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% 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

The proposed law is to give protection to people who are abused at home and it received overwhelming support. Children who are brought up in abusive families end up being abusers. Once the bill is law, there will be a need to educate members of the public about it.

Once the bill becomes law, a police officer can accompany an abused person to his or her home to take his or her clothing to seek refuge elsewhere.

An applicant may make an application for an interim or restraining order. An interim order may direct a police officer or deputy sheriff to remove the applicant from the residence. The court may authorise arrest of the respondent where it is satisfied that the applicant or child is under imminent danger.  rw

Child trafficking was a violation of children's rights and a setback for the development of Nigeria.

The parliament also called for the proper training of security personnel to enable them to protect children from the menace of child trafficking.

It urged governments to provide job opportunities for people at the grass roots to tackle the problem of poverty.

It also called for the registration of orphanages and motherless babies' homes. The Children's Parliament of Nigeria is a nonpolitical and nonreligious children organization.

The theme for this year's celebration is "combat child trafficking."

The Day set aside by the African Union (AU), is observed annually across Africa in remembrance of the massacre of innocent children in Soweto, at the height of racist apartheid regime.

Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot.  rw

Golfidan, 18, of Jordan, described the discrimination against girls in her country and the shortage of programs that focus on girls' participation.

One girl urged the international community to bring those responsible for crimes against girl soldiers in Congo to justice.

So far only one Congolese warlord has been ordered to stand trial before the war crimes tribunal on a charge of sending children into battle.

All the girls out there should know that they have their own rights and it is time to stand up and speak out.  rw

Only 1 in 10 children needing antiretroviral treatment were receiving it, while those who had lost both parents were less likely to attend school.

Cases of children who have no access to help for lack of information are too many and through ignorance of their entitlements, lose out on services to wily NGOs. Inadequate resources, poor coordination and a shortage of skilled workers in most sub-Saharan African countries have denied children critical services.

The slow response to children's needs is the top-down approaches favoured by most African states. They contain loopholes that need to be sealed if children are to access the services they were entitled to.

In Zambia, caregivers are trained at the grassroots and equipped with knowledge and skills.

A Kenyan delegate said duplicated and overlapping agendas, combined with reluctance by some organisations to collaborate, had deprived children of humanitarian.

There are cases where HIV programmes have not been implemented because organisations have clashed over implementation or budget.

An Ethiopian representative said proliferating community-based organisations had given rise to NGOs that abused donor funds. Sub-Saharan Africa had two million children under 15 living with HIV in 2005, while about 12 million children under the age of 17 had lost one or both parents to AIDS.  rw

The law is now more of a call to the community for "restraint". When the Prevention of Child Marriage Act replaces the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act of 1929, officials would be appointed with the sole job of preventing child marriages.

Women activists are urging the government to "abolish" child marriage, so that unions involving under-18 girls or under-21 men become invalid.

But the conservatives believe this will be seen as "divorce", which carries a stigma in Indian society and will make it difficult for the girl to get married later. The act is likely to allow a child bride or groom to seek divorce on the ground of being married while underage.

The current law is silent on whether child marriages are valid, though it prescribes punishment for the groom, the families and the priest.

The UN says 50% of Indian girls are married before 18.

One reason for India's high maternal mortality rate is child marriage, activists say. Young girls get pregnant at an age when it poses a health risk. Child marriage also robs girls of education.

A UNDP report looked at child marriage as an indicator of the extent of violence that exists in that society.  rw

Violence against children is a violation of their human rights, a disturbing reality of our societies.

It is estimated that in 2002 some 150 million girls and 73 million boys were subjected to forced sexual intercourse and other forms of violence, while 53,000 were killed.

ILO data showed that in 2004 there were 218 million child laborers of whom 126 million did hazardous work. WHO estimates up to 140 million women and girls have undergone genital mutilation.  rw   Ralph says: I do not believe that we should include school discipline in this category. Many years ago when I went to a "boys only" school, caning was an accepted punishment and was in fact preferred to other punishments such as additional sessions in class or more homework. In those days it could be applied by teachers as well as other boys, (prefects). Karen Gaia says: In same cases a child has a choice between working or starvation. This should not be considered violence. Also, my parents used spanking occasionally. I do not consider it violence. This should not be lumped in with boxing a child's ears or other 'violent' punishments. Not being allowed to watch TV is a punishment, but can hardly be called violence. Also, we in the U.S. practice circumcision. Should we consider this genital mutilation? The U.N. report would be much more believable if it refrained from lumping every adverse action under the category of violence.

In parts of Ethiopia, Nigeria and India, over 40% of girls and young women are married by the time they are 15. More than 50% are married before 18 in Niger, Chad, Bangladesh, Mali, Nepal, Mozambique and Uganda.

This year, the US provided $623 million to 16 of the 20 countries with the highest child marriage rates.

Reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and eliminating the gender gap in education are all UN goals. Child marriage undermines these goals by increasing health risks and depriving girls of educational and economic opportunities.

The International Child Marriage Prevention and Assistance Act calls on the U.S. State Department to integrate efforts to fight child marriage in its overall development assistance strategy.

This would provide $60 million over the next three years to support community-based organizations in developing countries that fight child marriage.

International human rights bodies and treaties, either discourage or prohibit marriage before 18. But child marriage is a cultural practice.

Parents are aware that child marriage is illegal, but we need to understand the economic underpinnings of child marriage and create alternatives.

Child marriage exists in industrialized countries, where it is linked with poverty.

In the US teens can get married at 14 with parental consent in some states. Around 1% of U.S. teens between 15 and 17 have been married. However, teen marriage rates increased by nearly 50% during the 90s.

Reasons include the impact of abstinence-until-marriage programs, welfare policies that promote marriage and the influx of immigrants.

Over one-fifth of 20-year-old women in the US gave birth while still teens, those living in rural communities with high poverty rates and below-average education levels are most likely to become young mothers.

Countries where child marriage is widespread tend to have high rates of poverty. One reason is that there are no prospects for education or employment. The more education a girl receives, the less likely she is to become a child bride.

Teens under 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women in their 20s. Child brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Girls married before 18 were twice as likely to have suffered physical abuse or threats.  rw

Universal primary education by 2015 was one of the MDGs signed in 2000 by world leaders.

Any efforts to increase children's education will end in failure if the millions living in conflict zones are not given the same opportunities as those in more peaceful areas.

While the proportion of women and children among civilians injured or killed in war remains at approximately 80%, the amount of educational aid that reaches those caught up in conflict remains low. Few of the millions of children out of school will ever receive an education.

The countries with the worst education records also have histories of conflict.

In Somalia, more than 89% of children are not in school.

In DR Congo, 35% of children attend school.

In Chad, 41.7% of children are out of school.

And in Nepal, almost 27% of children are not being educated.

In Angola, as much as $180m is needed to achieve universal primary education by 2015.

Major international aid donors and agencies are asked to prioritise education in times of conflict. Key demands include an emphasis on training teachers and improving standards, as well as ensuring that children and teachers are protected from armed violence.  rw

The violence ranged from physical to sexual abuse, abduction and neglect. There were 68 cases of sexual violence against children in Nairobi in May while 77 children were violated in July and August.

To fight back, the Ministry of Home Affairs, has embarked on a two-year campaign to mobilise communities.

According to UNICEF, 25% of girls and between 12 and 24 lose their virginity through force. Almost half of all girls report being victims of violence.

The findings indicate an increase in violence against children with an increase of about 50% compared to last year.

Most victims are children below 15 and 90% are girls.

The ages of victims are getting lower and lower, it is not uncommon to find a child of barely three months has been sexually abused."

More boys are now being sexually violated by women.

70% of the abuse cases occur in the family and include burning, scalding, biting and violent shaking. 22% which involved excessive punishment, was in schools and perpetrated by teachers.

The abusers are often the people who should be their protectors, family members, teachers and religious leaders.

Girls who witness their mothers being abused are more likely to accept violence as the norm in a marriage.

Women and girls from Garissa who had been displaced by the recent drought are often attacked when collecting firewood and water.

The vulnerability of girls increases their vulnerability to HIV/Aids and are six times more likely to contract HIV/Aids than boys of the same age.

Evven though children remain the targets of violence many people feel powerless and unable to see the way forward.

The situation is compounded by the fact that those who violate children are rarely brought to face justice. Today's child violator is not necessarily from a poor background. Many are educated and wealthy people, who can invent ingenious ways of covering up the crime. Many can also hire good lawyers to argue out their cases.

But lingering myths surrounding violence against children remain the biggest stumbling block to fighting the vice.

In reality, most children are violated by adults whom they know and trust. There is also the myth that children often lie about violence, which is false and misleading.

The other fable is that children are always safe in groups. But this is not always true - young children have, for example, been sexually assaulted in nursery school while other adults and children were around. Risk factors include the emotional state of parents, lack of poor bonding between the child and their care-giver, family crisis and undesirable characteristics of the child among other things.

The emotional state of parents could be due to depressive illness or extreme stress, parents might also have anti-social personalities or criminal tendencies.

Unexpected pregnancies or closely spaced children may overwhelm the caregiver. Unwanted children also lead to children being victims of violence. The campaign aims to create awareness in a bid to counter the vice.

The programme aims to create community protection centres, where support, advice, access to legal services and protection will be provided.

Family members or close friends of the family commit 89% of sexual violations against children but simple and affordable solutions are within reach. The campaign has received support from the private sector, NGOs and civil society.  rw

The situation poses challenges to devise ways of reducing poverty and improve the well-being of young people.

The key to promote social and economic growth to these young people is keeping girls in schools, building life, skills, delaying marriage and pregnancy until adulthood. Parents must give proper attention to the physical and spiritual upbringing of their children.  rw

Women in developing countries were receiving therapy in proportion to the female infection rate. But women's access to follow-up care could still be inhibited.

Of the 38.6 million with H.I.V., about 6.8 million in low- and middle-income countries would be expected to die within two years without antiretroviral therapy. About 1.7 million are now receiving it, but for many it is coming too late.

The one million receiving therapy in Africa is 10 times the number who were being treated in December 2003.

The first million patients are the easiest to reach, because scale-up programs tend to start in cities. Reaching people in rural areas is a more difficult task. Delivering antiretrovirals requires trained health workers, and they are in short supply in many poor countries.

Many critics said H.I.V. would develop a resistance to the drugs if people in poor countries did not take them as prescribed. WHO was watching for resistance and that the information would start to become available later this year.

Proponents for wider availability of antiretroviral therapy say that AIDS drugs have saved more than three million years of life in the United States alone.  rw

In Brazil, Plan works with adolescent boys to decrease violence and help them adopt safer sexual behaviour. Groups explore common beliefs and attitudes, for instance that sexual and reproductive health issues are women's concerns, and men have the right to multiple partners while women do not.

At the outset opinions and perceptions reflect the prejudices of the macho culture, but by the end of the program many boys speak of how their behaviour has changed.

Plan believes children should be in the driving seat of its responses to HIV. Children are in a position to bring about changes. Childhood is the time when attitudes are formed and behavioural patterns established. In the West African republic of Togo, young people told Plan that the main problem is poverty. Parents do not have enough money to send their children to school and need them to earn money. They force their daughters to get married, or work as a market trader or send their children abroad to do domestic work.

Plan's response focuses on involving children and addressing their concerns. It abolishes the distinctions between HIV prevention, care of those infected, and measures to lessen the impact of the epidemic on communities.

Plan says that in order to be effective programs for HIV prevention and care among children and young people should address the social, economic and cultural factors that underpin sexual behaviour. Meet the needs of the majority of children. Give young people an active role in determining priorities, and in implementing the response.  rw

Many young people were not able to choose safe sexual behaviour while 2.3 million children under 15 are living with HIV and many have no access to treatment.

Plan has called for the education of children and adolescents to prevent the spread of Aids, prevention of parent-to-child transmission, and to support vulnerable children, including orphans.

In the West African Republic of Benin, girls are harassed on their way to, from, and even in school. They are often pressured into having unprotected sex. Many more are so desperate they are forced to sell sex for the price of a meal.

There are millions of sexually exploited children; girls whose older husbands are infected, or boys who are under pressure to practice unsafe sex.

UNICEF said: "More must be done to reach the most vulnerable groups. Girls who are at risk of being trafficked are at particular risk of HIV infection. Education equips children with better negotiating skills.

"Over 50 million children have lost their parents in sub-Saharan Africa. Many will likely be forced into child labour or the commercial sex trade."

Plan wanted to ensure universal birth registration for all children orphaned by or living with AIDS, protection of inheritance, property rights for AIDS orphans and basic health care.

The international community must address poverty and the denial of human rights.  rw

The number of young people entering productive ages is increasing and the number of dependent people, particularly children below 15 is decreasing, and that generates a window of opportunity where investment to increase increase the labor productivity is going to generate tremendous returns.

The opportunities are tempered in many countries by the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa where one of the highest threats that societies are facing is the spread of HIV. Kofi Annan's World Population Day message notes that youth today are more aware of the lives led by their counterparts around the world, and are demanding action to increase opportunities for all.

Mr. Annan urged governments to invest in education and employment opportunities for young people.  rw

There is a lack of essential supplies, especially intravenous infusions and blood bags. Antibiotics, a compound used in the treatment of parasite infection, special milk for dehydrated children, and almost all medical material for emergency conditions aren't available.

Officials say they are struggling to acquire the required medicines, but their efforts were impeded by security issues and official corruption. They are going to conduct a thorough study on the cases.

About 40 children per day had been admitted to the children's hospital in Basra since May, due to high temperatures and poor water quality. Some cholera cases have also been reported.

About 16 new cancer and leukaemia cases have also been reported among children each month. If there was medicine, they would have been saved.

Saving Children from War sent medicine worth 250,000 euros to the two hospitals specialising in child care in southern Iraq.

Specialists also note an increase of cases of Kala Azar among children. This is transmitted by the sand fly, is a chronic and potentially fatal disease that preys on the internal organs. It can be cured if treated by Pentostam, but it can be fatal without treatment.

Pentostam has not been available in southern Iraq for several months even on the black market. There are no reliable statistics on how many doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses have left the area, but data suggests that at least 200 have left since January. An average of 30 doctors and nurses per month have left Iraq after being targeted by criminal gangs.

The emergency unit in the Teaching Hospital was closed for five months after a number of doctors were killed by attackers while working there. Now many doctors and nurses refuse to go to work.

Nurses earning between US $150 and $200 per month say these salaries do not justify the tremendous risks they take. If salaries aren't increased, they will leave.  rw

The H-1B visa program allows temporary employment of foreign workers in specialized-skill and advanced-degree positions. The government only grants 85,000 such visas each year among all U.S. employers.

Foreigners are paid less than American workers.

Companies can use the lower end of government wage scales even for highly skilled workers, a legal mechanisms to underpay the workers. Beyond seeking approval for visas from the government, banks that accepted federal bailout money also enlisted uncounted foreign workers. Senators Grassley, and Durbin, are pushing for legislation to make employers recruit American workers first. The issue takes on a higher profile as President Obama pushes for massive government spending to create jobs nationwide.  rw   Karen Gaia says: nothing is said about how our resources will be stretched even further and our environment stressed by the addition of more people. Also, undercutting the U.S. economy will leave our country less able to provide aid to other countries. It is the population pressures that drives the need to leave one's own country and go to a strange country to get a job because there are no jobs to be found where you come from. Are U.S. citizens now going to be driven to work in other countries, or is the beginning of the end of our lifestyle as we know it?

Largely because of immigration, the U.S. Census estimates that from 303 million today we'll grow to 400 million people as early as 2040, and 420 million by 2050. The U.S. is growing so fast it now has the third largest population in the world.

America is a nation of immigrants. We absorbed 25 million people between 1860 and 1920, and most observers believe we are a stronger nation because of it.

America's rapid population growth makes it nearly impossible to achieve sustainability. About 93% of U.S. increases in energy use since 1970 can be attributed to population growth. We pave over an area the size of Delaware every year, and every day we remove 3.2 billion gallons of water from aquifers that are not replenished by natural processes.

The energy and climate effects are little understood. Any efficiency gains we make are being swamped by rapid population increases.

With just 5% of the world's population, the U.S. is the top consumer of 11 of the world's top 20 traded commodities. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., which rose 13 between 1990 and 2000, mirrors the population increase. A huge percentage of climate emissions can be attributed to population growth.

Many people want to come to America from the overpopulated developing world. The swelling numbers abroad create pressures leading to "increased poverty, hunger, land degradation, a lack of health services and limited social and economic mobility."

How do we address these pressures without calling for the mandatory caps on U.S. immigration? The organization Population Connection wants to combine action at home (reducing teen pregnancy, ensuring contraceptive availability, defending reproductive rights) with foreign aid. If people see hope for better lives at home, they will feel less pressure to emigrate.

Such views have many supporters. If we and the governments of the countries they are coming from were to devote as much to improving their standard of living at home, they might not feel the need to come to America.

The obstacle is to get countries around the world to focus on eradicating hunger, infant mortality and poverty, and limiting births through universal access to family planning. A 20-year plan to address these issues has languished as donor countries, including the U.S., have fallen short of meeting their financial commitments.

In addition, the reinstatement of the "Global Gag Rule" which mandates that no U.S. family planning assistance be provided to foreign organizations that use funding to make abortion available, has had a severe impact. Cultural and religious opposition have also combined to thwart efforts.

Nevertheless, UNFPA, says that the process offers the best hope for reducing migration pressures. The growing poverty and demographic divide between rich and poor countries must be addressed.  rw

The projected 33% growth in global population over the next 40 years as one of three significant trends that will alter the security landscape in the current century. Most of that growth will occur in countries least able to sustain it. With the population of countries like Niger and Liberia projected to triple in size in 40 years, governments will be forced to find food, shelter and jobs for millions, or deal with restive populations. European countries will see particular growth in their Muslim populations while the number of non-Muslims will shrink as birthrates fall.

The CIA director predicted a widening gulf between Europe and North America on how to deal with security threats. The US sees the fight against terrorism as a global war, European nations perceive the terrorist threat as a law enforcement problem. A third security trend was the emergence of China as a global powerhouse, pursuing its narrow strategic and political interests. If Beijing begins to accept greater responsibility for the health of the international system, as all global powers should, we will remain on a constructive, even if competitive, path.  rw

Migration and urban growth are linked, because the majority of people on the move do so for economic reasons. And when these movements towards the growth centers intensify, such towns and cities can also be places of great misery.

Here, the foremost concern is the infrastructure, which stems from the excessive size of most of the urban areas beyond its holding capacity. This is leading to overcrowding, traffic congestion, lack of adequate housing, mushrooming of slums and settlements, lack of civic amenities, disease and squalor.

Surrounding green belts are slowly being devoured by concrete jungles and pollution. Further the psycho-social malignancies arising from the pressures of living in a survival of the fittest scenario, exacerbated by the loss of traditional social support systems, manifest in the high crime rates, psychotic disorders and racial and social tensions.

Appropriate policy must be put in place so that there can be a balance between the economic rationale for growth and sustainability. As a result of the non-availability of amenities and employment opportunities, the government policy should focus on ensuring that urban centers are well planned to absorb further growth while encouraging other growth centers to develop.

One long term solution is on improvement of rural infrastructure, the neglect of which accentuates the urban exodus. Municipal authorities have to keep pace with city growth.

Policy makers need to wake up or the process of urbanization will become insurmountable. A holistic approach to urban and peripheral area planning with a long greater stress on rural development which will obviate the need for people to migrate to urban areas.

The Central government has allocated huge funds including the urban infrastructure Development Scheme for Small & Medium Towns, which aims at improvement in a planned manner. For all this to materialize the State government and the concerned departments must ensure that funds are utilized properly.  rw

Dignitaries urged action at a three-day U.N. conference.

We have the obligation to fight a crime that has no place in the 21st century," said the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Some 2.5 million people are involved in forced labor as a result of trafficking, and 161 countries on every continent and in every type of economy are affected by the crime.

Most victims are between 18 and 24, and an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year.

"My hope is to secure every child the right to be a child," said Martin, a five-time Grammy winner. "Human trafficking has no place in our world today."

Estimated annual profits from trafficked, forced labor is around $31.6 million, the U.N. Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking said.  rw

Between 1960 and 2005, international migrants who are women increased to a total number of approximately 95 million. The fact that women now account for almost half the total migrant population is having enormous effects on development.

Women migrants working in the United States, who hail from the Caribbean, East Asia, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa, have higher labor force participation than those from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Those from Ireland, Australia and the Britain make the most money.

Among developing countries, women from South Africa, Jamaica and India have the highest salaries while those from Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba are the least successful. U.S. educated women migrants earn more than those educated at home.  rw

Vaccination must be reinforced in many cases, while unemployment and economic woes among the displaced had caused rising malnutrition. The health needs of more than 2 million displaced Iraqis should not be ignored. Many have serious medical conditions. Iraqis streaming into other countries over the past year had put an enormous strain on host governments.  rw   Karen Gaia says: The impacts from population pressures are now exacerbated by conflict. And the conflict is increased by population pressures and disappearing natural resources (oil and water). Sounds like a vicious cycle and a downward spiral to me.

Desertification currently affects 100 to 200 million people, and threatens the lives of a larger number. The loss of soil productivity and the degradation of nature pose imminent threats to international stability. About 50 million people are at risk of being forced from their homes by desertification in the next decade.

The largest area is sub-Saharan Africa, where people are moving to northern Africa or to Europe. The second area is the former Soviet republics in central Asia.

Improved crop and forestry plantings on drylands could slow desertification and help fight global warming. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, as they grow and release it when they are burnt or rot. Carbon markets might develop financial mechanisms to promote more vegetation in drylands.

China is planting a 700-km "Great Green Wall" of trees and enclosed grassland to slow the advance of deserts. China was in some cases planting trees that needed large amounts of water, aggravating shortages.

Eco-tourism could bring jobs to desert regions and help people stay.

Even fish farms could be an option, as shown by countries including Israel, Pakistan and Egypt.  rw

Large numbers of immigrants to the US currently come from Mexico and the Caribbean, and with increases in storm intensity, stress on natural resources, and rising sea levels-side affecting these regions, migration will only increase. Northern Mexico's water shortages will drive immigration into the US. The rising sea levels in Caribbean Islands will increase the flow of immigrants from the region and generate political tension.

The US cannot ignore the flow of displaced peoples. We shoulder a large responsibility for the current levels of global warming. Developing countries bear minimal responsibility for climate change, but their populations are more likely to occupy vulnerable locations. Each American citizen produces four times the greenhouse gas as an average Chinese, and unfortunately, the world will be experiencing the negative effects for years to come.

We should direct a portion of the revenue generated by a greenhouse gas tax law toward projects to provide fresh drinking water, city construction away from areas inundated by rising sea levels, and investment in drought-resistant crop cultivation. Alleviating this debt by investing in projects to help these countries adapt to climate change will fulfill a moral obligation.

Environmental stress forced more than 25 million to migrate in 1998. The scientific evidence is that climate change is remapping our planet. The stream of climate refugees will become a torrent.

In South Asia, climate change creates too little water in some places and too much in others. The summer runoff from mountain glaciers is rapidly disappearing.

In Bangladesh, refugees who can no longer farm on drowning coastal land are moving to cities already crammed with jobless. Governments around the world seem paralyzed by hard choices. Should they spend billions to protect unsustainable land. Can they afford to relocate populations to more valuable land?

Individual countries and the United Nations need to aid the casualties of energy policies and consumption; they must expand treaties that protect political refugees to include those who flee the persecution of a deadly climate.  rw

Climate change is the unknown in this equation. About 155 million people have been displaced by conflict, natural disaster and development.

This figure could be 850 million, as more people are affected by water shortages, sea level crises, deteriorating pasture land, conflicts and famine.

The figures are uncertain, But the lack of knowledge must not lead to a neglect of what can be done now to prevent displacement. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said that by 2080, 1.1 to 3.2 billion people would be experiencing water scarcity; 200-600 million: hunger and 2-7 million a year: coastal flooding.

In addition, 25 million will be displaced by conflict and human rights abuses, 25 million by natural disasters, and 105 million by large development projects, with 8.5 million refugees.

By 2050, twice as many people could be displaced by conflict and natural disasters, but 250 million could be permanently displaced by droughts and floods, and 645 million by dams and other development projects,

The growing number of disasters and conflicts linked to future climate change will push the numbers far higher unless urgent action is taken.  rw

The expatriate communities in the Gulf countries are dominated by males, posing a challenge in preparing population projections. It is comparatively easy to make projections on the mortality and fertility rates, but the prevalence of HIV has led to a rise in mortality in the African countries and the fertility rate is high in this region.

Fertility rates have been declining as fertility among the expatriates is lower compared to the nationals in most of these countries.

Some advanced countries are facing a shortage of young hands due to lower fertility, but this has been compensated by the immigrant workforce. The problem exists in countries like China because of its extreme one-child policy.  rw

Climate change is the unknown in this equation; about 155 million people are known to be displaced now by conflict, natural disaster and development projects.

This figure could be augmented by 850 million, as more people are affected by water shortages, sea level crises, deteriorating pasture land, conflicts and famine. Figures are uncertain, but the lack of knowledge must not lead to a neglect of what can be done now, by reducing global poverty.

By 2080, 1.1 -3.2 billion people would be experiencing water scarcity, 200-600 million, hunger and 2-7 million a year, coastal flooding.

Western governments are increasingly aware of climate change as a security issue. It was an underlying factor in the Darfur crisis with the potential to escalate many other conflicts. A staggering number of people are being pushed aside to make way for large-scale development.

About 25 million have been displaced by conflict and human rights abuses, 25 million by natural disasters, and 105 million by large development projects, with 8.5 million classed as refugees.

By 2050, twice as many people could be displaced by conflict and natural disasters, but 250 million could be permanently displaced by climate change-related phenomena and 645 million by development projects. Between now and 2050 a total of 1 billion people will be displaced from their homes.  rw

The move circumvented a series of laws, from the Endangered Species Act to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

"Because they refuse to deal with the immigration challenge, they're taking a step to destroy the integrity of the southern Arizona's desert," Silver said. It was unclear when construction on 37 miles of traditional and virtual fencing would begin. The project includes radar, lighting, all-weather and drag roads, to cost in the neighborhood of $64 million. Openings will be made to allow the flat-tailed horned lizard to continue crossing into Mexico.

Arizona has been the epicenter for crossings by illegal immigrants for several years.  rw   Karen Gaia says: the article fails to mention the impact on the environment from the migration of 1000s of people through that area. And their added impact to the planet when they become U.S. residents.

Last year, some 12,000 mainlanders arrived to give birth, leaving Hong Kong's medical facilities struggling. Now hospitals have set up a centralised booking system and a quota for the number of mainland mothers.

As a further disincentive, Chinese mothers will have to pay double the hospital fees of their Hong Kong counterparts.

These fees must be paid in advance, in order to obtain a certificate which allows re-entry into Hong Kong.

Those over 28 weeks pregnant, who do not have a certificate will be refused entry.  rw

It will be a problem to bring home the young people.

Many went to Western Europe on three-month tourist visas and stayed on to work clandestinely. Most of the migrants are doing the low-qualified jobs that wealthy Europeans do not want.

The Bulgarian Academy of Science estimates that more than one million people have sought work abroad since 1989. Between 1990 and 2004 the population slumped by 1.2 million to 7.76 million people and if the trend persists, Bulgaria's population could fall to 5.5 million in 2050.

Bulgaria has 1.2 children per mother, child mortality rate is 12.3 per thousand. The country's impoverished gypsy population has the highest natality and mortality rates in Bulgaria.

Parliament approved this year a plan to encourage births. But unemployment has been halved to 11% by restructuring the textile, brewing and quarrying industries and the arrival of tourism.

Some 400-500 young people are leaving the region every year to seek better jobs.

Germany became the latest EU nation to restrict the number of Bulgarian and Romanian workers. Sweden and Finland are the only members of the pre-2004 EU who will not restrict Bulgarian laborers.  rw   Karen Gaia says: it is becoming abundantly clear that the wide disparity of wealth is one of the several factors leading to an unsustainable planet. When rich people become richer on the backs of immigrants, and then spend their wealth on overconsumption, it is a recipe for disaster.

The majority are cleaners and builders, who on flights from South Asia, already wear the company uniform.

The oil-rich Gulf states have a workforce willing to earn less but an income that is more than they could earn in their home villages.

One-quarter come from India and China. Kerala, the Indian state "exports" more workers than any other and benefits by more than $5 billion (£2.6bn) from them annually. Indian accountants and managers are increasingly running things. India is one of the world's largest hosts of migrant workers, with millions coming for building and farm labouring jobs.

The Chinese are working in industry at all levels, particularly in Africa.

In Lesotho, Chinese foremen in a textile factory talk to local workers in the local language.

Migrant workers are now "an essential, inevitable and potentially beneficial component of the economic and social life of every country and region".

Remittances from migrant workers continue to be one of the major drivers of international development.

The amount returned to developing countries by expatriate workers is far higher than the total budget spent by the developed world on developing countries. But migrants are often the forgotten victims when disaster strikes.

While Israel attacked Lebanon this summer, 11,000 migrant workers were left stranded and needed separate funding for an emergency evacuation.

Many migrant workers live outside the law, almost one-third of non-citizens in the US.

There are believed to be eight million unregulated immigrants in Europe. The bodies of Africans washed up on European beaches shows the lengths to which people will go to try and move to a new life.

But those who make it are transforming cities in the newly mobile globalised world.

Ireland used to be an "exporter" of migrant workers.

It is now one of the most popular countries for migrant workers to settle.  rw

The loss of skilled and qualified labour could be crippling to the region's growth and development. One speaker stressed the dangers to the Caribbean of its skilled people migrating, usually in search of greener pastures.

Caribbean countries were among the top 20 countries in the world with the highest tertiary educated emigration rates. The region was losing about 400 nurses per year to the developed nations, and Guyana had lost 80% of its tertiary-educated citizens.

The majority of Caribbean countries have lost more than 5% of their labour force in the tertiary segment and more than 30% in the secondary education segment.  rw   Karen Gaia says: Also sad is the fact that educated migrants often are not able to use their training in the U.S.

Expanding deserts are primarily the result of overstocking grasslands and overplowing land. Rising seas result from temperature increases from the burning of fossil fuels.

China is losing productive land at an accelerating rate. From 1950 to 1975 China lost an average of 600 square miles to desert each year. By 2000, 1,400 square miles were going to desert annually.

Satellite images show two deserts in north-central China expanding and merging to form a single, larger desert overlapping Inner Mongolia and Gansu provinces. To the west in Xinjiang Province, two even larger deserts--the Taklimakan and Kumtag--are also heading for a merger. Further east, the Gobi Desert is within 150 miles of Beijing. Chinese scientists report that over the last half-century, 24,000 villages in northern and western China were abandoned as they were overrun by drifting sand.

Kazakhstan, site of the vast Soviet Virgin Lands Project, has abandoned nearly half of its cropland since 1980.

In Afghanistan, with a population of 31 million, the Registan Desert is encroaching on agricultural areas. A UNEP team reports that up to 100 villages have been submerged by windblown dust and sand. In the northwest, sand dunes are moving onto agricultural land, from the loss of stabilizing vegetation due to firewood gathering and overgrazing. Iran, which has 70 million people and 80 million goats and sheep, is losing its battle with the desert. In 2002 sand storms buried 124 villages in the southeastern province forcing their abandonment. Drifting sands had covered grazing areas, starving livestock and depriving villagers of their livelihood.

The Sahara Desert is pushing the populations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria northward toward the Mediterranean. In countries from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia in the east, the demands of growing human and livestock numbers are converting land into desert. Nigeria is losing 1,355 square miles to desertification each year. While Nigeria's human population grew from 33 million in 1950 to 134 million in 2006, its livestock population grew from 6 million to 66 million. The food needs forced the plowing of marginal land and the forage needs of livestock exceeded the carrying capacity of its grasslands. Nigeria's population is being squeezed into an ever-smaller area.

In Mexico, the degradation of cropland forces some 700,000 Mexicans off the land each year in search of jobs in nearby cities or in the United States.

Rising seas promise to displace greater numbers in the future. During the twentieth century, sea level rose by 6 inches. During this century seas may rise by 4 to 35 inches. Since 2001, record-high temperatures have accelerated ice melting making it likely that the future rise in sea level will be even greater.

If the Greenland ice sheet, a mile thick in some places, were to melt entirely it would raise sea level by 23 feet, or 7 meters.

A one-meter rise would inundate many of the rice-growing river deltas and floodplains of India, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and China. A one-meter rise in sea level would cause some 30 million Bangladeshis to migrate, internally or to other countries.

Hundreds of cities would be at least partly inundated, including London, Alexandria, and Bangkok. More than a third of Shanghai, would be under water. A one-meter rise combined with a 50-year storm surge would leave large portions of Lower Manhattan and the National Mall in Washington, D.C., flooded. If the Greenland ice sheet should melt, it would force the abandonment of thousands of coastal cities and communities. Rising seas and desertification will present the world with an unprecedented flow of environmental refugees and the potential for civil strife.

We must deal with rapid population growth, advancing deserts, and rising seas. Growth in the human population is accompanied by a growth of livestock populations of more than 35 million per year. The rising concentrations of carbon dioxide that are destabilizing the earth's climate are driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Reverse these trends or risk being overwhelmed by them.  rw

In North Africa communities that lived around oases for centuries have begun to move out. The indigenous people of these areas are working with the environment to develop new sustenance for themselves and others.

But as conditions become close to impossible, many of these places need help. An initiative identified about 200 agricultural systems that are threatened by climate change, rural impoverishment, exodus to urban areas, and other such dangers.

These systems provide food security and potentially all humanity will need them in the future. 75% of rural poor are custodians of amazing agricultural methods. But globalisation is a challenge and small-scale farmers, and humanity could lose these heritages.

The GIAHS (Globally Important Agriculture Heritage Systems) initiative has identified seven pilot sites in Peru, Chile, China, the Philippines, and at oases in the Maghreb in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.

In Morocco, 36% are living below the poverty line. The increasing population pressure on the resources of the oases and the intrinsic poverty are destabilising the ecosystem.

Over the next seven years the GIAHS project will work with indigenous communities to implement new conservation methods. The objective is building on local people and communities to recognise the importance of these systems so that they can maintain them. One site is located around Machu Picchu at 1900 metres above sea level, going up to Lake Titicaca at 3,800 metres. The path links two different municipalities and four communities of 1,800 peasant families.

The project here is aiming to conserve ancient traditional agricultural technologies. You increase the possibility to earn from the land, you can limit migration. There has been 20% reduction of permanent migration and 50% reduction of temporary migration due to direct participation of local communities in land preservation.

While men more and more frequently go to the big cities to work, women stay at home and rediscover the traditions which otherwise would have been lost.

The GIAHS project is intended to eventually encompass 100 to 150 such systems worldwide and guarantee the sustainability of these agro-eco systems.  rw

About 35,000 Somalis escaping drought, strict Islamist rule and the possibility of war have arrived in the Dadaab camps so far this year. The flow has increased to more than 1,000 a day in the past week, amid reports of advances by the Islamists and counter-attacks by the government and ousted warlords.

Influxes have coincided with Islamist territorial gains. Aid workers fear more arrivals could overwhelm efforts to provide food and shelter.

The Islamists have declared holy war against Ethiopia, which they accuse of invading Somalia to back its shaky government. Some refugees were complaining of the imposition of strict sharia rule.

About 162,000 people live in Dadaab, in flimsy shacks on sandy terrain.

The refugees are split between three sub-camps in flat, barren land strewn with thorn bushes.

The rate of arrival will quickly exhaust the spare capacity in the camps.  rw

For the first time, representatives will be attending a UN session devoted to migration. The recognition of the rights of women and the need for gender equality is a prerequisite of any policy framework that seeks to manage migration. For origin and receiving countries, the contribution of women migrants can transform quality of life.

Migration also has its dark side. Female migrants face a lack of opportunities to migrate safely and legally. Weak multilateral cooperation and the failure to enforce measures designed to protect migrant women means it is the most vulnerable who will pay. Discriminatory barriers, and inadequate protections, are beneficial neither to families or to countries. Governments agreed to "address the root causes of migration, especially those related to poverty" and to "seek to make the option of remaining in one's country viable for all people". The global community has rallied around the MDGs. In 2000, heads of state and government unanimously made a pledge to "make poverty history"(6) and to end gender discrimination.

People should not be compelled to migrate because of limited alternatives in their home countries. The equitable management of migration means that measures should not penalize the most vulnerable, who already face systemic inequality. Chief among these are lower-income and female migrants. While an elite of highly skilled individuals increasingly enjoy the benefits of migration, barriers to poorer migrants are increasing.

Sound immigration policies that respond to economic interests while safeguarding human rights and gender equality are critical.

Sovereign countries have the right to control immigration and deter illegal entry.

More countries today acknowledge the need to manage migration rather than restrict it.

Womens needs are urgent and deserve priority. Women migrants are among the most vulnerable to human rights abuses. Leadership can help steer public debates to a recognition of our common humanity, which binds us together in a world increasingly without borders.  rw

Women migrants represent around 3% of migrants, but there were a huge volume of undocumented workers who crossed the border which put the total number of women and young girls to more than a million. Bangladesh is one of the nine largest immigrant exporting countries after China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The overseas migration of female labours has taken place since the government allowed unskilled female labour migration. It was found that the number of deportation and sending back of female workers is also high in compared to men. The demand of female migrant results from forces in which gender roles and sex discrimination are interwined with globalisation. Unemployment and cuts in social services in the home country are found as cause for sending many women abroad. Many women cross borders for personal security, fleeing violence and abuse. Demand for foreign labour reflects the trend where irregular migrants are preferred due to their willingness to work with inferior salaries, for short period and physically demanding and dirty jobs.

Asia and the Pacific region faces job gaps as growth in trade, investment and output have failed to keep pace with the growth of the labour force in Asia and the Pacific. About 250 million workers are expected to be looking for jobs over the next decade in Asia and the Pacific region and three million will be leaving home every year in search of work. The favourable labour market for the female workforce was created since the Philippines withdrew their labour forces from the Gulf countries on human rights and wage issues. Government has to take actions regarding safety, security of the migrants, through a model contract, launching a welfare fund in the employing countries, safety net programmes, access to family resources and link migration policy with regional and global trade.  rw   Ralph says: Surely the simplest solution is to improve the economics of the home countries. I feel we have to get away from the "It is always somone elses responsibility".

This is having an impact on critical sectors such as the health systems in developing countries. The movement of trained professionals from developing countries to developed countries remains a major concern. The fragile health sector in developing countries is losing its best and brightest.

Surveys show that the intention to migrate is especially high among health workers in regions hit by HIV.

UNFPA warns that when doctors and nurses migrate because of low wages and bad working conditions patients suffer and health care systems crumble.

In Ghana, in 2000, twice as many nurses left that country as the number which graduated from its nursing schools.

In 2003 several nurses migrated from Jamaica despite a 58% shortage of nurses in the public health sector.

Developed countries will continue to demand experienced nurses from countries such as Jamaica.

The migration of skilled workers is a major challenge for Jamaica.  rw

Most of the migrants from developing countries end up doing dirty, difficult, demeaning and dangerous work. With domestic work they work alone, where they can be abused, even raped, and would have no recourse to law or justice. The few stories that emerge suggest that the problem is widespread.

Promises of jobs as domestics lure women away from their homes and some end up in the sex trade. Women of all ages are the victims. According to the ILO, there are 2.45 million trafficking victims in exploitative conditions and another 1.2 million trafficked each year within and between countries. Up to half are children. Hundreds of Indian women agree to marry men living in foreign lands without knowing them. If things go wrong, they are left completely helpless. Some have to choose between working as illegal aliens and risk being deported, or staying on in an abusive relationship. A study of educated middle class South Asian women in Boston found that nearly 35% had been victims of physical abuse. Refugee women are often victims of the worst kind of violence. These women have to deal with violence and rape in the camps where they have to live for years. A report states that 90% of the rapes reported by Somali women occurred when they were out gathering firewood or looking after their livestock.  rw

For the first time, government representatives from around the globe will be attending a UN session devoted to migration. The recognition of the human rights of women and the need for gender equality is a basic prerequisite to manage migration in an orderly and humane manner.

For many women, migration opens doors to a new world of greater equality. For origin and receiving countries, the contribution of women migrants can transform quality of life. Migration also has its dark side.

Millions of female migrants face a lack of adequate opportunities to migrate safely and legally. The demand for women migrants is growing. Unnecessary and discriminatory barriers, coupled with inadequate human and labour rights protections, are not beneficial.

In 2000, heads of state and government pledged to end gender discrimination.

People should not be compelled to migrate because of inequality, exclusion and limited alternatives in their home countries. The equitable management of migration means that measures should not penalize the most vulnerable.

Increasingly, migration is exacerbating existing inequalities. While an elite of highly skilled individuals enjoy the benefits of migration, barriers to poorer migrants are increasing.

Stepped-up investments in poverty reduction, gender equality and development are part of efforts to achieve a more orderly migration system. Sound immigration policies respond to economic interests while safeguarding human rights and gender equality.

Sovereign countries have the right to control immigration and deter illegal entry but this constitutes only one aspect of any comprehensive policy framework and should not be the only major focus.  rw   Karen Gaia says: we need to look at the impacts of an increased population for the receiving countries. The author seems to be unaware that continuing population growth is not sustainable.

An incresing number are seeking education abroad. Many moved to be reunited with parents or other relatives. The report highlights the need to create opportunities for young people in their own countries.

It calls for world leaders to protect their human rights and recognise their contributions-both to origin and destination countries.

The young men and women profiled come from 10 countries: Burkina faso, Colombia, India, Kenya, Liberia, Moldovia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Suriname and Zambia.  rw

A report by the UNPF will be the subject of discussion next week on international migration and international development convened by the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Some women come over here (U.S.), leave their children, and send money back home to take care of the families they've left behind. They largely are the domestic workers, the cleaners, the caretakers of the sick and the elderly, the waitresses, the asylum seekers and sweatshop workers. They take the most menial jobs in developed countries. When it comes to policy making and discussions on migration, the women are widely ignored. Goods and capital flow freely and receive more protection than people crossing borders.  rw

The number of people living outside their country of birth has almost doubled during the past 50 years. The 21st century is a world on the move as communications put distant countries within reach.

Women make up almost half the total of migrants; young people between 10 and 24 make up about a third.

But the rate of migration has slowed. One out of every four migrants lives in the US. One in three migrants lives in Europe, the report notes, that may fuel the rising anxiety in Western Europe.

The report points out that migration can be only a small part of the answer to the ageing populations of Europe. Migrants age, too. No developed country would tolerate the strain of immigration on the scale needed to preserve the age balance.

Remittances sent home by migrants comprise the second largest source of external income for developing countries.

Some Caribbean countries have lost more than 70% of their most educated. But attempts to "plug the drain" may cost poor countries more than they save, and will probably fail.  rw

In the Middle East, a system called kafala, in which the employer holds the worker's passport and other official documents until the date of departure, ensures that the worker is dependent on the "master."

If domestic workers break their contract they are often forced to forfeit their pay cheques.

Although workers are likely to be abused sexually, they lack access to health facilities. Saudi Arabia requires that a pregnant domestic worker be attended to only if accompanied by the expected child's father.

In Sri Lanka, where migrants undergo AIDS testing, half of all reported HIV cases occur among domestic workers who have returned from the Middle East. Human trafficking in Africa is the third most lucrative illegal business after arms and drugs.

Trafficked people across the world are estimated at more than 3 million, with 80% women and girls and up to 50% children.

Millions of women working overseas send remittances back home to improve the lives of those they left behind.

Somebody must do the low-paying jobs that the locals are unwilling to do, it says.

Migrants' earnings sent back home are the reason experts give for supporting international migration.

The World Bank estimates that remittances are larger than the value of official development assistance. Apart from claims of gobbling up jobs at the expense of the locals the migrants are accused of being HIV bearers. A study which claims that 66% cent of all heterosexually transmitted HIV infections diagnosed in the EU are in people from high-prevalence countries.

While the brides are dependent for their legal status on the groom-to-be, they are being used as a ploy to recruit women.

The US passed a law authorising consulates to share information with would-be brides regarding their husbands-to-be.

In 2004, the second largest category of work permit applications from foreign women were for entertainment and leisure. Japan admitted nearly 65,000 women on entertainment visas. The boundary between entertainment and sex work is often blurred.

Pregnancy-related problems among migrants are a major issue throughout the EU. Migrants receive inadequate or no antenatal care, and have higher levels of still birth or infant mortality. Domestic violence against immigrant groups is high.  rw

Richer countries must invest adequately in meeting their own nursing needs at home and help poor countries train more medical workers.

Every year, some 800,000 people are sent across borders against their will. Eighty percent of those are women and girls.  rw

A report examines the effect of female migration on countries, especially the yearly exodus of 20,000 qualified nurses and doctors from Africa to developed countries.

In Europe and North America, ageing populations and a shortage of nurses and doctors are driving the demand for health workers.

In poorer countries, skilled women and men are increasingly turning to migration as a means to improve their own lives and those of their families.

The movement of skilled migrant workers could be a "win-win" situation for rich and poor countries provided there was management and dialogue between governments.

More money and help should be given to developing countries that find themselves with a hole in their health workforce.

Quotas would be a part of discussions between governments but need to be carefully managed.  rw

In 2005, female migrants accounted for 54% of all new permanent residents in the US.

Women use false documents rather than jump a fence, or they overstay their visas.

They often leave behind families and children. On the upside, they sent home $262 billion in remittances; on the downside, there's a brain drain in the countries of origin, and children are raised without mothers.

In 2005, 600,000 to 800,000 women, men and children were trafficked in the US, smuggled in illegally and put into slavelike situations. Up to 80% are women and girls, and many end up in domestic jobs or the sex trade.

The plight of female immigrants should be part of daily discussion on immigration and human rights issues, said Maria Jose Acala, principal author of a report.

Women are ignored and not part of the mainstream debates but they make tremendous contributions.  rw

Health systems are collapsing in poor countries that face massive health care needs.

Nursing is one of the occupations that offer migrant women decent work with decent pay. The intention to migrate is high among health workers living in regions hit hardest with HIV/AIDS. More Malawian doctors are practicing in Manchester (UK) than in the whole of Malawi. In Central African Republic, Liberia and Uganda, there are less than 10 nurses per 100,000 people. There should be measures to improve health systems in poor countries by improving health staff job satisfaction and retention.

Richer countries should invest more in training nurses to meet their needs. In 2005, international migrants numbered 191 million with 95 million women and their rights and concerns are largely ignored yet the most vulnerable migrants are women and children.

800,000 are trafficked across international borders each year of which 80% are women and girls who are forced into sex work, domestic jobs or sweatshops.

Human trafficking is the third most lucrative illicit trade, and nets from 7 billion to 12 billion dollars annually.

International standards must be enforced for guaranteeing the human rights of migrants. Every year millions of women working overseas remit hundreds of millions of dollars to their home countries that go to improve living standards for loved ones left behind.

Of the more than one billion dollars in migrant funds sent back to Sri Lanka in 1999, women contributed over 62% of the total. Still there is increasing ill-treatment of women. Many migrant women are excluded from national labour laws and protections.

In many countries, she said, they are barred from switching employers, even in cases of abuse, or they lose their visa status. Corrections, include reviewing immigration policies and visa policies, and ensuring labour laws, afford migrant women workers the same protections as any other worker; prosecuting unscrupulous employers; and providing migrant women with access to information about their rights.  rw

Bangladesh is one of the nine largest manpower-exporting countries along with China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand. These countries contribute between one half and two thirds of all documented immigrations and refugees.

One third of labour migrants within the region are women, the majority in domestic services or entertainment often not covered by the labour laws. Many also ended up in the sex industry fueled by poverty, discrimination and unemployment in Asia.

Bangladesh data indicated that less than 1% of the immigrants between 1991 and 2003 were women. There are about 10,000 to 15,000 women employed in Dubai. Restrictions were enforced on female migration by countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan in order to protect women. Bangladesh lifted the ban in 2005.

One third of the global trafficking in women and children occurs in the South East Asia.  rw

He said the home affairs ministry would allow eligible foreigners to stay longer than six months while looking for work.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority would set up an online "self assessment points system" so foreigners could check if they qualified for permanent residency or citizenship.

Singapore will launch an aggressive drive to attract migrants to avert the growing manpower shortage.

The number of babies born per woman in Singapore fell to 1.24 in 2004 and 2005 and needs a fertility rate of 2.1.

Singapore needed 60,000 births a year but there were 35,500 babies born last year.

The 2.1 fertility rate was last recorded in 1976. One in five Singaporeans will be over 65 by 2030.

As of June 2004, the island had a population of 3.49 million, also there were more than 750,000 foreign workers.

Singapore is encouraging citizens to have more children and is engaging those working or studying abroad as part of its population-boosting strategy.  rw

About 35,500 babies were born in 2004, short of the 50,000 needed annually to maintain the 4.2 million population. A Citizenship and Population Unit would be set up to attract foreigners, and the nation would seek "all kinds" of talent.

Singaporeans are urged to welcome newcomers.

An office would also set up an online portal to Singaporeans abroad and keep them informed of local developments and help them assimilate if they return.

Singapore's declining birth rate could have a severe impact on the country's future. Singapore has implemented measures to promote procreation.

When Singapore's fertility rate hit 4.7 in the 1960s, the government launched an intensive family-planning campaign.  rw

When people don't have the means and information to control their fertility, the results are that you can't go a week without seeing evidence of overpopulation, choked highways, crowded classrooms. We have to maintain not having living space and forests, farms, wetlands, etc.

One-third of all pregnancies in this country are unintended. Yet we're wasting millions on abstinence programs that have been shown never to work. Abstinence proponents want to punish people who act, in their view, immorally.

Current attacks on birth control are as much about making political hay as making babies.

They see access to contraception within marriage as a negative influence: it gives easy access to adultery and therefore has reduced faithfulness in marriage.

A professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said "We've got room. Don't let the fear of overcrowding discourage you, the issue is what the Lord wants for them."

Jennifer Shawne has published her book "Baby Not on Board: A Celebration of Life Without Kids" last year and says that it's not just religious conservatives who try to convince her of her duty to have children. She points out the unsupported assumption that political and cultural attitudes are inherited traits.

The Oakland-based think tank Redefining Progress estimated that this nation's level of consumption and waste generation requires 269 global acres per person, almost nine times the footprint of the average in China and more than 22 times that of the average Indian or Pakistani.

From the planet's point of view, the birth of a single American child has the potential impact of 10 births in those countries.

What would 400 million Americans look like?

Pat Buchanan argued that our nation's existence is threatened by insufficient enthusiasm for childbearing and growing immigration from Mexico. Buchanan urged a return to large, patriarchal families as a way of outstripping the immigrant population.

Negative Population Growth (NPG), is a U.S. population of 150 million and advocates the two-child family and curtailment of resource consumption, but now spends most of its energy on immigration issues.

Working for reproductive rights and smaller families without forceful action on immigration is doomed to fail.

"If not for immigration, we already would have stabilized the U.S. population. Our problem is immigration. It's easy for one person to bring in his sisters, brothers, parents. And immigrants have more children. Pretty quickly, one immigrant can really amount to 12."

Can we find ways of viewing immigration that lead to a less cruel course of action?

What is really going on is capitalism operating normally. Employers gain. Native workers lose. Immigrants lose too. Both groups lose because they are not united.

If it's hard to predict how many of us there will be, it's even tougher to know who we'll be. Jennifer Shawne said, "This culture, is constantly evolving. I'm more interested in seeing how it changes in the future than in preserving it as it is or was."  rw

It will identify 57 nations where a serious shortage of health workers is impairing the provision of lifesaving interventions such as child immunisation and safe pregnancy.

In today's global labour market, the way we deal with our health services at home has an impact on healthcare systems across the world.

There is a current shortage of more than four million doctors, nurses and midwives.

Almost half the nurses who have registered in the UK since 1997 have come from countries such as the Philippines, Australia, India, South Africa and other sub-Saharan African countries. Ghana has lost more than 1,000 nurses to the UK over the past eight years.  rw   Karen Gaia says: brain drain is a major problem with migration

The findings add pressure on wealthy countries as they struggle to accommodate new populations and ease tensions with existing inhabitants.

There are 191 million migrants globally, up from 175 million in 2000 and 155 million in 1990, A slowdown compared with the 15 years between 1975 and 1990, which saw 41 million new migrants. Between 1990 and 2005, 33 million out of 36 million migrants moved to the developed world, with the US gaining 15 million and Germany and Spain each 4 million.

The developed world took in 53% in 1990, up to 61% in 2005. One in every 3 migrants lives in Europe and about one in every 4 lives in N. America.  rw

Migration accounts for half the growth in 1990-95, two-thirds in 1995-2000 and three-quarters in 2000-05. If this trend continues between 2010 and 2030, it will account for virtually all growth.

The findings add pressure on wealthy countries as they struggle to ease tensions with existing inhabitants.

The Netherlands introduced a test for potential immigrants to ensure they understood Dutch culture and many receiving countries have been taking measures to facilitate the inflow of skilled migrants and temporary low-skilled workers.

Governments of countries of origin have become proactive in encouraging the return of their citizens and strengthening ties with their expatriate communities.

There were 191 million migrants globally, up from 175m in 2000 and 155m in 1990. A slowdown compared with the 15-year period between 1975 and 1990, which saw 41m new migrants. Between 1990 and 2005, 33m out of 36m migrants moved to the developed world, with the US gaining 15m and Germany and Spain each accounting for 4m.

Today, one in every three migrants lives in Europe and about one in every four lives in northern America.  rw   

Problems need to be addressed, including the rights of migrants, their exploitation, the brain drain from developing countries, reintegration of returning migrants and unmet needs for family planning that leads to poverty and undue pressure for emigration.

Along with legal and fair migrant worker policies, strategies to leverage the impact of money sent home, including direct investment opportunities and the encouragement of the return of skilled human resources.  rw   

President Vicente Fox makes more ($236,693) than the leaders of France ($95,658), the U.K. ($211,434), or Canada ($75,582).

Mexico's Chamber of Deputies make $148,000 -- more than their counterparts in France ($78,000), Germany ($105,000).

Members of the 32 state legislatures earn on average twice the amount earned by U.S. state legislators ($60,632 vs. $28,261). The salaries and bonuses of the lawmakers in Baja California ($158,149), Guerrero ($129,630), and Guanajuato ($111,358) exceed the salaries of legislators in California ($110,880), the District of Columbia ($92,500), Michigan ($79,650), and New York ($79,500).

Average salaries (plus Christmas stipends known as aguinaldos) place the average compensation of Mexican governors at $125,759, which exceeds the mean earnings of their U.S. counterparts ($115,778).

In 2002 Mexico spent only 6.1% of its GDP for health care, trailing Argentina (8.9%), Barbados (6.9%), Brazil (7.9%), Colombia (8.1%), Costa Rica (9.3%), Cuba (7.50 %), El Salvador (8.0%), Haiti (7.6%), and Nicaragua (7.9%).

Mexico spent only 5.3% of GDP to education in 2002, behind Barbados (7.6%), Cuba (9%), Honduras (7.2%), and Uruguay (8.5%).  rw   We should be requiring Mexico to take care of its own before opening the floodgates to refugees from Mexico's own bad practices.

Desertification is an environmental crisis of global proportions. The loss of soil productivity and the degradation of services provided by nature pose threats to international stability. 50 million people were at risk of being forced from their homes by unchecked desertification in the next decade. The largest area is sub-Saharan Africa, where people are moving to northern Africa or Europe.

The second area is the former Soviet republics in central Asia. It was hard to isolate desertification from other factors, such as poverty or armed conflicts.

International experts reckon 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in four years of strife in Sudan.

Improved crop and forestry plantings on drylands, which cover more than 40% of the world's land area, could slow desertification. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, as they grow and release it when they are burnt or rot. Carbon markets might promote more vegetation in drylands.

China is planting a 700-km "Great Green Wall" of trees and enclosed grassland to slow the advance of deserts. Algeria is also putting up a "green wall" against the Sahara.

Such plans can work, but also lead to problems, China was in some cases planting trees that needed large amounts of water, aggravating shortages.

Eco-tourism could bring jobs to desert regions and help people stay.

Even fish farms could be an option, as shown by Israel, Pakistan and Egypt.  rw

Most urban growth in developing countries now stems from natural increase (more births than deaths) rather than migration from rural areas.

The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) estimates that more than half of the residents of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, are living in slums, where unemployment is high, livelihoods are unreliable, housing is poor, and basic amenities such as running water and unsanitary conditions mean they have poorer health outcomes than people living elsewhere.

Of every 1,000 live births in the slum areas, 91 infants will die before their first birthday, compared to 67 in Nairobi as a whole, and 79 in rural areas. And in the slums, at least 151 infants die before their fifth birthday compared to 117 in rural areas, and 95 in Nairobi as a whole.

Despite the poor infant mortality rates, according to the UNFPA report, the potential benefits of urbanisation far outweigh the disadvantages. Approaches should try to reduce natural increase, the major component driving urban population growth, by reducing poverty levels, promoting gender equity and equality, making education universally available and meeting reproductive health needs. These will enable women to avoid unwanted fertility and reduce the main factor in the growth of urban populations-natural increase.

Dr Alex Ezeh, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Centre in Nairobi, says "Large proportions of poor urban women who either do not want any more children or want to delay their next birth for at least two years, are at risk of getting pregnant because they are not using any method of family planning."

A five year study,'Educational outcomes in health and fertility', conducted in Kenya, Ghana, India and Pakistan, is currently under way to study the factors underlying a woman's decision to use contraception. It examines the link between schooling and reproductive decisions in poor households. It will try to determine how many years of schooling are required to enable women to take more independent decisions and to access a wider range of external resources.

This poses challenges: creating new slums, overwhelming governments, and placing new demands on land and water. But the migrants themselves are showing resilience in adapting.

There are innovative ways that people have learned how to deal with the problems.

On a recent day, a group of indigenous women participated in a workshop to develop leadership skills. All these women had moved to El Alto for a better life. Like most migrants here, their economic status is precarious. Latin America and the Caribbean is the world's most urbanized developing region, with 78% of residents living in cities. But this search for employment challenges cities. El Alto's government runs employment programs for youths - giving them internships to work in the factories that draw so many migrants. If some migrants end up in urban poverty, they tend to be better off than the countryside.

Governments tend to blame migration on growth of slums and violence, but it is misplaced. Providing services such as electricity and water is easier in urban areas than dispersed agricultural ones. And urban migrants tend to have networks of friends and family to help them. Census numbers in El Alto reveal an almost equal ratio of women to men, women tend to migrate more permanently, while men migrate seasonally.

Women migrants are vulnerable, but living in cities gives them access to civic roles they would not have in the countryside.

Women who benefit from Pro Mujer tick off the difficulties - infidelity, violence on television, alcohol.  rw

More than half of the world's population lives less than 1 hour from a major city, 85% of the developed world and 35% of the developing world; 95% of the population is concentrated on 10% of the world's land; but only 10% of the land is classified as more than 48 hours from a large city.

Digital maps of road, river and rail transport networks, population data, satellite-derived maps of land cover and terrain and information on border crossing times are combined using geographical modeling techniques. The result is a global map of travel time to over 8,500 major cities.

The human population is more concentrated than ever before. Because of advances in transport systems we are better connected than ever. This map also serves as a stark reminder that the price of greater connectivity is that there is little wilderness left.  rw

Sustainability is most prevalent in these disappearing rural villages because the way of life of the residents has been consistent over hundreds of years and the environment and agriculture haven't varied. These sustainable traits are what researchers are interested in preserving and applying to other areas.

As China grows, the young people living in rural villages are leaving for the large metropolitan cities that offer industrial jobs. Estimates of the number of people migrating to larger cities in China range from 200 to 400 million people.

The lack of renewable energy and dependency on fossil fuels will eventually affect everyone's daily life. If things do not change in the next 10 years in our way of thinking many cities will collapse and wither.  rw

But people vote in cities, pay taxes, are easier to monitor and control. Its cheaper to provide healthcare and education, businesses have the critical mass to survive. One of the aims of taxation is to force workers into a society which produces surplus, rather than self-sufficiency which cannot support a ruling class.

Poor city-societies are vulnerable and require imports of energy and food, which must be paid for with the profit from commerce. In poorer countries that means trading of the country's natural wealth. That is the 'profit' that pays for everything else. But the main activity of the city may be government administration, tax collecting and all the paraphernalia we are familiar with.

As energy prices rise and food prices double, poorer cities suffer most, because energy and food are their unavoidable imports. Poor self-sufficient people with their own land are largely unaffected. If we want to aid the people of a poor country, then land reform, provision of basic tools, water supply, non-hybrid seeds and harvest storage are best for the people.  rw   Karen Gaia says: This opinion piece ignores the impacts of overpopulation on agricultural land. When the number of children that survive childhood expands from 2 per family to 4 or 6 (due to better sanitation and health practices), the multiplication of people upon the land forces migration of the excess younger people to the cities.

Cities are ecosystems in their own right, with complex human-environmental interactions and increasing and far-reaching impacts.

People in cities dominate environmental change on a global level, but humans' effects are understudied from an ecological standpoint. This hampers our ability to make predictions of, and policies regarding, the environment of the future.

The authors chart the socioecological challenges and changes ahead for all cities, but particularly those in rapidly developing regions like China and India.

The changes are associated with issues ranging from land use to urban waste discharge to heat effects, as well as challenges related to larger changes in global climate, hydrologic systems, biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles.

Cities, and the people in them, will ultimately determine global biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

The West is expected to experience the largest population increases in the U.S. in the next 20 years.

With rising numbers, and increasing demands for land, power, water, waste removal and transportation. Landscapes, will experience the impact of the growth of nearby and distant cities and we need to understand the complexity of impacts both within urban boundaries and across landscapes farther away.

One approach has been to view urban systems as organic units that take up resources and produce wastes.

For example, cities are sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and human-caused nutrient deposition.

Cities alter the behaviors, physiologies, disease patterns, population densities, morphologies and genetics of city-dwelling organisms.

Well-designed cities can have less overall impact on the environment than equivalent rural populations.  rw

When we think of global change, much of the current environmental impact originates in cities, and with demographic transition to city life the urban footprint is likely to continue to grow.

Urban challenges face communities worldwide, with solutions lagging behind. World changes range from land use and cover, urban waste discharge and urban heat island effects to global climate change, hydrosystems, biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles.

Cities will determine the global biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, sustainable urbanization is an unavoidable path to global sustainability.

Researchers have examined the living and non-living components of a city, revealing the dynamic nature of this ascendant ecosystem.

Urban areas drive environmental change, they are centers of production and consumption, in which the delivery of the ecosystems services link society and ecosystems at multiple levels.

Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the U.S., with a metro area population or more than 4 million. Phoenix's growth is emblematic of the U.S. West, which is expected to experience the largest population increases in the next 20 years.

In biogeochemical cycles, they show symptoms of the imbalances in nitrogen, carbon dioxide, ozone and other chemicals that they help to create globally.

Known as the heat island effect, urban and suburban temperatures are 2 to 10 degree F. hotter than rural areas. This translates into increases in air conditioning costs, air pollution levels and heat-related illness and mortality. A one-degree rise in temperature can bump up residential water use 290 gallons per month for a single-family. However knowledge about heat island effects has meant innovation and the rise of new and greener technologies.

Rural landscapes at a city's edge show changes in soils, structures, human settlements, the diversity of plant and animal species and further impacts on fringe ecosystems. Landscapes will experience the impact of the growth and operation of nearby and long distance cities. One approach has been to view urban systems as organisms that take up resources and produce wastes. For example, cities are sources for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and anthropogenic nutrient deposition. Fertilized and irrigated lawns release more nitrous oxide than the native desert soils that preceded them. Lawns support a year-round production of nitrogen oxide which contributes to ozone production and regional increases in photochemical smog.

Emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO) have increased dramatically during the last century, primarily due to human activity associated with agriculture and fossil fuel combustion. We are discovering how urban centers figure into this equation, and how cities impact surrounding landscapes, and contribute to regional or global climate.

Urbanization increases in temperature, CO2, and nitrogen will affect the productivity, carbon and nitrogen cycling, and a suite of biogeochemical processes of the native ecosystems, resulting in altered ecosystem functioning and services.

Urban environments alter species compositions, biomass, distributions and ecosystem function. Plant types and habitat patches are increased by human activity wealthier neighborhoods plant more exotics and show increases in yard-to-yard heterogeneity.

Numbers of birds and arthropods like grass hoppers jump within city boundaries, at the cost of a diversity of types. Urban-dwelling species often flourish at the expense of indigenous species. Worldwide, cities alter the behaviors, physiologies, disease patterns, population densities, morphologies and genetics of city-dwelling organisms.

Cities create novel biological communities and they are the ones that most humans will experience.

Knowing how cities function, they can be enhanced through planning and urban design, to improve the quality of life and the environment for animal, plant and human inhabitants. Urban ecological study offers insight in how to navigate a sustainable urban future.  rw

Today China is importing more food and resources. The sustainable Chinese agriculture has been altered in favour of Western methods that harm the existing ecosystems. China's ability to feed its own people and the environmental destruction provokes serious concern.

By 2030 Chinese demographers expect the population to level out nearer to 1.5 billion, but predicted that soaring grain imports would upset global markets. Water, more than grain or meat, might well be the crucial issue. As water becomes scarce, 80% of the grain crop is irrigated, as per-acre yield gains are erased by the loss of cropland to industrialization. Densely populated countries undergoing industrialization become food importers as the population shifts from rural to urban workers.

The world is experiencing rising food prices. The Chinese government is mandating price freezes and subsiding various manufacturing and food industries.

Water scarcity in China will impact the entire world; the country is experiencing a lack of potable water due to the environmental damage from rapid industrialization without any agencies to protect the ecology.

China, with 20% of the world's population and 7% of the world's arable land, is losing even more land to industrialization.

Beijing has mandated that arable land cannot fall below 298 million acres. China's Ministry of Land and Resources noted that the country has lost 6.6% of its arable land in the past decade.

Corruption also contributes to arable land loss. In central China's Hubei Province every day since November 2, over 10,000 tons of rubbish has turned the small farming village into a stinking dumpsite.

No legislation exists to protect farmers against crooked officials. Local governments have become the epicentre of corrupt land deals.

Chinese farmers fall under a village collective system that forbids them to own, buy or sell the land they till. Competition over raw materials has risen dramatically in the last decade; the impact of greater Chinese food demands has affected global markets. Food price inflation is a serious worry for China's leaders.

The long term outlook is grim, because land is being lost to construction in eastern China. This has degraded the overall quality of the country's remaining arable land. Almost 15% of China's total arable lands are polluted by heavy metals, and more than 40% soil erosion and desertification.

Without effective measures to solve this crisis everyone is going to suffer.  rw

This sets the tone for policies for the new millennium. 2008 will be marked the year when the world left its rural past behind.

India will continue to live in its villages for some time. In 2001 urbanites made up 27.78% of the total population. The UN report says developing countries will have 80% of the world's urban population in 2030. Africa and Asia will include almost seven out of every 10 urban inhabitants in the world.

Many of the world's largest cities have more people moving out than in. The maximum influx will be in towns and small urban centres.

The report also points out that most new urbanites will be the poor. The challenge for planners and policy-makers is to ensure positive urbanization. "Cities concentrate poverty, but they also represent the best hope of escaping it."

Cities are also synonymous with high consumption and environmental damage. Yet experts are recognizing their potential value for humanity's long-term sustainability.

If cities create environmental problems, they also contain the solutions. The challenge is in learning how to exploit its possibilities.  rw

One possible answer is Dongtan, Arup's masterplan for the world's first eco-city. The project aims to use existing technology and engineering to demonstrate that environmentally friendly and sustainable urban growth are not mutually exclusive.

Arup's approach is to form a global team of experts who together take an holistic approach to city making. We intend to create a city that has an ecological footprint close to 2.2 hectares per person, To put this into context, Beijing is currently 4 hectares per person, London 6.6, while the average for US cities is 18 hectares per person.

The key lies in understanding how planning for transport, housing, energy and all other factors fit together and influence each other. It is this holistic, sustainable method of planning that is likely to be one of its lasting legacies.

Dongtan will be a city where energy consumption is powered by renewables, closed-loop recycling, where all waste is reused or recycled. It will maximise production of local organic fresh food and it be self sufficient in water supplies.

All the technology to make this possible is available. Undoubtedly the process that Arup has started with Dongtan will be improved on in future.  rw

The city's charm is disappearing as bulldozers tear down old houses. As Vietnam's capital nears its 1,000th birthday, experts warn that the city is at a crossroads if it wants to avoid the pitfalls that have turned other Asian cities into urban nightmares.

Hanoi's population is set to balloon to five million in coming years, and experts warn that urban planners must strike a fine balance between modernising the city and preserving its unique character.

It's that people live on the street, eat on the street, chat to friends, rest and do business on the street. It's the tangible heritage and the old myths and stories that go with it.

The soul of Hanoi is its Old Quarter, 36 streets, each run by a guild, such as silk or bamboo craftsmen, for the past millennium. But with 15,000 households on three square kilometres Hanoi is among the most crowded residential areas in the world.

Streets that were filled with bicycles in the mid-1980s, are now choked with mopeds and cars. The economy is growing at over 8% and there is going to be an acceleration of investment.

A total of 197 new projects worth 918 million dollars have been licensed so far this year. Authorities are planning satellite towns, three urban rail lines, ring roads, new highways and five more bridges across the Red River.

Hanoians have rarely been asked how their city should change but many are up in arms over a new plan to allow private developers to turn the city's largest public green space into a Disneyland-style amusement park.  rw

Sustainable development favors long run economic, social, and environmental growth. It requires specific goals via legislation and institutions.

Fuels burned in cities generate over three-quarters of global carbon emissions. Between 1980 and 2000, the US has added more than 50 million people to its population.

Currently, 20% of the world's population lives in developed countries while 80%, the majority, live in less developed countries. In 2025, 15% of the world's population will live in developed countries and 85% will live in developing countries.

Cities are continually growing in size and will require an environmental ethic if we and nature are to survive.  rw

It is estimated that $1.6 trillion is needed over 5 years to modernize the nation's systems, but only about $1 trillion is being invested.

Atlanta is spending $3.9 billion on an overhaul of drinking water and wastewater systems and has raised water and sewer rates an average of 10% a year, making them some of the nation's highest.

Preliminary results show that of 330 cities, more than half reported up to 50 water main breaks annually. Many don't have the money to upgrade their systems and are getting little federal help.

By 2030, when New York City will add about 1 million more residents, nearly all of its public works systems will be a century old. To meet the demand, Mayor Bloomberg has unveiled 127 initiatives that would modernize the networks and make them safer.  rw   Ralph says: Why do we need 1 million more people in NY City? ... Karen Gaia says: as if it were a given that population growth is inevitable and that we must always turn our heads when people stream across our southern border [sh-h-h - we need those people for cheap labor]. Such hypocrisy!

A report indicates that new architectural and urban forms, new materials and innovations like air conditioning have driven up energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. The impacts of land uses in urban areas can create microclimates and health consequences. Human health may suffer as a result of climate change, especially in poor urban areas. Many of the world's largest cities are on the coasts and at the mouths of great rivers and face the challenge of sea-level rise, combined with extreme climatic events. There is a need for improved government for cities and increased social investment globally. Slum dwellers include one out of every three city dwellers. Over 90% of slum dwellers are in the developing world. China and India together have 37% of the world's slums. What happens in the cities of the less developed world in the coming years will shape prospects for global economic growth, poverty alleviation, population stabilization, environmental sustainability and, the exercise of human rights. Halving poverty by 2015, would be waged in the cities of developing countries. Attention to youth and the needs of the elderly will become evermore important. Young people under 25 make up half of the urban population. Investment in young people is the key to ending poverty. The needs of poor women and girls are often unaccounted for and assumed to be the same as those of poor men and boys. For women cities offered better educational facilities, more diverse employment options and more opportunities for social and political participation.

The growth of cities will be the single largest influence on development in the twenty-first century. Many cities were unprepared for the fact that within a generation their populations would double. Substantial urban planning is needed for this transition.  rw

State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) commented that 2006 has been the bleakest year for China's environmental situation. The target to cut energy consumption by 4% and pollution emissions by 2%, has not been achieved.

In 2005, Shanghai constructed more building space than exists in all the office buildings of New York City. Every month, China adds urban infrastructure equal to that found in Houston, Texas. The accent has been on volume rather than sustainability.

Chinese consumers are waking up to the effects of pollutants and badly constructed buildings.

Dongtan is a major project near Shanghai that reveals the problems of developing one environmentally-friendly project in isolation.

Dongtan terms itself, rather grandly, the world's first sustainable city, and plans call for 50,000 people by 2010, reaching 500,000 by 2040.

The development covers 4,600 hectares, and includes windmills and solar panels. Some 80% of solid waste will be recycled, organic waste will be composted or burned to supply heat and power and only cars using electricity or fuel cells will allowed on the island.

Dongtan is using land on an island that provided part of Shanghai's shrinking “green lung”; farmers have been displaced; the wetlands that provide bird sancturaries have been disturbed and eradicated.

China needs to require all new buildings to have better insulation, and to encourage people to buy energy saving light bulbs or water use limiting devices, in order to control its building emissions.

Shanghai is limiting bicycles to allow for better traffic flow. In China, 40% of the summer energy demand is for air conditioning, whereas relatively simple improvements to buildings can reduce the need for air conditioning significantly. Allowing the price of utilities to rise would immediately reduce wasteful usage.

In Beijing, free markets have been introduced for water and Beijing's hotels are asking people whether it is really necessary to wash their bed sheets daily. Water meters have been installed in homes, and water use charges have risen.

Punishing consumers is easy and unfair, while industry is able to continue using vast amounts of energy and water, as well as polluting.

Small-scale changes are perhaps more difficult to implement at the national level. But they seem to provide a better way forward when compared to the development of isolated utopian green cities.

A green building example, the Beijing World Science & Trade Centre uses wind scoops for ventilation, glazing for daylight, external shading for solar control, wind generators for electrical power and solar collection for hot water.

The aim is a 50% reduction in cooling and ventilation plant and 50% less energy than conventional residential hotel or office towers.  rw

This growth is accompanied by a degradation of the environment, which inhibits the development of cities.

Congo's urban population growth has been estimated at 6% a year. It will be necessary to clean up the environment, provide drinking water to every person in Congo, increase access to health centres, create jobs to reduce poverty and improve education standards.

If there had been better planning, environmental catastrophes experienced by around 3,600 residents of the Talangai urban district of Brazzaville could have been avoided. Erosion has affected several areas, while flooding has engulfed others.

The city should restart a joint initiative with UNICEF, to improve conditions for children in Brazzaville, as well as other initiatives to protect women and girls from urban violence and encourage more micro-credit projects.  rw

It reflects a growing proportion of people living in urban areas as a result of rural to urban migration.

Assifi: The situation in Fiji is not bad, however, there is a need to deal with squatter areas and provide them with access to health, education and security services as well as employment. The focus should be on youth, migrants and women with regards to employment, training, gender issues and empowerment.

The potential benefits of urbanisation far outweigh the disadvantages and can potentially help solve some of the world's most serious challenges in the 21st Century. Urbanisation is essential for economic growth, reduction of poverty, reduction of population growth and long-term sustainability. Few cities generate enough jobs for the people who seek them. Most urban growth is the result of natural increase rather than migration.

In South Tarawa, for example, those living with families are distant relatives. They are more likely to fall into poverty; a minority in such as prostitution, theft, drugs, unsafe sex, including HIV and having families when they are not ready and struggling to make ends meet.

One of the causes of the urban drift is the economic gap between rural areas and towns. This requires serious consideration on the part of policy makers.

UN agencies, together with the peoples and the governments of the Pacific island states is working to ensure that the peoples of the Pacific have access to water, adequate health care, education, housing, jobs, water, etc.

UNFPA's assistance in Fiji and the Pacific focuses on promoting the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. Looking at graphic scenarios for the future makes it clear that these are only the tip of the iceberg. We have to find new ways of dealing with future urban growth and we have to do it quickly. In Fiji, many families have left their villages for squatter settlements in urban areas in search of employment.

We must ensure young people are prepared to enter the labour market, stay healthy and postpone marriage and childbearing.  rw

The shift will be led by Africa and Asia, which are expected to add 1.6 billion people to their cities over the next 25 years.

The speed and scale of global urbanisation is so great most countries will not be prepared for the impact. Within one generation, five billion people, or 60% of humanity, will live in cities. The urban population of Africa and Asia will double in this time. Most cities in developing countries have pressing concerns, including crime, lack of clean water and sanitation, and sprawling slums. The changes are too fast to allow planners simply to react. If governments wait, it will be too late.

Population growth will take place in the cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The largest transition to cities will occur in Asia, where the number of urbanites will almost double to 2.6 billion in 2030. Africa is expected to add 440 million to its cities in the same period, and Latin America and the Caribbean nearly 200 million. Rural populations are expected to decrease worldwide by 28 million people.

Cities concentrate poverty but present poor people's best hope of escaping it. The potential benefits of urbanisation outweigh the disadvantages.

If unaddressed the growth will mean growth in slums and poverty, and a rise in migration away from poor regions. The battle to cut extreme poverty will be in the slums. Politicians need to be start working with the urban poor. Climate is expected to be shaped by cities. Climate change will increase energy demand for air conditioning and add to greenhouse gas emissions. It could also make some cities unlivable, adding to the "heat island" effect, which can lift temperatures in urban areas by 2-6C. Heat, pollution, smog and ground-level ozone affect surrounding areas, reducing agricultural yields, increasing health risks and spawning tornadoes and thunderstorms.

The impacts of climate change on urban water supplies are expected to be dramatic. Developing countries are at a great disadvantage when they start to urbanise. If we plan ahead we will create conditions for a stable world. If we do not, then these populations will become destructive, to themselves and others.  rw

This year's report is expected to carry stories of young men and women growing up in cities of the developing world and will focus on major causes of urban growth, natural population increase, rural-urban migration, the incorporation of rural surroundings and attempts to grasp their implications.

The report also includes the potential of urban growth and other key causes of increased population in urban areas such as poor health services, abject poverty, and problems at the country's borders.

Containing rural urban migration was difficult since many people eye cities as where they could better their lives.  rw

Governments in developing countries often discourage migration to cities by limiting the number of homes availble to the poor, but this leads to the growth of slums.

Debating whether cities should grow faster is a waste of time, and planning for our urban future is critical. Urban populations of Africa and Asia are growing by one million people a week and will have doubled by 2030 to include an additional 1.7 billion people.

Urbanization can be turned into a positive force for those living in poverty, claims the UNFPA. Organizations of the urban poor are upgrading slum dwellings and improving sanitation.

Governments must see such organizations as partners and work with them to steer urban development onto a path to sustainability.

It warns that the urban poor will suffer as climate change takes hold, and governments need to be proactive about urban planning.

There is a misconception that urban growth is mostly due to migration. Urban population growth is due largely to urban reproduction.

The most effective way to reduce urban growth is to empower women and improve reproductive health. We must abandon a resistance to urbanization and begin a global effort to help cities unleash their potential.  rw   Karen Gaia says: I find it hard to believe that migration is not the largest cause of urban growth, given that the birth rate in rural areas is much higher than in the cities and therefore the pressures to leave the land to go to the cities is great.

A continent-wide phenomenon; African cities are struggling to cope with an influx of people. Making a living ploughing tiny plots of land is hard, but some are refugees from fighting. Luanda is now home to at least 4 million; many fled there during Angola's civil war. In slums such as Boa Vista, ancient piles of garbage are composting in the streams that run between the makeshift shelters.

Johannesburg is facing similar problems. Over 20% of the people are living in shacks and the city cannot build cheap houses fast enough. Lawyers acting for 300 people fighting eviction argue that the city must provide alternative accommodation.

Property developers are turning the decrepit buildings into swanky apartment blocks, and property prices have been rocketing. A court ruled that the city has to find them another place to live, although it does not have to be in the centre of town.

In downtown Johannesburg, those who have lost their homes often move to the next derelict building to stay close to their livelihood. New houses are too far out, with no adequate public transport.

Until the countryside offers a decent living, the lure of the city will remain and African cities need to make room in their centres for cheap housing for the poor.  rw

Climate change is one of the main forces responsible for the loss of biodiversity. Long-term changes in temperatures can alter the habitats that provide life support for plant and animal species.

With more than 3.2 billion people in the cities, for the first time the urban population exceeds the number living in rural areas.

Before the industrial era, nearly 47% of the Earth's land surface was covered with forests; today only 10%.

We are consuming more natural resources than can be regenerated and we are living beyond the capacities of our planet.

Every year about 10 million hectares of forest are lost and a large part of the world's forests are in tropical regions, where biodiversity thrives.

These forests are home to about 80% of the plant and animal species, even though they cover only 7% of the planet's surface. In addition to causing coastal erosions and a decrease in agricultural productivity, global warming will also end up killing many more plant and animal species that are now disappearing 100 to 1,000 times faster than the natural pace of extinction.

The loss of biodiversity suggests at least 20% of bird species have vanished and 23% of mammals, 25% of conifers, 32% of amphibians, and 52% of cycads (a family of evergreen plants similar, but unrelated, to palms and ferns) continue to face serious threat of extinction.

A number of poor countries remain far behind in executing plans to reverse species loss, due to the rapid growth of unplanned urbanisation. For example, every day, thousands of rural poor in India move to big cities and many end up living in slums, with no access to safe water or sanitation facilities. Yet, they add to the increasing demands for food and energy.

India is likely to have 700 million rural poor moving to the cities by 2050. India is one of the world's most mega-diverse countries and the continued growth in its urban population could lead to enormous loss of biodiversity. Yet, the country has failed to show serious planning efforts. China, Indonesia, and South Africa are also confronted with a similar situation.

Brazil, one of the world's most mega-diverse developing nations, has taken the lead in setting new trends in urban planning. Its 'green city' Curitiba has demonstrated that urban planning can environmentally friendly.

Curitiba's population of 1.8 million consumes 23% less fuel per capita than the national average. The city has 16 parks, 14 forests, and over 1,000 green public areas.

Urbanisation and ecology can coexist, but demands increasingly active participation from all the stakeholders.

In many parts of the developing world, policymakers at the local and national level are failing to execute environmentally sound policies because they are not closely in touch with the scientific community.

For the sake of the planet, the biodiversity science community has to create a way to advise governments to halt the catastrophic loss of species.

Local policymakers and administrators must pay close attention to the issue of biodiversity preservation and put their thoughts into action.

The cities will determine the fate of the remaining biodiversity of our planet.  rw   Ralph says: Control the population then there will be no need for more cities. It seems so simple.

Daily life in ghettos and shanty towns was 30 times riskier than elsewhere.

There is a need for more knowledge about transnational crime in order to be able to know the scope of threats and gauge global trends.

It is not known whether the crime problem is more serious today than a year ago.

We don't know how to measure corruption, let alone to quantify and report about it. There is abundant evidence about such things as the breaking up of human trafficking rings, the prosecution of traffickers and the seizure of illicit firearms but it needs to be more "coherent."  rw

A report noted that half of urban dwellers live in areas where people cannot secure clean water, toilets or durable sanitation. Cities are key in achieving sustainable development and also hold solutions in issues like climate change. Most cities have no policies to address environmental threats, although cities are destroyers of the world's resources. Urban pollution kills 800,000 people each year.

However, residents must be part and parcel of any solutions to make cities better places for human life. National and local authorities, and residents, must take the initiative to improve their cities.

The absence of a strategic plan for Nairobi has contributed greatly to unplanned informal settlements, insufficient sanitation, pollution and poor solid waste disposal.

Nairobi has no development plan or environmental policies. There are three million people living in Nairobi, putting increasing pressure on land resources. Almost half live below the poverty line, and only 42% of households have proper water connections.

The city is faced with vast amounts of waste dumped in the city untreated. A report underlines 20 elements, from re-use of water for urban farmers; to land issues and laws; and jobs and education, in a bid to reduce migration to urban areas.  rw

Unplanned and urbanization is taking a toll on human health and the quality of the environment, contributing to instability in many countries.

But cities from Karachi, Pakistan to Freetown, Sierra Leone to Bogotá, Colombia have projects aimed at improving the lives of urban dwellers while reducing the environmental impact. These include urban farming plots, solar water heaters, economic cooperatives, improved sewer facilities, and upgraded transportation systems.

Necessities from food to energy are increasingly being produced by urban pioneers inside city limits.

Still, the challenges remain daunting. Eight of the 10 most populous cities are near earthquake faults. Two-thirds are in coastal areas where sea levels may rise as a result of climate change.

Of the 3 billion people who live in cities, 1 billion are in slums without clean water, adequate toilet facilities, or durable housing. Some 1.6 million die each year due to these causes.

A report argues for a reassessment priorities, particularly the allocation of national and international aid.

Yet from 1970 to 2000, aid designated for cities in developing areas was just 4% of assistance worldwide.

By 2015, there are likely to be 59 African cities with populations between 1 and 5 million, 65 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 253 in Asia.

They are the dynamos of the world economy but the breeding grounds for sources of local and global insecurity.

Cities exemplify the challenges and promises of sustainability.  rw

Migration has opportunities for better incomes and the trend will continue in the near future.

However, migrants face disadvantages due to administrative and financial barriers. Only small number come to see doctors or utilise medical services when they are in illness. Policy makers urged a strategy in support of migrants, boosting municipal economic and services such as better water supply and health care, and giving a hand in employment.

Experts emphasised the need to speed up industrialisation and modernisation to improve rural living conditions to control migration.

They warned against fast urbanisation, citing the dwindling of cultivated land as well as the degradation of water resources and the environment.  rw

Bombay, with 10-million or more, holds first place, followed by Mexico City and Dhaka, with about 9-million each, then Lagos, Cairo, Karachi, Kinshasa-Brazzaville, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, and Delhi, each with 6 to 8 million. British policies in Africa forced the local labor force to live in precarious shantytowns on the fringes of segregated and restricted cities, and in India, Burma, and Ceylon their refusal to improve sanitation or provide even the most minimal infrastructure to native neighborhoods ensured huge death tolls from early-20th century epidemics.

As partners with the U.S., the British are also responsible for the spread of disease in Iraq. American bombing wrecked already overloaded water and sewerage infrastructures. In part the free market restructuring imposed on developing nations by the IMF and the World Bank is blamed. They impoverish urban residents by slashing public sector employment and subsidies on food and fuel. The idea of an interventionist state committed to social housing and job development seems a bad joke, because governments long ago abdicated any serious effort to combat slums and redress urban marginality. There never seems to be enough education and training for the poor, or decent wages.  rw   Karen Gaia says: The real joke is expecting the government to be financially responsible for housing, food, fuel, wages and infrastructure for 6 to 10 MILLION impoverished people. I suppose the author thinks that money to build infrastructure will come out of thin air, that there are always plenty of jobs to go around, and that food and clean water will always be plentiful, no matter how many people there are.

Women almost always have primary responsibility for raising children, and for ensuring nutrition, health care and schooling. Women living in slums are more likely to contract HIV.

As women migrate from rural to urban areas, they become more vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation, but also exposed to education and reproductive rights.

Inadequacy of housing and basic infrastructure as well as the lacklustre response of government decision makers, are main concerns of an urban development official from Abuja, Nigeria.

Population is being mentioned as the problem, but she believes that the trouble is that politicians have not realised that cities are the engines of any nation. We need to invest in our cities.

Under a newly launched national plan, the government is providing 500 housing units for low-income workers in each of the state capitals.

But she given the country's population of about 130 million, this will fail to dent the problem. Nigeria has 36 state capitals, but also other urban centres running into the thousands.

In Kenya housing built by private developers is beyond the reach of the average worker, and even the low-income housing offered by the government costs about 1,300 Kenyan shillings, when the average low-income worker earns just 21,000 shillings a year.

Banks, in the pseudo-capitalist economy, would hardly give a loan to a person without much capital as collateral.

Governments should do more by making it possible for poor people, especially women with children, to get mortgages to buy their own homes.

These issues are becoming more pressing as activists assess progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include promoting gender equality and improving the lives of at least 100 million urban dwellers by the year 2020.

The kind of healthy urban life we are talking about is one that is human-friendly. One in which money is not placed above our humanity.  rw

We need to think of having our workplace close to where we live and reduce transport intensity and make it easier for people to be close to their families. If energy becomes more scarce, we could move into a situation where those who cannot afford energy move into more deprivation.

This could lead to destabilisation. A lot of the cities are being fed by petroleum-based economies. We don't build a city with city centres, you add them as an aesthetic afterthought. In post-modern urbanism, the hinterland organises what's left of the core. In LA, people cross the city in a wide variety of ways and this means a lot more dispersed patterns of behaviour and a lack of central authority. We have a collage of almost random urban spread which creates cities and then we start adding the trappings of conventional cities.

In the developed world by 2050 energy sustainability will have become a big deal and sprawl will be halted, on the grounds of energy costs.

European cities are more compact and should be able to last out some of problems. Even London doesn't spread over a vast area.

The issue becomes whether the more severe forecasts on global climate change start to bite and some cities especially coastal cities like London would start to have problems in terms of flooding. This will involve government action at some point to start thinking about the way that cities ought to be. Some types of transport will turn out to be problematic. In parts of Asia and Africa, some countries and cities will be able to weather the worst. Some cities are highly vulnerable.

There is a democratisation going on based on lower cost access and wireless technologies which are cheaper to lay out across cities. The more cultures rely on advanced technologies, the more cities seem to grow.

There is a demand to be face-to-face no matter how capable the technology. In India, China and Africa, only a small number of people have been connected to the new technologies. However, there is a radical democratisation going on based on much lower cost. In the Phillipines, urban populations are growing at twice the rate of national populations. People continue to be expelled from the countryside as agriculture has been made unattractive, by the lack of agrarian reform and the dumping of cheap subsidised agricultural products. Decades of city-biased economic development policies consistently pushed down the price of farm products.

At the same time, the capacity of industry is being eroded by de-industrialisation.

Local manufacturers are being driven out of business by lowered tariffs on foreign products. One of the results is the mushrooming of shantytowns populated by what some have called a "subproletariat." The cities of the South are becoming environmental disaster areas.

The urban poor living now make up 30-40% of the population of cities such as Manila, Jakarta, Mexico City, and Lagos.

Unable or unwilling to tax the rich, city governments cannot provide basic services. Northern cities have inner city ghettoes, overcrowded housing projects, and suburban slums where minorities and immigrants cluster, unable to find jobs or only low-paying unskilled jobs. Washington, DC is a predominantly black city dominated by white minority that works in the city but lives in the suburbs. The cities of the South are becoming environmental disaster areas.

The urban landscape where the rich live in artificial "green" enclaves will soon move from fiction to fact.

These trends can be reversed by moves that would truly be revolutionary. Very deep cuts in greenhouse gas an end to the poverty and inequality creating programs of the World Bank, IMF, and WTO; an economic relationship based on justice and equity.

The urban landscape will look different especially in the big cities that are economic centres.

The way we experience the city today in Europe will be very rare in the future. Europe will see more immigration and more big cities - and they will have a sense of the frontier town. We will have dreadful situations because there will be a lot of dispossessed people and a lot of struggle. The political will be profoundly changed.

The notion of rights will become rights to the city and that will mean rights to things like housing and rights to water.

Here, in London, you have a sense that things are really governed - in New York less so, in Mexico City even less so and in Sao Paulo, even less so.

There will be a lot of innovation and we will invent new political forms of membership, which will enable people who are truly marginal to claim their rights to the city.  rw

Citizen involvement in Vancouver has resulted in the maintenance of green space, enhanced public transit, and the integration of office and living space. Kofi Annan had said that the world has become more urbanized, congested and polluted, and less equitable. More than half of the developing world’s urban population is living in slums. Canada Prime Minister stressed achieving fiscal and jurisdictional balance; addressing infrastructure deficit; ensuring environmental sustainability; curbing urban crime; providing affordable housing; averting terrorism; and promoting cultural diversity.

The Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development stressed that home ownership can make cities stronger, safer and more prosperous. Home ownership is essential for accumulating wealth, financial independence, stability and social benefits. India’s Minister of State for Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation highlighted the need to base global initiatives on local solutions for human settlement management. The President of the Habitat International Coalition lamented that the lack of political commitment and market policies have undermined realization of the Habitat Agenda principles and called for public-private partnerships.

Many participants expressed support for decentralization, civil society engagement, and the development of a common language and system of metrics in discussing sustainability, poverty and urbanization. Participants identified high land costs and an aging population as obstacles to urban sustainability. Ministers outlined their experiences in handling the relationship between national and local governments in achieving sustainability that requires a multi-disciplinary approach. in housing development; job creation and education; and provision of free land for social housing.

In sharing experiences delegates emphasized: family planning; national legislation to provide metropolitan planning instruments; an integrated approach among cities with overlapping spheres of influence; and criteria for the success of urban policies. Some cautioned that slums and shantytowns have the potential to deepen segregation and generate extremism.  rw   Ralph says: Strange that among all the words, very little on overpopulation. (Or any indication of action). Karen Gaia says: and very little on carrying capacity - as if the earth's resources were limitless.

An estimated 3.17 billion people live in urban areas out of a world population of 6.45 billion.

The assumption that countries' urban populations are healthier and better off is eroding. A study showed that urban slum dwellers are often worse off than their rural counterparts.

Urbanization in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America is "premature," because the influx is caused by failed agriculture and people are arriving in cities where there are no jobs.

The report also predicts that:

The world's fastest growing cities are in Asia and Africa, including Lagos, Nigeria, and Delhi, India. Many slum dwellers will die young of treatable diseases.

There will be more mega-cities with populations of 10 million or more by 2020. By 2030, more people will live in African cities (748 million) than all of Europe (685 million).

Poor, hopeless, ineffectively governed slums in the developing world have become breeding grounds for terrorism and disillusioned fanatics.  rw   Karen Gaia: No mention of overpopulation being the reason people are forced to leave their agricultural homelands.

The UN report says the number of slum dwellers will pass the 1bn mark in 2007. Urban growth and slum expansion rates are nearly identical in some regions.

For a long time we suspected that the optimistic picture of cities did not reflect reality. This report provides evidence that within one city part of the population has all the benefits, and the other part, often live under worse conditions than their rural relatives.

Aid agencies and governments must target slum dwellers. Encouraging results showed such projects could improve living conditions.

The conditions in slums are similar to those in impoverished rural areas. In Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti and India, child malnutrition in slums is almost the same as in rural regions. The trend threatened the UN's millennium development goal to improve the lives of at least 100m slum dwellers by 2020.

The slum population will swell by 27m people each year over the next 20 years, primarily in the developing world, which will have to absorb 95% of all urban growth.

The problem is not urbanisation, but urbanisation in many developing regions has not resulted in greater prosperity or a more equitable distribution of resources.

N. Africa, including Morocco and Tunisia, have reduced the growth of city slums.

Some low- or middle-income countries, have managed to prevent slum formation by planning for growing urban populations. By expanding employment opportunities, by investing in affordable housing, and by instituting policies that have had a positive impact on low-income people's access to services. But the situation is worsening quickly in many sub-Saharan African countries.

Last year the world's urban population was 3.17bn out of a total of 6.45bn. Current trends suggest the number of urban dwellers will rise to almost 5bn by 2030, out of a world total of 8.1 billion.  rw

Some segments of the global economy will be affected more than others, among these are the automobile, food, and airline industries. Cities and suburbs will also evolve.

Stresses within the U.S. auto industry were already evident and their affiliated industries will also be affected, including auto parts and tire manufacturers.

Food will become more costly, diets will be altered as people move down the food chain and consume more local, seasonally produced food. Rising oil prices will draw agriculture into the production of fuel crops, setting up competition between affluent motorists and low-income food consumers. Airlines, both passenger travel and freight, will continue to suffer and cheap airfares may become history.

Air freight will be hit hard and one of the early casualties could be the transport of fresh produce from the southern hemisphere during the northern winter as the price becomes prohibitive.

During the century of cheap oil, an enormous automobile infrastructure was built in industrial countries that requires large amounts of energy to maintain. The United States, for example, has 2.6 million miles of paved roads, covered mostly with asphalt, and 1.4 million miles of unpaved roads to maintain even if world oil production is falling.

Modern cities depend on concentrating food and materials and then disposing of garbage and human waste. As cities grow larger garbage must be hauled longer distances and the cost of garbage disposal also rises. At some point, many throwaway products may be priced out of existence.

People living in poorly designed suburbs are often isolated from their jobs and shops. Suburbs have created a commuter culture. Shopping malls and discount stores, were all subsidized by artificially cheap oil. Isolated by high oil prices, suburbs may prove to be ecologically and economically unsustainable.

In the coming energy transition, countries that fail to plan ahead may experience a decline in living standards. The inability of national governments to manage the energy transition could lead to failed states.

Political leaders seem reluctant to plan for the downturn in oil even though it will become one of the great fault lines in the history of civilization. Developing countries will be hit doubly hard as expanding populations combine with a shrinking oil supply to steadily reduce oil use per person. This could translate into a fall in living standards. If the US, the world's largest oil consumer and importer, can reduce its use of oil, it can buy the world time for a smoother transition to the post-petroleum era.  rw

Kofi Annan noted the worldwide decrease in average family size, an increase in the age at which couples marry or mothers have their first birth, and a decline in infant mortality.

Other changes included the replacement of the extended family by the nuclear unit as grandparents live longer, unmarried cohabitation, increased divorce with more children living in a family with a step-parent, and significant numbers of single- parent families with a rising number of older persons living alone.

The HIV pandemic is wreaking havoc on families, often depriving children of their parents.

The executive director of UNFPA said one of the most dramatic transformations is urbanization with nearly half of all people living in cities.

The numbers of children attending school, especially girls, has risen and, there are more and more women participating in the formal workforce.  rw

The London program has reduced downtown traffic congestion by about 30% and vehicle emissions by about 12%. It's also put £200 to 350 million into government coffers.

The benefit is more efficiency of our public transportation system.

The authority will look at the city's most congested areas for consideration as charging zones and will discuss where charging should occur, pricing, payment and enforcement methods. Fees could be fixed or vary by location or hour, include discounts for residents or hybrid vehicles or direction of travel. Researchers also study how money made could be spent. London operates its congestion charge from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Traffic signs alert drivers when they are about to enter a zone, where cameras track vehicles. Motorists must pay the $14 charge before or on the day of travel and can pay by telephone, on the Web, at designated stores, by mail and even by text message.

A system in San Francisco could use a camera network like London's or a tag-and-beacon system, like FasTrak. Commuters expressed annoyance at the possibility of paying yet another fee to reduce congestion that isn't that bad.

Some public transit advocates have pushed without political success the idea of a special tax on downtown employers to support bus and subway service.

Officials at the Chamber of Commerce fear that limited car traffic could have a negative impact.

In London, a city 10 times the size of San Francisco, officials face opposition as they move to extend the charging zone to cover the Chelsea and Kensington districts of the city.

The Transport for London views the program as a big success, but some businesses have closed and blamed the congestion charge. Small merchants, particularly restaurants, often rely on passers-by to supply a good portion of a day's business.

San Francisco's transportation authority was urged to carefully consider a charging zone's impact on businesses that could be affected by economic downturns of even 5% or 10%.  rw