. In some sections of the university young women wear jeans or other pants, jackets, and light scarves. There are women professors, some who travel the world and go to the U.S. for exchange programs.

However, in most Afghani provinces, mullahs do not allow women to study. That is one of the reasons why most of Afghanistan remains illiterate and unemployed. The majority of Afghan people still do not understand enough the value of education.

Female graduates often prefer to leave the country to look for work.

Foreign financial support provides significant resources for higher education here. The World Bank, Russia, and the USAID have invested or pledged money for higher education.

Mullahs Help Promote Birth Control in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has the world's second highest fertility rate, topped by Sierra Leone, and averaging more than six babies per woman despite years of war and a severe lack of medical care. UNICEF estimates only 10% of women use some form of birth control.

But now some mullahs in Afghanistan are distributing condoms. Others are quoting the Quran to encourage longer breaks between births by breast-feeding for two years. Use of the pill, condoms and injected forms of birth control rose to 27% over eight months in three rural areas - up to half the woman in one area - once the benefits were explained one-on-one by health workers, according to UNICEF.

It is important to women, who do not want to be pregnant now, to prevent death from an unwanted pregnancy - "especially when we could have helped her," said lead author Dr. Douglas Huber, who conducted the study for U.S.-based nonprofit Management Sciences for Health. "The fastest, cheapest, easiest way to reduce maternal deaths in Afghanistan is with contraception."

37 mullahs endorsed using contraceptives as a way to increase the time between births, some delivering the message during Friday prayers. "All the mullahs at the community level knew of these things that the Prophet Muhammad himself advised his followers." ... "This was not a hard sell."

Islam does not fundamentally oppose birth control. Everything from vasectomies to abortions are supported in various parts of the Muslim world.

Marie Stopes International has trained 3,500 religious leaders nationwide on the issue since 2003. It distributed more than 2 million condoms last year, some of them distributed by mullahs, at hours after clinics were closed.

The Health Ministry collaborated with nonprofit organizations to spread the word to both Sunni and Shia Muslims that using birth control was 300 times safer than giving birth in Afghanistan. They also involved husbands in the project and sought to dispel beliefs that contraceptives have negative side effects, such as infertility.

The Health Ministry plans to expand the program nationally and will invlove USAID, the European Union and the World Bank in the scale-up.

Nepal Clinic is a Life-Saver for Women

In Nepal an internationally funded rural clinic provides family planning, women's health care and the sterilization procedure that ensures women would not endure another debilitating birth.

For Nepal's impoverished village women, with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates and no access to birth control, it was a life-saving operation.

The clinic is one of many reproductive health projects worldwide to prevent maternal mortality, reduce poverty, prevent HIV and AIDS and extend the lifespan of women. Many are funded by international donors like Canada.

The Harper government (Canada) announced it would make maternal mortality a priority at the upcoming G8 and G20 meetings that it will chair in Huntsville, Ont., and Toronto.

But its announcement - later reversed - that it would not support family planning through foreign aid "in any way, shape or form" alarmed groups grappling with the dangers of motherhood, and preventing HIV and AIDS. It highlights the importance that wealthy nations' decisions have for women in countries where there is too little to go around the family table.

Ottawa is a major supporter of the UN Population Fund, pledging $18.6 million (U.S.) in the past year.

If Ottawa had cut its funding, it would have run counter to U.S. President Obama's restoration of U.S. aid to the agency. One of Obama's first acts was to sign legislation for a $50 million (U.S.) contribution to UNFPA. Statistics show donations are badly needed.

An estimated 200 million women worldwide want to delay or avoid pregnancy, but aren't using safe and effective family planning.

About 350 million cannot obtain the contraceptive method that is common in their country. The lives of 150,000 women a year could be saved with better access to family planning.

The UN estimates it would take $1.2 billion a year to meet the world's need for contraceptives. Current UN assistance is $550 million.

Unmet need, inadequate supplies and increasing demand pose challenges to development in many countries. rw