Thanks to Felix Kloman for this report. It barely mentions population issues in its assessment of global risks. To download the report, link to http://www.weforum.org/pdf/globalrisk/2009.pdf

Thanks to Ralph Risch for this link.
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It is clear that the provisions of the Mexico City Policy are unnecessarily broad and unwarranted under current law, and for the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries. For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.

For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.

For full article, visit:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/statement

Congratulations to Dave Paxson, John Feeney and Tod Preston for their roles in providing information for this article from The Christian Science Monitor January 26, 2009 edition.
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President Barack Obama’s inauguration prompted a huge sigh of relief among the nation’s family-planning advocates. As they see it, his policies could help slow the swelling world population while improving economic prosperity and political stability.

Since Obama’s birth in 1961, the world’s population has more than doubled to 6.7 billion, notes David Paxson, head of World Population Balance, an advocacy organization in Minneapolis. Despite low birthrates in many industrial nations, the world’s population is growing an estimated 75-80 million a year.

For full article, visit:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0126/p16s01-wmgn.html

Thanks to Carter Dillard for this article, which is relevant to this week’s Global Economic Forum.
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Six years ago, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s new budget director, co-authored a Brookings Institution study that concluded: “Balancing the budget would require a 41% cut in spending on Social Security and Medicare, a 47% cut in discretionary spending, or a 17% cut in all non-interest spending.” It’s getting worse: Today entitlements eat up 40% of the federal budget and are growing.

No doubt Orszag’s earlier thinking had a lot to do with why Obama picked him. But it’s also a signal of what we can expect when a Social Security reform bill is sent to Congress during Obama’s “first 100 days.” And that will trigger a brutal battle. Why? Because AARP’s 35 million members will fight all benefits reductions while young voters who put Obama in office will fight any new Social Security taxes. Bruising battle?

For full article, visit:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story

Earth Policy Institute
News Release
For Immediate Release
September 18, 2008

DRILLING FOR OIL IS NOT THE ANSWER

With attention turning to the second round of the energy debate in the U.S. Senate, the Earth Policy Institute thought you might find useful a brief summary of the facts behind drilling, gasoline prices and America’s energy future.

Geological and economic realities make clear that drilling for oil cannot make the U.S. energy independent or reduce gasoline prices. Drilling is an expensive and dangerous red herring, especially because far better options exist. A new Earth Policy Institute analysis finds that powering a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle fleet with clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar would have a seismic price impact: instead of paying $4 per gallon at the gasoline pump, we could plug in at home for the wind-generated-electricity equivalent of less than $1 per gallon. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that the wind resources in just three states–North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas–are sufficient to meet national electricity needs.
Continue Reading »

Grist Magazine
Seattle, WA
January 21, 20009

Some 43 countries around the world now have populations that are either essentially stable or declining slowly. In countries with the lowest fertility rates, including Japan, Russia, Germany, and Italy, populations will likely decline somewhat over the next half-century. A larger group of countries has reduced fertility to the replacement level or just below. They are headed for population stability after large numbers of young people move through their reproductive years. Included in this group are China and the United States. A third group of countries is projected to more than double their populations by 2050, including Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.

Continue Reading »

Toronto Star
January 24, 2009
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/576595

Soon after President Barack Obama took office, the massive crowds that had thronged Washington’s National Mall for his inauguration were replaced by Thursday’s annual March for Life, an anti-abortion rally of tens of thousands, all eager to deliver their message to the new leader.

“We may have lost an election, but we have not lost the war,” Republican Senator Sam Brownback told the crowd. “We will continue to fight for life, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many marches it takes.”
Continue Reading »

Thanks to Jane Roberts for this editorial from MaximNews Network.
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The theme of the United Nations Population Fund’s 2008 State of World Population: Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights, tells us that in the sweat and toil of bringing reproductive health care to the world’s most vulnerable, one has to know the culture of the people one is serving.

UNFPA’s experience shows that culturally sensitive programming is essential for achieving the goals of the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and also of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). And both are human rights documents.

For full article, visit:
http://www.maximsnews.com/news

Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this article from The Monitor.
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With Uganda’s population expected to double to 55 million in the next 20 years, it seems obvious that the population has serious implications on the economy, which has been growing at an average of only 5 percent in the past years.

The government has already raised concerns over the fast growing numbers arguing that if the current population trends continue, Uganda’s population would strike 130 million by 2050.

For full article, visit:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200809170088.html

Since 1994, Rwanda’s population has increased by three times the number lost during the genocide. Yet curbing population growth remains a sensitive issue. Nevertheless, the government – and Population Media Center’s radio soap opera – are working to change long-held behavior patterns. Our most recent monitoring data from family planning clinics shows that, when new clients are asked what motivated them to seek family planning, 57% name Population Media Center’s program by name.

Many thanks to Marianne Ward for the article below.
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Convincing women in the deeply impoverished Rwandan countryside that they should have fewer children is a daunting task. “They say we’re not Christian,” said Jeannette Mukabalisa, a local health advocate, of the predominantly Catholic population. “They say, ‘You’re town people, we’re traditional.’ Children bring these families prestige. For them, children come from God. So it’s difficult, very difficult.”

After the 1994 genocide, in which more than 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered, it seemed difficult to believe that overpopulation would ever be a problem. Yet Rwanda has long had more people than its meager resources and small area can support.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/weekinreview/11kinzer.html