Population, Family Planning,
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December 18, 1999 The Deseret (UT) News Third wave leads Utah to a record in childbirths: 'Natural increase' in 1999 also is new high for the state, according to the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. The figure includes births minus the number of deaths, not population due to net migration. Utah is experiencing a 1.9% growth rate, bring the current population to 2,121,000 people. The baby boomers children are now having children. Out of an increase of 38,500 last year, 4,800 were due to migration.

December 17, 1999 Reuters Can Whales Live in Harmony with Salt Plant. Each January, schools of gray whales travel 6,200 miles from the Bering Straits to the warm-water lagoon San Ignacio, a World Heritage Site. But Exportadora del Sal (ESSA), a joint venture between Japanese giant Mitsubishi and the Mexican government, plans to build a $120 million salt plant in the lagoon, that they say would bring much-needed jobs and development to an impoverished region with minimal ecological damage. A powerful coalition of 58 international and Mexican environmental groups including nine Nobel Prize-winning scientists and 15 green U.S. mutual funds with assets worth $14 billion are boycotting Mitsubishi, saying that ESSA is already polluting the Guerrero Negro and Ojo de Liebre lagoon 87 miles up the coast, home to sea lions, black sea turtles and prong-horned antelopes, with another large salt evaporation plant there. However, a UN report says wildlife at Guerrero Negro is not in danger.

December 24, 1999 Reuters Nepal Bans Import of Polluting Vehicles - those not meeting Euro I emission standards - to try to curb pollution. Air pollution in Kathmandu was increasing, making it one of the most polluted cities in the world, said Bhakta Bahadur Balayar, minister for population and environment. Kathmandu's population is 500,000, although the population in the surrounding valley is much higher. Earlier Nepal banned the import of two-stroke motorcycles and forced polluting three-wheeler auto-rickshaws off the streets of temple-studded capital.

December 8, 1999 Xinhua National Symposium on Population, Resources, Environment. The participants at the Beijing conference agreed that the population boom, resource shortages and environmental deterioration have become the common problems of people the world over and will threaten the survival of mankind in the next century. The meeting was sponsored by the Population Research Institute of the People's University of China.

December 8, 1999 Ghanaian Chronicle Ghana's Education Reform: Equalising Opportunities or Marginalising the Poor. Ghana's population is growing at 3.1 per cent, that of the school- age children (6-11) is growing at 3.8 per cent. But, the GER for primary education is growing at an average rate of 0.3 per cent. This indicates that demand outstrips supply and may remain so for a number of years to come. Teenage pregnancy, absence of role models, hostile school environment and low self-esteem also account for the low participation and persistence rates of girls. 40 per cent of Ghanaians live on the national poverty line of $1.00 a day. In 1961, Ghana adopted the target that as much as 71% of primary school-age children to be in school by 1970. Consequently, Ghana's educational system in 1965 was among the most advanced in Africa with as high an enrolment rate as 75% for the 6 to 14-year group. A year later, however, the conditions changed.

December 23, 1999 AP Poor Protection Allows Destruction of Venezuela's Exotic Wildlife. Venezuela's Amazon rain forests, sprawling plains, snowcapped Andean mountains and Caribbean coral reefs feature some of the world's most exotic wildlife. But the Environmental Ministry is understaffed, underpaid, rife with corruption and mired in confusion, according to the Venezuelan Audubon Society. Agents dispatched by environmentalists to protect the Orinoco turtle instead sold the turtles to restaurant owners who used them for turtle soup. Poachers openly sell endangered tropical parrots. Lake Maracaibo, the largest lake in South America, has become a "garbage pail" of oil and waste from tankers. Illegal gold miners uproot trees in Venezuela's rain forests with hydraulic water pumps and poison rivers with mercury. Coral reefs in Morrocoy National Park turned gray and died four years ago, probably due to toxic wastes dumped by ships. The government is building high-voltage electricity lines in rain forests in southeast Venezuela that are supposed to be protected by environmental laws. The lines pass through Canaima National Park one of 100 United Nations-designated World Heritage Sites - it features the world's longest waterfall, Angel Falls, and mysterious flat-topped mountains. The Pemon Indians knocked down several towers saying the power line will mar the landscape and spur widespread development by providing electricity to mining companies that want to exploit huge gold deposits in the region. President Chavez wants to move millions of people out of the cities in northern Venezuela to population and industrial centers to be built in the sparsely populated east and south, where much of the country's most spectacular wildlife lives.

December 23, 1999 Itar-Tass Belarus Population Continues to Drop. The Belarusian population has decreased by 1 percent since 1989, due to mortality growth and birth rate fall. The birth rate is half of what it was in 1986. In the nine months, more than 107,000 Belarusian people died, which is 7,000 people more than over the same period last year. Death frequently results from diseases caused by the Chernobyl disaster and worsened ecology.

December 27, 1999 International Herald Tribune Children In Poor Countries Need Help. 2.2 billion of the world's people are under 18 years old, with 2 billion from developing countries, according to UN University Vice Rector Ramesh Thakur and UNICEF Japan Director Manzoor Ahmed. 30,500 children under 5 years old die every day of preventable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. Every month, 50,000 children under 15 are infected with AIDS. Of all children in developing countries, 20% of those ages 5 to 15 are engaged in child labor in hazardous and harmful conditions, 30% under 5 are underweight, nearly 40% suffer from stunted growth, and over 50% are malnourished. Foreign aid dropped to a historic low in 1998 of 0.2% of the GPD of the OECD countries, well below the internationally agreed target of 0.7%. Ironically, income jumped and aid declined by 30 percent from 1992 to 1997. More children today live in poverty than 10 years ago, and more children find themselves in a more violent and unstable environment.

December 27, 1999 Reuters Cuba: Infant Mortality Rates Drop. Cuba's infant mortality rate, "already one of the lowest in the world," fell to some 6.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1999, down from 7.1 in 1998 and 11 ten years ago. Cuba offers free health service for all. Cuba still has shortages in medicine because of the US economic blockade against the country but that the situation is improving slowly.

December 27, 1999 Xinhua China Faces Great Challenges to Maintain a Low Rate of Births. China, whose population is about 1.2 billion, will see more women entering their child-bearing years, more rural people moving to cities to find work, and an increasing elderly population. China's population is expected to peak at about 1.6 billion by 2050. Better family planning services are urgently needed in the rural areas of central and western China where 60% of China's population lives. Some local officials are violating family planning policies by not registering newborns. Communist Party members who violate family planning policies will be severely punished. In most rural areas, a couple may have a second child after proper birth spacing. Ethnic minorities are allowed to have more than one child.

December 14, 1999 Aspen Passes Population/Immigration Resolution. The population of the United States reached about 274 million in 1999 and is growing by approximately three million each year, over 57,000 weekly, the highest population growth rate of the developed countries of the world. 50% of our original wetlands have been drained to accommodate growth. (Environmental Protection Agency) 95% of all U.S. old growth forests have been destroyed. (Save American Forests) It is estimated that we have consumed approximately 3/4 of all our recoverable petroleum, aquifers are being drawn down 23% more than their natural rates of recharge. For each person added to the U.S. population, about one acre of open land is lost. If present population trends continue, the U.S. will cease to be a food exporter by about 2030. 1.2 million legal immigrants and 300,000 to 400,000 illegal immigrants plus their U.S.- born offspring, come to the U.S. annually. The city of Aspen petitions Congress and the President for a return to traditional replacement levels of legal immigration , approximately 175,000, all-inclusive, annually; and a mandated enforcement of immigration laws against illegal immigration.

December 10, 1999 Boston Globe India's Demographic Frontier. Government programs to manage the population, especially in the cities, where the slums are a dispiriting sink of pollution, squalor, and disease, have not been successful. In the 1970's, vasectomies were forced upon men. A coercive two-child policy was enforced. India dropped birth-control quotas in 1966 in favor of a more holistic approach to reproductive health care, but government efforts at family planning are still suspect. Also, women are very low status in India, having a 63% illiteracy rate. Girl children are often abandoned as infants. Women can be banished from their homes for failing to produce sons. India, the world's largest democracy, is also the most chaotic democracy. Under the most optimistic projections, India will not stabilize its population until it nearly doubles, at 1.8 billion. Kerala, on the other hand, has a 90% female literacy rate, health care is free, and infant mortality rates are 12 per 1,000, compared with 85 per 1,000 in Uttar Pradesh. Kerala reached zero population growth 15 years before the target date set by the UN. Kerala has mandatory education and a bustling economy of rubber, cashews, coir, and, increasingly, tourism. The rest of India boasts of its numbers, "100 Crore strong," against Pakistan. But Mohandas Gandhi said poverty is the worst form of violence. Surely the father of his country would not support creating more savagery on such a scale.

December 31, 1999 ENN Group Cites Wildlife Winners – and Losers. More species are now in danger of extinction than at any other time in the country's history, says the Environmental Defense Fund. Habitat destruction, pollution and the invasion of non-native species have replaced hunting and fur-trapping as the biggest threats to all wildlife except fish. The bald eagle and the white-tailed deer are listed as winners. Among the losers are the Snake River sockeye salmon, which 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Columbia River to the Snake River, to Idaho's Redfish Lake. Dams, water diversion, logging, grazing and other activities that have destroyed Snake River sockeye habitat. Only a handful of the fish remain.

December 31, 1999 ENN Groups Demand Safe Haven for Sonoran Pronghorn The fastest land mammal in America may be running out of time, with only 140 of the animals in the United States, says the Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club. A petition has been filed with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, demanding a critical habitat. The animal is found only in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and the Sonora area of Mexico. The Department of Defense uses the Sonoran Desert for bombing, strafing, ground maneuvers and low-level flights, as part of military training. Grazing and low-flying border patrol heliocopters also threaten the area.

December 26, 1999 ENN Songbird Toll Linked to Exotic Shrubs. Birds that nest in non-native plants, which often lack the height or physical deterrents of native plants, may lose more eggs to predators such as raccoons and possums. Replacing arrowwood and hawthorne, which have thorns and thinner branches, exotic honeysuckle and buckhorn dominate the lower levels of forests, particularly small, fragmented preserves surrounded by urban sprawl. The number of robins nesting in non-native honeysuckle was found to increase six-fold during the six year study.

December 21, 1999 ENS Logging, Recreation Called Biggest Threats to National Forests. A coalition of over one hundred forest and grassland conservation activists and organizations collaborated to produce the "National Forest Yearbook 1999." "Logging in old growth and roadless areas, ORVs out of control, lack of attention to wildlife needs, and countless other environmental abuses are degrading our national forests," said Randi Spivak of the American Lands Alliance. Responsible are some current projects in national forests, at the initiative of local Forest Service land managers or with their permission." The most pervasive threat was found to be timber sales approved with too little attention to environmental issues. "Many perverse incentives influence local Forest Service decision makers to identify logging as the solution to every problem." The growing threat that off road vehicles, ski resort expansions and privatization are listed right behind logging as threats to national forests. Inappropriate grazing is another threat. An inadequate USFS budget often deprives conservation programs while promoting a timber sale program. The good news is that new road construction has been banned in thousands of acres of roadless National Forest lands.

Dec99/Jan00 Earth First! Journal Marine Protected Areas: A Human-Centric Concept. The proposal to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), made by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), under the new 1996 Oceans Act needs to apply deep ecology to an actual environmental issue. Fishers seem to feel that they have some proprietary lock on the oceans from which the public is excluded.

December 12, 1999 Tehran Times Population Growth in Iran. "If suitable population programming and essential facilities for family planning are not taken into consideration, economic issues and the ensuing poor health services will be one of the most important problems" of the next generation of Iranians.

December 27, 1999 The Jakarta Post Jakarta: Government Strives to Avoid Baby Boom. The State Minister of the Empowerment of Women and chair of the National Family Planning Board, Khofifah Indar Parawansa said that the government is in foreign debt due to the procurement of contraceptives in 1999 alone, and may be seeking cooperation and grants in importing contraceptives. Many lower income couples dropping out of the family planning program due to financial constraints. The Australian government recently donated medical assistance, including medicines, medical equipment and contraception pills, worth a total of AU(USDollar) 5 million.

December 27, 1999 Los Angeles Times Mexico: Family Planning Gains. The local Mexican institutions and U.S.-based nongovernmental agencies have partnered to create success stories in Mexico's family planning. The birth rate has gone from 7.2 children, in 1965, to 2.5 in 1999. Credit can be given Mexican agencies like the National Population Council and the nonprofit Mexican Foundation for Family Planning, or Mexfam, an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Media campaigns urge delay of marriage and pregnancy and emphasize the advantages of spacing the births of one's children. Vasectomy or tubal ligation are freely available. 70% of women of childbearing age have access to contraception. To avoid conflict with the Catholic Church, media ads list the advantages of a small family without direct mention of contraceptives. Sex education has even come to Mexico's public elementary schools. Much of the funding comes from U.S. government agencies, but the expiration of a bilateral agreement this year cut off the flow because a few members of Congress vehemently oppose not just abortion but even certain contraception methods. Denying help to agencies that provide proven family planning information and assistance is a sure way to curb progress.

December 26, 1999 Xinhua UNICEF Offers Relief Fund for Ethiopian Children. Half of the population of Ethiopia consists of children. UNICEF wants to help Ethiopian children get access to drinking water, health care and education services.

December 25, 1999 The Economist Population: Like Herrings in a Barrel This is a very good history and analysis of population and population thinking in the world.

December 22, 1999 Associated Press Contraceptive Use Among Filipino Women Increasing. This year contraceptive use rose among married women aged 15 to 49 to 49.3%, up from 46.5% in 1998. More couples were using the pill and condom, rising from 28.2% to 32.4% in the same period. Traditional methods, such as rhythm and abstinence, went down from 18.3% to 16.9%. The Roman Catholic church's resistence to to artificial contraceptives is being more and more ignored. Poor women in the 20-24 age bracket, about 66%, use the pill. The study of 26,000 respondents showed that women with more education were using contraceptives. The Philippines' annual population growth rate is 2.3%, one of the highest in Southeast Asia. President Joseph Estrada advocates birth control, saying the Philippines must limit its rapid population growth to raise living standards for its people, many of whom live in poverty.

December 22, 1999 Panafrican News WHO Gets Grant for Promotion of Child Health. The UN Foundation has granted to the WHO 16.4 million US dollars to help communities reduce child deaths, prevent HIV/AIDS among adolescents, improve vaccination programmes and child nutrition (by using vitamin A and zinc as food supplements) in Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In just over 1 year, the UN Foundation, which is supported by US billionaire Ted Turner, has pledged 50 million dollars.

December 14, 1999 The SF Chronicle Californians See A Future Both Bright and Bleak. The Public Policy Institute of California conducted a poll. Two-thirds of 2,009 California adults surveyed believe the state is heading in the right direction, and three-quarters expect the economic good times to continue. But by nearly 2-to-1 ratio -- 43 to 25 percent -- say the state will be a worse place to live in the next 20 years than it is today. Most expect the state to see an increase in crime and a degraded environment. Three-quarters of those surveyed see a growing gap between rich and poor by 2020. Only 4% know California's current population (about 34 million), but the study shows that 'people are wildly fearful that the population is going to be out of control,' with almost 25% saying that there will be 60 million or more Californians by the close of 2020.

December 14, 1999 The Irish Times CFFC Comes Out in Favour of Liberal Abortion Option. The Catholics For a Free Choice (CFFC) group has said it favours option 7 of those laid out by the Green Paper [in Ireland] on abortion. This would permit abortion where there was risk to the physical or mental health of the woman; in rape and incest cases; where there was congenital malformation; where there were economic or social reasons; and on request. The CFFC said "The Catholic Church has acknowledged that it does not know when a foetus becomes a person and has not declared its teaching on abortion infallible," and that the Green Paper "did not more strongly address the need for separation of church and State in Ireland on this as well as other issues". The Hierarchy's "equalisation of a fully formed human life with a potential life" was described as "a disservice to women."

December 23, 1999 Xinhua Myanmar Holds National Workshop on Women The government identified priority areas of concern for Myanmar women: violence against women, education, health, economy, culture and girl- child. Myanmar is also implementing the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The country acceded in July 1997 to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Myanmar has a population of 48 million.

December 23, 1999 Xinhua Malaysia's Population Reaches 22.7 Million. 10.7 million are Malay Bumiputeras (aboriginals), 5.6 million Chinese, 2.5 million other Bumiputeras, 1.6 million Indians and 727,000 others. 1.6 million were non citizens. 33.5% of the population is under 15 years and only 3.8% are over 65 years.

December 14, 1999 AP India's Population Surging. While 72,000 babies are born in India every day, Parliament is debating legislation that prohibits politicians with more than two children from running for office. Hundreds of lawmakers in the 543-seat Parliament have more than two children. Dozens have between six and nine kids. Female lawmakers would be affected because wives rarely have a say in the number of children they will have. Part of the resistence is due to the fact that, in the 1970s, many Indians were forced to undergo operations or were sterilized without their knowledge. In local elections, five states have implemented the two-child norm.

December 20, 1999 All Africa News Agency Africa: Increasing Cases May Stagnate Demand For Education. As a result of HIV/AIDS,and the early death of one or both parents, there are fewer children to be educated. Some children are born HIV Positive and most die before reaching school-going age. Primary school enrollments stagnated between 1990 and 1996 in Zambia. Instead of going to school, children will be recruited for domestic and agricultural tasks, plus caring for adults or other family members. The numbers of street children in Zambia have swelled from 35,000 in 1991 to over 75,000 in 1996. It is estimated that in Zambia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, the number of primary school age children will be over 20% lower than pre-HIV/AIDS projections by 2010. Many of these will be orphans with very limited resources and incentives to enter the system. The Swaziland Ministry of Education, Swaziland estimates that by 2016, there will be 30% fewer 6 year olds and 17% fewer 18 year olds. In Zambia, the number of teachers dying from AIDS is greater than the output from all teacher-training colleges.

December 21, 1999 BCC 50,000 feared dead in Venezuela Flooding and mudslides that have devastated the country. Survivors are still being rescued. 200,000 people have been left homeless. Water and sewage facilities are destroyed. The Red Cross has warned the entire relief system is on the verge of collapse. Economists say the disaster would aggravate a deep economic recession in the oil-rich country of 23 million. The population was allowed to grow in areas where the government knew about the dangers of flooding. 75% of the country’s population lives in Caracas and the northern states, where the heaviest rainfall in 100 years has been falling for the last two weeks.

December 21, 1999 World Bank India: Reforms Could Cut Coal-Related Air Pollution. India produces 70% of its electricity by burning coal. According to the World Bank report, Indian power plant emissions of sulfur, nitrogen and soot could jump by 300% by 2015, imposing "substantial" impacts on human health and the environment. Carbon dioxide emissions could grow to nearly the same level as those of the European Union. Disposal of coal ash could require 1,000 square kilometers of dump space. The World Bank recommends efficiency improvements, fuel substitution, incentives for "coal washing" and ash recycling, and pricing reform.

December 20, 1999 South China Morning Post Vietnam: Cafe Puts Sex and Aids Education High on the Menu. Soaring HIV infection and an abortion rate thought to be nearly the highest in the world have prompted health authorities in Hanoi to break with prudish tradition and open the city's first sex education cafe. Window of Love cafe, set up with German funding, is a place where young people can freely ask for information about sex and Aids. Sex education is not available at schools and parents are too embarrassed to raise the issue with teenage children. The staff at the cafe includes a female physician specialising in reproductive health, and an HIV/Aids counsellor.

December 17, 1999 NDTV- New Delhi Television India: ‘Goli ke hamjoli’: Friends of the Pill. Last week India marked 50 years of family planning services. But still, 60% of married women in India between the ages of 15 and 45 use no contraception. Those who do mainly opt for sterilization. Only 2.4% use condoms, 2% use intrauterine devices and 1.2% use oral contraceptive pills. Myths and fear of side effects are the reasons women don't want to use the pill. ‘Goli ke hamjoli’, friends of the pill, is a project to encourage the use of pills as a safe, modern and effective contraceptive method.

December 21, 1999 WOA! F.A.I.R. Website Hacked. The home page of FAIR, Federation of Reform Immigration was replaced by a page containing profane language in Portuguese by a group calling itself 'Ass0mbracao', very likely from Brazil. The substituted page did not appear to be critical of FAIR or relate to population issues, but rather to complain about suffering from an economy in debt to global corporations and foreign governments. FAIR's goal is to retore reasonable levels of immigration to the U.S.

December 21, 1999 UNWire India Faces 10 Million HIV/AIDS Infections By 2010 UNAIDS and the World Health Organization say that some 3.5 million Indians are HIV-positive, and more than 9,500 cases of full-blown AIDS have been reported to India's National AIDS Control Organization. The Indian government says the numbers are lower, with 2.9 million infected. Prostitutes in South Bombay are being trained by Population Services International to explain sexually transmitted diseases and condom use to their peers.

December 15, 1999 Chicago Tribune Late Arrival; Birth Control Pill Is Slow to Catch on in Japan. 35 years after its approval in the U.S., the birth control pill went on sale Sept. 1 in Japan, but decades of fear of side effects, bad publicity, cultural barriers, blockage by the medical community which makes a business out of performing abortions, and concern that the birth rate will plunge even further, have led to lackluster demand. Condoms and the rhythm method are the most common forms of birth control, with the result that 2/3 of pregnancies are unplanned. Nearly a quarter of all pregnancies are aborted. 200,000 women have been using a drug prescribed for menstrual cramps to prevent pregnancies.

December 20, 1999 La Cronica de Hoy Mexico: UN Worried About Street Children, Domestic Violence According to UNICEF, there are more than 20,000 children on the streets of Mexican cities, many subject to exploitation and child abuse.

December 19, 1999 NY Times Malaria Cases Increase By More Than 180% In South Africa - that's 180% over the same period last year. Experts say that the sharp jump is due to the warmer winter, a growing influx of immigrants from neighboring Mozambique, where malaria is rampant, and the spread of drug-resistant strains. Kenya, too, is affected - malaria is spreading into previously unaffected highlands and is showing an increasing resistant to chloroquine, which was once the malaria prophylactic of choice.

December 31, 1999 ENN Group Cites Wildlife Winners - and Losers. More species are now in danger of extinction than at any other time in the country's history, says the Environmental Defense Fund. Habitat destruction, pollution and the invasion of non-native species have replaced hunting and fur-trapping as the biggest threats to all wildlife except fish. The bald eagle and the white-tailed deer are listed as winners. Among the losers are the Snake River sockeye salmon, which 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Columbia River to the Snake River, to Idaho's Redfish Lake. Dams, water diversion, logging, grazing and other activities that have destroyed Snake River sockeye habitat. Only a handful of the fish remain.

December 25, 1999 The Economist Population: Like Herrings in a Barrel This is a very good history and analysis of population and population thinking in the world.

December 16, 1999 IPS Morocco: Slow Death in a Plastic Bag. The proliferation of plastic bags constitutes a substantial environmental and human health threat in this north African country. Environmentalists propose a return to traditional palm leaf bags. The black non- bio-degradable plastic bags fill the streets in the absence of an efficient trash disposal system. The bags are carried by the rain and pollute the water and clog sewage systems, and are often swallowed by cattle. They are use to store food even though they contain chemicals that are harmful to human health.

December 17, 1999 IPS Only a Glimmer of Hope for the Amazon. The fate of the "planet's lung" basically depends on human decisions - it's not too late, unlike many parts of the world which have already suffered irreversible desertification. But global warming, El Nio, and human action, could lead the region to environmental disaster. Global warming could lead to loss of rain. But there is also loss of moisture from "evapotranspiration" -- water that evaporates from the leaves of trees, which is lost when the trees are cut down. Weather extremes are caused by the El Nio in the Amazon, often leading to drought. For example, the 1997-98 El Nio led to forest fires in Roraima [a state in northern Brazil, on the Venezuelan border]. If the dry season lasts too long, trees stress when they use up the water stored in the soil. Logging activity leaves behind dead branches and trees -- in other words fuel for the flames when everything dries out. The El Nios have become more frequent. The greatest destruction of the Amazon is the expansion of pastureland on large and medium-sized ranches, to keep property from being taken by landless peasants who claim it has been left idle. If Brazil were to slow down its deforestation rate, it could earn credits to sell to other countries that have assumed commitments to reduce their emissions of ozone-depleting gases, according to the Kyoto protocol.

December 6, 1999 Georgia Institute of Technology -Eurkalert Feeding the World by Cleaning the Air: - study ties heavy regional haze to reductions in China's crop production. In the November 23 1999 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: heavy regional haze in China's most important agricultural areas may be cutting food production there by as much as one-third by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching key rice and winter wheat crops. The haze likely results from the burning of coal, wood, biomass for fuel or land clearing, as well as dust blown in from dessert regions. Food production may be similarly reduced in India and African nations. The haze affects about 70% of crops grown in China. Growth-stunting ozone, acid deposition and other air pollutants also worsen the impact of poor air quality.

December 17, 1999 AP Las Vegas Leads U.S. Metropolitan Area Growth Already saddled with pollution, long lines and jammed roads, Las Vegas' population jumped 55% between 1990 and 1998, its growth spurred by unprecedented hotel-casino construction. Nationwide, the central cities in metropolitan areas averaged 3.5% growth, while the area outside the central cities jumped 12.5% in the 1990s. In the West, central cities averaged 10.6% growth, while the surrounding area averaged 16.2%. In the South growth was 5.3% in the cities and 18.4% outside, while in the Midwest growth declined by 0.3% in central cities while their surrounding areas gained 10.0%, and in the Northeast growth in central cities fell 2.0% while the surrounding areas grew 3.7%.

December 17, 1999 Reuters G20 Meeting Basis for a New World Order. At a meeting in Berlin this week, officials from the Group of 20 major economies produced a list of do's and don'ts for world policy-makers. G20 is comprised of the G7 industrial countries -- the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada -- plus Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, and the European Union bloc, together representing two-thirds of the world's population and 85% of its economic output.

December 17, 1999 AP Most Populous U.S. Metro Areas. From the U.S. Census Bureau: the 10 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas with population figures and percentage increase during the 1990s: 1. New York (20,124,377), 2.9% .. 2. Los Angeles (15,781,273), 8.6% .. 3. Chicago-Gary, Ind.-Kenosha, Wis. (8,809,846) 6.9% .. 4. Washington-Baltimore (7,285,206), 8.3% .. 5. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (6,816,047), 8.6% .. 6. Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City (5,988,348), 1.6% .. 7. Boston-Worcester-Lawrence, Mass. (5,633,060), 3.3% .. 8. Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint, Mich. (5,457,583), 5.2% .. 9. Dallas-Fort Worth (4,802,463), 19% .. 10. Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Texas (4,407,579), 18.1% ..

December 16, 1999 PRNewswire Most Feel Education Is the Solution to Overpopulation, Environmental News Network Poll Finds. An online poll reveals that almost all people believe there is a solution to the world's population problem. A little less than half of the respondents felt that education was the key to solving the problem. One third felt that family planning was an appropriate solution. Less than 5% felt that solutions advocated by various religions were the answer.

December 9, 1999 Environmental News Service Logging Blamed in Vietnam's Second Wave of Floods. Widespread illegal logging is named as a factor in disastrous flooding that has hit the central coast of Vietnam for the second time in two months. The World Wildlife Fund says the government and provincial authorities are aware of the need to protect the forests and have been active in programs to plant more trees, but illegal logging has been stripping forests from a steep mountain range not far inland of the flooded area. Less than 10% of Vietnam is covered by primary forest.

December 16, 1999 Reuters Hunger, Homelessness Rising in U.S. The U.S. Conference of Mayors found that, despite a booming economy, the number of Americans seeking emergency food or shelter rose significantly this year and the trend will likely continue for years to come. In 1999, the demand for emergency food aid grew 18%, and for shelter by 12%. A little over 20% of homeless people have jobs and more than 2/3 of the people seeking emergency food aid are employed. Half of the homeless population in the United States was estimated to be black, 31% white, and 13% Hispanic.

December 16, 1999 London Times Cutting the Costs of Paper: Saving Forests, Water, Energy … and Money. Worldwide consumption of wood fiber for paper could be reduced by more than 50%, according to a new study by the Worldwatch Institute. This reduction can be achieved through a combination of trimming paper consumption in industrial countries, improving papermaking efficiency, and expanding the use of recycled and nonwood materials, according to Janet Abramovitz and Ashley Mattoon, co-authors of Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape. Global paper use has grown more than six-fold since 1950. One fifth of all wood harvested in the world ends up in paper. It takes 2 to 3.5 tons of trees to make one ton of paper. Pulp and paper is the 5th largest industrial consumer of energy in the world, using as much power to produce a ton of product as the iron and steel industry. In some countries, including the United States, paper accounts for nearly 40 percent of all municipal solid waste. Eliminating chlorine bleaching, incorporate more nonwood fibers, such as agricultural wastes. recycling of used paper (57 percent of used paper is still not recycled) will alleviate the impacts of paper production and consumption. The United States sends more paper to the landfill than is consumed by all of China. In the United States, the average office worker uses some 12,000 sheets of paper per year. Companies that use the Internet instead of paper for purchase orders, invoices, etc., can save $1 to $5 per page by eliminating paper and reducing labor costs and time. Some 80 percent of the world’s people consume less than 30 to 40 kilograms per person per year, the amount that a United Nations Environment Program report suggests is essential to meeting basic literacy and communication needs.

December 16, 1999 London Times 1990s The Warmest Decade Of The Millennium? The UN-affiliated World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that, based on "proxy" climate data from sources like tree rings and ice cores, the 1990s appears to have been the warmest decade in the last 1,000 years and the 1900s the warmest century in this millennium. The high temperatures in 1999 occurred despite the cooling influence of the La Nina climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean and the data was "further evidence that global warming is probably happening" (Nuttall, London Times). However, In a Washington Times commentary, Patrick Michaels of the Washington-based Cato Institute argues that the Arctic cap -- which was recently shown to have melted significantly in recent years -- was melting "long before the initiation of putative human greenhouse warming."

December 16, 1999 LA Times Preparing to Combat a Deadly Influenza Pandemic. Killer flu epidemics have swept parts of the world every few decades. In 1918, influenza claimed 20 million people around the world in a matter of months. Two other influenza pandemics killed millions in 1957 and 1968, including about 100,000 in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if a pandemic hit today, an estimated 89,000 to 207,000 Americans would die, with economic losses amounting to more than $70 billion. From year to year, influenza kills about 20,000 in the U.S. But every once in a while, the virus becomes much more dangerous, as it acquires the ability to attack a broader segment of the population. With thousands of flights taking passengers all over the world, a deadly virus could take only four days to circle the globe. If a pandemic occured, rough estimates for California, for example, would be 9 million cases of influenza, with 396,000 hospitalizations and about 168,000 deaths. The World Health Organization and the U.S. government are starting to seriously plan preventative measures.

December 15, 1999 Panafrican News Namibia Reduces Infant Mortality Rates. Over the last decade, Nambia has reduced infant mortality rates by practising the Convention on the Rights of the Child, seeing that more women deliver in clinics and hospitals, offering vaccinations, and providing access to potable water. However, unemployment and poverty have been serious constraints in addressing the problems of under-nutrition, malnutrition and poor standards of living.

December 16, 1999 NY Times Abstinence Is Focus of U.S. Sex Education. According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, more than 1 in 3 districts using an abstinence-only curriculum that permits discussion of contraception only in its failures. Most schools urge students to delay intercourse, but to use birth control and practice safe sex if they do not. 95% of public schools discuss AIDS and other STDs in sex education classes. 45% give informatin on where to get birth control, and only 39% tell how to use condoms. 37% mention abortion or sexual orientation as part of the curriculum. "Ten years ago, abstinence wasn't even considered; it was laughed at," said Amy Stephens, a spokeswoman for the National Coalition for Abstinence Education. Cory L. Richards of the Guttmacher Institute said: "What is the impact of hundreds of thousands of kids across the country being taught that contraception doesn't work well?" Teenage pregnancy rates have declined since 1991, but the shift toward abstinence has, in many cases, been only in the last few years.

December 16, 1999 UNwire Elderly Population To Double In Developing World. According to Help Age International, despite poverty, AIDS-related illness and economic downturn, the number of older people in developing countries is expected to double in the next 25 years, "creating additional challenges for hard-pressed governments and aid agencies." In developing countries, by 2025, the number of people over 60 will reach 12% or 850 million. By 2050, the percentage will be 20%. In Africa, the older people will be expected to care for the large number of children orphaned by AIDS. In Hong Kong, the number of people over 60 has grown from 7% 20 years ago to nearly 15%.

December 14, 1999 Dawn Tuberculosis Threatens A Third Of World Population. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis may affect about one-third of the world's population -- nearly 1.9 billion people, according to a Harvard Medical School study titled, The Global Impact of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Over half the world's TB cases are found in five countries - Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. In Pakistan, 350,000 new cases are reported every year, but only 2% of these cases use the World Health Organization's (WHO) strategy to fight the disease, Direct Observation Treatment Short-course (DOTS). TB cases in England and Wales "have soared by more than a fifth," usually from minorities who have been exposed to TB overseas.

December 14, 1999 AP U.S. Pregnancy Rate Hits Low. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of pregnancies fell 9% from 1990 and reached its lowest level, 6,240,000, since 1976. 62% ended in births, 22% in abortions and 16% in miscarriage. The pregnancy rate declined for all women under 30, with the sharpest drop coming among teen-agers, down 15% from its 1991 record high. The birth rate for married women was almost 10 times the abortion rate, while the birth and abortion rates for unmarried women were nearly equal. Abortions have dropped by 16%, and fetal deaths by 4%. According to the report, there are dramatic differences in pregnancy rates by race and ethnicity - Hispanic women want, and have, more babies than either white or black women. Overall, the average U.S. birth rate is 2.0, out of a total of total of 3.2 pregnancies each, with only 1.8 of the pregnancies planned.

December 12, 1999 The Orlando Sentinel Public-health Initiatives Spur Longer, Better Lives. A person born in 1900 could expect to live about 45 years. Today, it's about 75 years. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains how Americans increased their life expectancy: childhood immunizations; infection control: better housing, improved water quality and sewerage, and the introduction of antibiotics; heart-disease reduction: plummeting 50% in 3 decades; better food: reducing nutritional deficiencies; workplace safety: mining disasters and occupational illnesses have declined; motor-vehicle safety: buckle-up laws, and better roads and safer cars; tobacco control; childbirth safety (was the leading cause of death for women in their reproductive years in 1913 - except for tuburculosis); family planning: spacing of children; fluoridation.

December 13, 1999 People Revolution In A Pill. Ten years after it was introduced in Europe, the abortion pill mifepristone, known as RU 486, may soon be available in the United States. Clinical trials have been completed and the FDA may release it by the end of January. The pill may ultimately take away some of the steam in the national debate over abortion - because any doctor can prescribe the medication, which is taken during the first seven weeks of pregnancy in the privacy of a woman's own home. There will be no clinics to picket, and the pill is taken in the first stage of pregnancy, which most Americans find acceptable. The Pope called it "the pill of Cain--the monster that cynically kills its brothers." In 1994, French manufacturer Roussel-Uclaf donated its U.S. rights to the Population Council, a not-for-profit research organization. A woman is only given the pill if she is determined to be pregnant, usually determined by a sonogram. In early pregnancy, the embryo is the size of a grain of rice. The so-called morning-after pills Preven and Plan B are not the same as the abortion pill - they are emergency contraceptives that can be used for up to three days after an unprotected act of intercourse, before pregnancy begins.

December 10, 1999 The East African Church Must Face the Reality of Condom Use. Kenya: The epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa had reached catastrophic proportions. The average Kenyan life expectancy is now only 49. Even so, it is often foreigners who seem most worried about AIDS in Africa. In September no African Head of State came to the 11th International Conference on Aids and STDs in Africa (ICASA) held in Lusaka. Belately, on November 25, President Moi declared Aids a national disaster. 75% of AIDS deaths occur between the ages of 20 and 45 - the most economically productive of the Kenyan population. Kenya's GDP will be 14.5% lower in the year 2005 than it would be without AIDS, while per capita income will drop by 10%. In the Nyanza Province, 95% of Sony Sugar Company worker deaths are due to AIDS! An estimated 14% of Kenyans have HIV. Even though the Catholic Church opposes the use of condoms, the government has increased the number of condoms it has distributed from 18 million in 1991 to more than 70 million in 1998. The distribution of condoms to commercial sex workers has played a major role in one part of Nairobi in reducing the incidence of new HIV infections among them. Author: John Githongo of the African Strategic Research Institute. E-mail: asri@africaonline.co.ke

December 10, 1999 Addis Tribune World Bank Issues a New Report. Developing countries are expected to grow economically in 1999 by 2.7%, and by 4.2% in 2000. Growth in Asia will remain well below historical averages, despite a continued robust performance in China and India. East Asia, South Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Middle East and North Africa appear to be on track for achieving significant poverty reduction. Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin American, the numbers in poverty is likely to rise.

December 6, 1999 IPS Rights: U.N. Concerned about Effects of Trade Liberalization. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said that the wave of restructuring and downsizing of businesses in an increasingly competitive world and the dismantling of social security systems have generated unemployment, job insecurity and a worsening of labor conditions, thus giving rise to violations of basic economic and social rights. The committee sent a statement to the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington. The committee, made up of 18 independent experts, has a mission to assess compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by signatory States. In its latest session, it discussed the cases of Bulgaria, Argentina, Armenia, Cameroon, Mexico and the Solomon Islands.

December 9, 1999 IPS Spain Shuts Door on Immigrants. Spain may be about to pass legislation limiting immigration. There are currently some 800,000 legal and 200,000 illegal immigrants in Spain, which has a total population of 40 million.

December 10, 1999 Xinua A Quarter of the Third World in Extreme Poverty. 1.2 billion people, nearly 1/4 of the developing world, live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. In Sub-Sahara African 45% of the population lives on less than one dollar a day. This number could surpass 50% in 10 years

December 10, 1999 PRN Newswire NAHB Refutes Gore's Protest of Gobbled Land The Agriculture Department 1997 National Resources Inventory states that nearly 16 million acres of forest, cropland and open space were converted to schools, shopping centers, houses, roads, employment centers and other urban uses from 1992 to 1997. But the National Association of Home Builders said that the conversion was a natural outgrowth of a growing population and helped fuel one of the longest and most prosperous economic expansions in U.S. history and an unprecedented increase in the nation's homeownership rate. NAHB said that the 3 million acres of land used for residential growth in the 1992-97 period represents about one-tenth of one percent of the nation's total land mass of 2.4 billion acres. Currently, less than 5 percent of the country is developed and being used for a wide range of residential, commercial and industrial uses [Contrary to Prof. David Pimental's figure of 11%.]

December 10, 1999 AP El Nino Effect Cuts Carbon Dioxide. According to a study published in the journal Science, the periodic El Nino warming of the Pacific Ocean also reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. El Nino reduces the amount of carbon dioxide being released from deep water, where it is stored, thus reducing the amount (700 million metric tons of carbon) of that so-called greenhouse gas being added to the atmosphere. This is equivalent to half of the United States' total annual carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning. In addition, the massive oceanic changes cause a boom and bust cycle for tiny ocean plants called plankton, which are vital food for fish.

December 10, 1999 CNN Scientists Battle Brazilian Malaria Outbreak The number of infected people in in Brazil's Amazonas State has recently doubled. More resources are needed to help educate local residents about preventative measures. The mosquitoes have adapted to the chemicals traditionally used to fight them. In a separate story, malaria during pregnancy causes miscarriages, as well as low birthweights that leave newborns vulnerable to numerous infections, plus it causes long-term neurologic damage in thousands of children. However, researchers have found a promising experimental vaccine has provided protection against the parasite for people living in a malaria-ridden region. In yet another article, at least 200 people have died of cerebral malaria in India's Bihar state and many more lives are in danger, reports NDTV. The state's health department lacks basic medicines.

December 8, 1999 ENN Ozone Inhibits Plants' Ability to Breathe. In a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ozone, a major smog constituent, inhibits the ability of plants to open the microscopic pores on their leaves. $3 billion a year in agricultural losses are due to by ozone pollution in the U.S.

December 5, 1999 ENN Environmental Degradation Wears on Pakistan. In Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, stress on the environment and on forest cover in particular is amplifying social problems and creating both an ecological and human crisis, according to a recent study by Richard Matthew, professor of environmental policy and international relations in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California, Irvine. Overpopulation, corruption, failure of the legal system, lack of funds for environmental programs and an absence of well-established property rights contribute to environmental degradation brought about by the swift removal of the thick Himalayan forests of walnut and pine trees cover. In turn, lack of resources means no jobs, fear and uncertainty, unrest, crisis, and conflict in the province. 3.5 million Afghan refugees came into the area in 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which placed stressed the equilibrium between humans and the environmental resources. People who own a stand of trees often chop them all down fearing that someone else will take them. The area suffers flooding and severe soil erosion. There is very little arable land. There is up to 90% unemployment. The women in the area gather the wood and water. Foreign aid that could be directed toward the environment is being withheld because Pakistan has been developing nuclear weapons, unpopular among foreign countries.

December 8, 1999 Nambian 35% of Namibians have HIV-AIDS New statistics in Namibia show that more than 50% of Namibians living in the Caprivi and Kavango regions are infected with HIV. Nearly 58% of those tested between January and October in the Caprivi region were HIV-positive. Nationwide, 35% of Namibians are infected.

December 8, 1999 Africa News Street Children: Numbers Rising In Zambia, Kyrgyzstan More than 75,000 children live on the streets of Zambia's major cities. In addition, 13% of the child population of 4.1 million are orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS. Street children "fell prey" to drug and substance abuse and some have been raped. In the central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan a growing number of children in have been abandoned by their families and are forced to live on the streets due to poverty.

December 8, 1999 NY Times Zinc Can Combat Childhood Killers. Two of the biggest killer diseases - pneumonia and diarrhoea - can be subdued by zinc supplements given to children in developing countries, according to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore. Adding the mineral to a child's diet for as short a period as two weeks could reduce pneumonia episodes by 41% and diarrhoea by 25%. Their study was published in the Journal of Pediatrics. "This effect is greater than that estimated for any other intervention to prevent pneumonia." Studies were done on supplements given to children in India, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Vietnam, Guatemala, Jamaica, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Giving zinc to pregnant women may also help prevent low birth weight. Vitamin A has a similar theraputic effect.

December 6, 1999 NY Times Mozambique Enlists Healers in AIDS Prevention. For nearly two decades, government officials derided traditional healers as quacks and enemies of the state. They burned the healers' tools and barred them from practicing. Today traditional healers are being recruited by the government as bearers of the safe-sex message in an impoverished country where millions of people still lack adequate access to doctors and modern medicine. Healers attend seminars on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases and teach people to use condoms so the disease won't spread. The healers themselves were unwittingly spreading the fatal disease through the use of razor blades in their treatments, making small incisions in the flesh and pressing medicines directly into the blood, and reusing the razor blades. Now they have learned to sterilize the blades.

December 7, 1999 NY Times The Field Guide to the Sixth Extinction According to the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, the sixth extinction is costing the earth some 30,000 species a year. There are an estimated 10 million species on earth right now. At this rate, the vast majority of the species on earth today will be gone by the next millennium. Our numbers have shot up from an estimated six million to six billion since humans domesticated plant crops and barnyard animals beginning some 10,000 years ago. We have "engaged in a radical, systematic transformation of the world's ecosystems -- replacing grasslands and woodlands with arable fields, cities, suburbs, malls and roadways." Timber and fisheries have been exploited; we have fouled the earth, the atmosphere and even much of the oceans; alien species have been spread around the globe.

December 7, 1999 Chicago Tribune Brazil Rainforests Face New Threat. A bill that would allow landowners to cut the Amazon rainforest and replant the land with eucalyptus and pine while continuing to count it as forest "reserve" may come to a vote in Brasilia this week. An estimated 16% of the Amazon has been lost to deforestation and logging.

December 7, 1999 Pan African News Agency African Population Conference The African population conference in Durban, South Africa, entered its second day Tuesday with the 600 delegates continuing to exchange scientific data on population matters. South Africa's welfare, population and development minister said social development and population planning should be linked to economic strategies throughout the continent and the continent's shrinking natural resources, pollution, migration, and the growing inequalities within and between countries should also be addressed.

December 7, 1999 Reuters America's Conservation Efforts Falling Short. Releasing a new Department of Agriculture study that shows America's conservation efforts falling short, Secretary Dan Glickman today called for a renewed national commitment to preserving private land. From 1992 to 1997, nearly 16 million acres of agricultural and forest land were developed. We are now losing 3 million acres per year of forest and agricultural land, double what was lost each year from 1982 to 1992. Nearly 2 billion tons of soil is eroding into waterways each year. Despite significant gains in erosion control during the past 15 years, there has been no additional improvement since 1995. Gross wetland losses have increased to 54,000 acres annually on agricultural land (Wetland gains are nearly 30,000 acres.) Tree and forest cover in urban areas is declining at an alarming rate. In the Chesapeake Bay region, for example, tree canopy has declined from 51% cover to 37% in the last 25 years.

December 6, 1999 NRDC Push for Smart Cars. While technology races into the 21st century, the U.S. auto industry remains mired in the past, churning out combustion-engine vehicles that pollute the air and threaten our health and the health of the planet. NRDC is running an 'Earthsmartcars' campaign which aims to revolutionize the auto industry. The group, encouraged by decisions by Toyota and Honda to sell gasoline-electric hybrid cars in the United States, want Ford, GM and Chrysler to follow suit, in order to demonstrate significant demand for eco-friendly cars.

December 6, 1999 ABC News/Reuters/UnWire UNICEF Says It Lacks Funds for N.Korea Child Projects. Inadequate funding is hampering U.N. efforts to provide crucial vaccinations and medicine to famine-stricken North Korea. "Sixteen-, 15-, 14-year-old girls and boys look like [they are age] 7 or 8." About 62% of the country's school children are underweight for their age. Iodine deficiency affects nearly 20% of North Korean children. IQ's are affected. Flood and drought from the mid-1990s brought famine, which has killed between 1.5 million and 3.5 million of the country's 23 million people since 1995.

December 3, 1999 PRNewswire American Life League: Ted Turner the Racist Strikes Again!. According to ALL President Judie Brown, "Ted Turner's personal population agenda is dead set against brown, black and yellow people," apparently because Turner compared Mexicans who cross the Rio Grande border to an "army of thousands of men", in statements made before a group of teenagers attending the National 4-H Congress in Atlanta. "He must not be reading about the impending population implosion the world is facing," Brown said. "In every aspect, there has never been a better time in the world's history to raise a family with many children. (Several inaccuracies in Ms. Brown's statement, including the misinterpretations of Turner's remarks, would merit a letter to Ms. Brown at <jbrown@all.org> to help her in her 'education'. Be polite.)

December 2, 1999 World Bank/WWF New Research Reveals Magnitude of Threat to World's Forest Protected Areas. According to a IUCN-World Conservation Union, many of the world's wilderness areas are protected in name only, and are "in danger of being overrun by human settlement, agriculture, logging, hunting, mining, pollution, wars, tourism or other pressures." The study was prepared for the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), who have launched a joint plan to monitor and improve 125 million acres of threatened areas by 2005. World Bank President James Wolfensohn said that "Alleviating poverty and protecting the environment go hand in hand."

December 2, 1999 Baltimore Sun Global Warming The Cause Of Arctic Melt? According to a report today by U.S., British and Russian scientists in the journal Science, an expanse of sea ice the size of Maryland and Delaware has been lost each year since 1978. The northern sea ice also seems to be getting thinner. "The probability that it [the melting icecap] is just a manifestation of nature is very low." said Konstantin Vinnikov, a University of Maryland meteorologist. Another article on the subject is here. There is a less than 2% chance that arctic melting is a manifestation of nature.

December 2, 1999 Nairobi Daily Nation Kenyan Religious Leaders Oppose Condom Use Despite the country's declaration that HIV/AIDS is a national disaster that has killed more than 700,000 Kenyans, a Muslim leader said condom use "would turn the country into a Sodom and Gomorra" (II, 2 Dec), and the Catholic Church said it "will never relent" on its stand against the use of contraceptives, especially condoms. Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, however, may have dropped his opposition to condom use. The president has raised the minimum consent age for marriage from 14 to 18. From a BBC artice - In Kisumu, 33% of girls between age 15 and 19 were HIV positive. Prostitution, wife inheritance, and male dominance have contrubuted to this statistic.

December 3, 1999 ZPG Emergency Contraceptive Still Banned at all Wal-Mart Stores. PREVEN, an FDA-approved emergency contraceptive kit, is still not being stocked or ordered by Wal-Mart Stores. Researchers estimate that if widely used, emergency contraception could prevent half of the yearly estimated 3 million unintended pregnancies, and half of all abortions in the United States!

December 1, 1999 UNESCO World Heritage In Danger List. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee added 4 sites to it's World Heritage In Danger list: Iguacu National Park in Brazil, Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda, Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Groups of Monuments at Hampi, India. Threats were: an illegal road that cut the Igaucu park in two, prevention of conservation activity by rebels in the Rwenzori Mountains, poaching and housing construction in the Salonga park, and the construction of two suspension bridges in the Groups of Monuments that threaten its integrity. The List now includes 27 sites. Sites on the list benefit from funds from the U.N. Foundation for personnel training, equipment and biodiversity conservation.

December 1, 1999 The Boston Globe/AP World AIDS Day, 1999. More people died in 1999 than at any time since the epidemic was first recognized 18 years ago. According to the United Nations Program on AIDS, of the 5.6 million new HIV infections in 1999, 4 million were in Africa. Half were among young people ages 15 to 24. Life expectancy in Africa is likely to drop from 59 years to 45 years within the next five years. Millions of orphans will be left. Economic mainstays such as sugar farming are down 50% in productivity. AIDS is a bigger threat than hunger, overpopulation, malaria, or war. "Virtually no attention has been paid to the fact that we now have the medicine to keep people from dying of AIDS, and that from a purely medical standpoint, the deaths of 23 million Africans over the next 10 years are preventable." -- Raymond Dooley, the former chair of Boston's Department of Health and Hospitals.

November 30, 1999 New York Times Clinton Waives Limits on US Aid to Family Planning Programs Abroad. President Clinton waived restrictions imposed by Congress in the federal budget on US aid to international family planning programs, including those that advocate abortion rights. The State Department will now have a greater latitude in dispensing about 400 million dollars for foreign aid to family planning. However, according to the deal, the waiver will result in a 3.5% cut in family planning funding and will put a $15 million limit on assistance that can be given to groups that perform or advocate abortions.

November 22, 1999 UNWire Individuals' Impact On Ocean Underestimated. Individuals, not industries, pose the greatest danger to the seas, according to a report by The Ocean Project. Two out of three major cities in the world are sited along the coast, and more than 2 billion people live within 100 kilometers of a shoreline (40% of the world's population). Runoff from lawns, roads and farms is the primary source of ocean pollution. Urban runoff and individual dumping into storm drains sends about 15 times more oil into the ocean than the Exxon Valdez spill did.

November 22, 1999 Panafrican News Agency Call For Total Ban Of Ivory Trade. The limited lifting of a world-wide ban on trade in ivory is encouraging illegal poaching of Africa's elephants, said an advisor to the Kenya Wildlife Services. 29 elephants had been killed in 1999 for their ivory in Kenya's Tsavo National park, five times the average over the last six years, when a total ban on ivory was in effect.

November 27, 1999 ENN Mideast Fears Another Year of Devastating Drought. Alarm is growing across the parched Middle East as meager rainfall so far this winter points to a continuation of last year's drought, already the worst in decades.

November 27, 1999 ENN Bhopal Still Contaminated. Toxic chemicals continue to poison soil and water near the site of the world's worst industrial disaster in central India, 15 years after it claimed at least 7,000 lives, the environmental group Greenpeace said.

November 26, 1999 ENN Study Links the Pill to Increased Gum Disease Risk. Oral contraceptives can damage women's gums and make then more vulnerable to gum disease, according to New Scientist magazine.

November 25, 1999 ENN Climate Change Propels Plague. The rise of human plague caused by Yersinia pestis bacterium in the Southwestern U.S. may be due to climate change, according to National Science Foundation researchers. Cases occurred more frequently after wetter winter-spring time periods from October to May. The plague, which can be fatal, has come to the U.S. by way of infected rats from Asia. Rodent fleas carry the disease. There are 1,000 to 3,000 cases of this plague in the world each year. During years much wetter than normal, a 60% rise in the number of cases of human plague resulted.

November 30, 1999 Philadelphia Inquirer Experts Say Many Species Headed To Extinction. "We are on the brink of losing a group of animals that has managed to survive the upheavals of the last 200 million years," said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International. Almost half of the world's nearly 300 turtle species face possible extinction. A meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, will discuss the "worldwide turtle crisis." While in some areas, turtles are eaten as subsistence food for the poor, in China and Southeast Asia, some species have considered a delicacy and have reached more than $1,000 per turtle. In the U.S. desert tortoises face threats from a boom in off-road vehicles and an infection that may have been brought into the country by turtles in the pet trade. The pet trade, the disappearance of wetlands, and the nets of shrimp trawlers have also contributed to the decline of turtles.

November 30, 1999 UNEP $300-500 Million Considered for Ozone Layer Protection. Under the Protocol, developing countries are to freeze their CFC and halon emissions at average 1995-97 levels during the 12-month period that began on 1 July 1999. They must then cut back rapidly to 50% by the year 2005. China, the meeting's host country, is the world's largest producer and consumer of CFCs and halons. Recent years have seen record thinning of the ozone layer, including large ozone "hole" over Antarctica which exceeded 22 million square kilometres during the September 1999 Antarctic spring.

November 30, 1999 Whitehouse Statement by the President on Waiver. From the President's statement on H.R. 3194, the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2000: "Unfortunately, the bill also includes a provision on international family planning that I have strongly opposed throughout my Administration. This is a one-time provision that imposes additional restrictions on international family planning groups. However, I insisted that the Congress allow for a Presidential waiver provision, which I have exercised today. I have instructed USAID to implement the new restrictions on family planning money in such a way as to minimize to the extent possible the impact on international family planning efforts and to respect the rights of citizens to speak freely on issues of importance in their countries, such as the rights of women to make their own reproductive decisions. As I have stated before, I do not believe it is appropriate to limit foreign NGOs' use of their own money, or their ability to participate in the democratic process in their own countries. Thus, I will oppose inclusion of this restriction in any future appropriations bill. The bill takes a step in the right direction in terms of paying our dues and our debts to the United Nations and other international organizations."

November 29, 1999 International News More Than One Million Abortions a Year in Vietnam. Vietnam has one of the highest abortion rates in the world with more than one million pregnancies terminated each year. Thousands of abortions carried out secretly in private clinics were not included in the figures. People under the age of 18 accounted for around 20% of the terminated pregancies - young people tend to ignore contraceptives and sex education is a taboo in Vietnamese schools.

November 29, 1999 AP France to Make Morning after Pill Available in Schools. More than 10,000 girls under 18 years become pregnant each year in France and 6,000 have abortions. The morning-after pill prevents the fertilized egg from being implanted in the womb. It has been available in France without a medical prescription since June.

November 29, 1999 RB Kenya Calls AIDS National Disaster but Bars Condoms. More than half a million Kenyans have died of AIDS, but government still refuses to encourage condom use. President Daniel arap Moi ordered free air time on state radio and television to be given to AIDS awareness broadcasts, and that AIDS education is to begin in schools and colleges in January. Moi believes that talking about condom use will encourage youths to have sex. More than half the beds in Kenya's public hospitals are taken up by AIDS sufferers, and the government now spends an estimated $2.7 million each day dealing with AIDS.

November 29, 1999 Reuters Kuwait Women Rights Rejected by Parliament Panel. Leading members of the ruling al-Sabah family have voiced support for women rights and hinted at possibly appointing women to the cabinet in the future, and the country's emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has ordered full political rights for women, but a parliamentary panel unanimously rejected granting women full political rights. A full session of parliament is to decide on the issue of women's rights on Tuesday in a vote that is expected to be tight.

November 29, 1999 USA Today World's Rivers in Serious Trouble More than half the world's major rivers are going dry or are polluted, threatening the health and livelihoods of people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water, according to the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century. The pollution of waterways and river basins contributed to a total of 25 million environmental refugees last year. Of the major rivers in the world, the Amazon in South America and the Congo in sub-Saharan Africa are the healthiest. The Yellow River in China is severely polluted and ran dry in its lower reaches 226 days in 1997. Amu Darya's and Syr Darya's flow into the Aral Sea in Asia has been reduced by 3/4 and has caused a catastrophic regression in sea levels - 53 feet from 1962 to 1994. This area suffers a rate of infant mortality due to poor water flow and fertilizer runoff which have fouled the seabed. The Colorado River in the United States, irrigating more than 3.7 million acres of farmland, polluted by agriculture, leaves little to protect the ecosystem downstream, now salty and desolate marshes. 90% of the flow of the Nile River in Africa is used for irrigation or is lost through evaporation from reservoirs and is polluted with irrigation drainage and industrial and municipal waste when it reaches the Mediteranean Sea.

November 28, 1999 AP Russia Faces HIV Epidemic According to a U.N. official, registered HIV cases in Russia have doubled to more than 23,000 in less than a year, with intravenous drug users accounting for the vast majority of the increase.

November 27, 1999 Washington Post So Many Mouths to Feed According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, demand for grain in developing countries will grow rapidly in the next 20 years, and much of that demand will have to be met by imports from the United States. Many people in the third world will abandon subsistence farming to move into the cities, where they will enjoy higher incomes and more diversified diets, including more meat. Projected annual income growth in percent: East Asia 5.12%, South Asia 5.01%, Southeast Asia 4.44%, N. Africa and West Asia 3.83%, Latin America 3.59%, Sub-Saharan Africa, 3.40%, all developed nations 2.18%. To meet this growing demand, the world's farmers must produce 40% more grains, developing countries must double their cereal imports, 60% of the developing world's cereal imports will probably have to come from the United States.

November 19, 1999 Washington Post/UP Health Situation of Indigenous Peoples Said to Be Grim. The lives of 300 million indigenous people are cut short by disease and poverty and their existence is increasingly threatened by environmental degradation, said the World Health Organization. They die 10-20 years earlier and infant mortality rates are almost three times higher than national averages. "In many areas, health conditions are worsening, as demonstrated by rising rates of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, alcoholism, critical levels of infant mortality and decreasing life expectancies," said Wilton Littlechild, chief of Canada's Four Cree Nations. Malnutrition and diseases such as malaria and yellow fever are rampant. Suicide rates and domestic violence increase as traditional values break down. Incidence of disease and trauma increased "several hundred percent" since 1970 among indigenous peoples in Russia, who are exposed to industrial contaminants. Alaskan native peoples have poor housing, poor sewage disposal and lack of safe drinking water, while in Latin America, indigenous people struggle against encroachment on their land, often with resulting violence. Of Bolivia's indigenous population, 20% of children die before the age of 1 and 14% of those under school age. In Mexico, 12% die before school age, compared to 4.8 percent for children in the general population. In Guatamala, indigenous maternal mortality rate is 83% higher than average. Indigenous people in the Pacific are threatened by hazardous waste dumping, nuclear testing, chemical burn-off, mining, logging and pressure on space from tourist development. Maoris in New Zealand Australian Aborigines have far more psychiatric problems, more accidents and more disease than others in their country. In the Indian state of Maharashtra, thousands of Korku people have died in the past few years from starvation.

November 19, 1999 Washington Post/UP Albright Promises Family Planning Funds. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said that the administration "remains deeply dissatisfied" with restrictions on aid to family planning groups that it reluctantly accepted in order to obtain money to pay U.S. debts to the United Nations in the fiscal 2000 budget, and she said that, for fiscal 2001, Clinton will ask Congress for $541.6 million for those programs, up from the $385 million in the budget deal completed last week, returning family planning funds to their record 1995 levels. Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, called Albright's pledge "a first step to repairing the damage done by the bad deal the administration struck."

November 19, 1999 Seattle Times Japan's Future Brightened By `Demographic Decline'. by B. Meredith Burke. Look forward to 2100 - who will have the brightest quality-of-life prospects: Japan with a population projected to decline by nearly 60%, or the U.S., whose present population will approach 750 million if current policies continue? Today in Japan a million laid-off workers are still unemployed and millions more have entered the uncertain world of temporary or part-time employment. But after the aging of the Japanese baby boomers of the 1990s, those of traditional working age will soon shrink in numbers. Life expectancy gains means adults will live to 80, past the normal retirement age of 60. More than 20% of the population will be 65 or above in 2010, compared with a projected 13% for the U.S. Pension specialists overlook both the baby boom expenses of schools, then in job creation, and in housing and infrastructure expansion. A baby bust enables parents and society to invest in more per child while freeing up resources for other uses, including old-age supports. Japan has only one-quarter hectare of productive land per capita, but has an "ecological footprint" of at least two hectares. Since 1970, Japan's dependency upon imported cereals has risen from 55 to 75% while its population grew. Housing has been crowded, with Japanese living in "rabbit warrens", expensive, tiny, high-rise apartments located hours out of town. When population goes down, housing will be roomier, and employment will become more available to women. In the U.S., births to immigrant women have offset the beneficial effects of the birth dearth to baby boomers, boosting the 1990s' births by 25%. On this path, the U.S. will lose food self-sufficiency by the year 2040, according to Cornell University ecologists David and Marcia Pimentel. By the year 2100, Americans will apply the words "bright and shining" to their past, not their present - or their future.

November 24, 1999 UNWire Global Gage Rule Has Loopholes The Congressional compromise on the U.S. dues to the UN included a ban on US aid to family planning groups that advocate liberalized abortion laws abroad. However, according to the New York Times, there are "ways" groups can get around the limit. In Bangladesh, which receives a large amount of U.S. birth control aid, abortions are not legal, but a practice called "menstrual regulation," which suctions the uterus when a woman misses her period, is permitted by the government. The woman is not considered to be pregnant, so authorities do not consider the procedure an abortion. The gag rule applies only to foreign NGOs, not to foreign governments and American organizations that operate abroad. The definition of terms is up to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other governments.

November 23, 1999 BBC Undersea Methane Gas: Fossil Fuel Revolution Begins. Japanese are attempting to recover vast reserves of frozen methane gas from under the ocean floor. The attempt is fraught with danger: accidental releases of vast volumes of the buried gas have in the past led to the destruction of oil platforms in the Caspian Sea. The cause of the danger is that much of the gas hydrate in the world is close to melting and even a small disturbance can release huge volumes of the gas. The ice, when melted, belches out 160 times its volume in gas. The huge amounts of methane frozen under the ocean may imply the "end of the energy crisis as we know it," said Professor Richard Selley, of the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London. "This year or next year, depending on who you believe, we are at maximum production of conventional petroleum - we are no longer finding oil and gas at the rate at which it is being used up."

November 23, 1999 New York Times Abrupt Rise In Global Temperature Possible. A sudden release of methane locked in the ocean floor may have prompted a "rapid" 9- to 12-degree rise in the earth's average surface temperature 55 million years ago according to a study in the current issue of the journal Science.

November 23, 1999 Seattle-PI-Com Desertificaton: Affected Countries Seek Financial Help. The preservation of dry farmland will need financial help from industrialized nations, delegates were told at a UNCCD conference in Brazil. Delegates from 159 nations have signed the convention, but the U.S. has not yet ratified. In Brazil, desertification affects more than 17 million people and effects nearly 400,000 square miles. Worldwide, more than 23,000 square miles per year becomes desert, with losses at an estimated $42 billion.

November 23, 1999 UNWire Globalization Stunts Womens' Progress. Angela King, UN adviser, told the sixth African Regional Conference on Women in Addis Ababa that globalization is having a major impact on women. Commercialization of agriculture has altered the gender division of labor, forcing women to take over tasks that men used to perform. Men must often migrate to urban areas for work, resulting in more female-headed households. With the transition to a market-based tenure system, the limited, but socially recognized land rights women enjoy under the customary tenure systems are in danger of being lost, while men tend to acquire total legal ownership of land as heads of households, and women become marginalized."

November 22, 1999 The Salt Lake Tribune Religions Set Family Agenda; LDS-led Alliance Fights U.N. Geneva, Switzerland. At the World Congress of Families II, a global pro-family movement was being formed which was designed to challenge the United Nations' agenda on population, reproductive rights and other family issues. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), in an alliance with Roman Catholics, Muslims, Protestants and Jews are responsible. 1,575 delegates from more than 50 nations decried abortion and radical feminism, problems inherent in declining population trends and what they consider troubling language in U.N. statements. A BYU group has provided money, contacts in Muslim countries, and legal analysis of U.N. documents that can help in the fight. Max Padilla, Nicaragua's new minister for the family said his government believes strengthening the family will help solve his country's problems of teen-age pregnancy, prostitution, violence and drugs. The conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington is helping Padilla. China, India, and many Jews were absent from the convention.

November 11, 1999 Global Intersections Forest Futures: Population, Consumption and Wood Resources. In a report from Population Action International (PAI), the amount of forested land available to each person has declined by 50% since 1960. The growing desire among women worldwide for smaller families is one of the most promising trends for conserving the world's remaining forests. The forest-to-people ratio and low forest cover are two concepts related to forest sustainability that are used in the report to assess the ability of each nation's forests to supply goods and services to its inhabitants. Low forest cover countries are defined as having less than 0.1 hectare of forest cover per person, which is manifested in watershed degradation, the loss of rare plant and animal species, and scarcities of forest products such as timber, paper and firewood. Per capita forest cover has declined even in countries where forests have expanded in size. In China, government conservation policies helped increase the size of its forests between 1980 and 1995. But the forest-to-people ratio shrank when the population grew. By 2025, India's per capita forest cover is projected to fall by 30% as its population increases by over 300 million people. 1.7 billion people live in countries with critically low levels of forest cover. This number could nearly triple to 4.6 billion people by 2025. Forest scarcity means scarcity of paper for education for eight out of every 10 people, which is vital to overall economic development. Half of the wood harvested each year is burned for fuel (nearly 3 billion people are dependent on wood for fuel). Women and girls must search longer each day for firewood, with no time to get an education.

November 11, 1999 Global Intersections International Meeting of Scientists in Sri Lanka Reviews Criteria for Tracking Endangered Species. A recent assessment by experts suggests that global extinction rates are now between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural rate of loss. A group of scientists from 15 countries convened in Sri Lanka, at a meeting organized by the IUCN to update the global Red List, which identifies and ranks the risk of extinction for threatened species around the world. Keynote speaker Simon N. Stuart, said that "human population and consumption trends are leading to a shrinkage in the world's living natural resource capital," and affecting climate, sea level, the extent of ultra-violet radiation, the health and extent of natural ecosystems, the availability of agricultural land, and the survival of species. He added that "the levels of threat faced by species are much higher than was thought only five years ago." A computer program is available for applying IUCN criteria to regional data sets to produce the best-possible assessments of current environmental conditions and threats to biodiversity.

November 9, 1999 National Audubon Taking the Pulse of the Planet Bill McKibben Talks to Lester Brown on sustainability - for the November Audubon magazine.

November 9, 1999 National Audubon Footprints on the Globe (Article is at the bottom of the page). The average French person requires 13 acres of land and ocean to support her consumption: the food she eats, the energy she uses, the products she buys. In Thailand, by contrast, one person requires 5 acres, which is the country's ecological 'footprint', says Mathis Wackernagel of the think tank Redefining Progress. No one's footprint should be more than 5 acres.

November 6, 1999 Agence France Presse Is the Pope Coming Around? During the Pope's trip through Asia he acknowledged "concerns over population growth, but told Catholics in the region to resist the 'culture of death' promoted by pro-abortion lobbies. [In a Mar 12 1999 Reuters article entitled 'Pope Faults Rich Countries for Damaging Environment', the Pope said "Serious environmental unbalances" had wreaked "particularly nefarious and disastrous consequences on various countries and the world itself."]

November 19, 1999 World Bank India: Malnutrition Remains a Silent Emergency in India. According to a new World Bank report, Wasting Away: The Crisis of Malnutrition in India, more than 50% of all children under the age of four are malnourished, 30% of newborns are significantly underweight, and 60% of women are anemic. Costs to India are $10 billion a year in lost productivity, illness, and death. Mortality has declined by 50% and fertility b