Thanks to Kent Welton for this story.
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Reporting from Abibe, Colombia

Think of the 10 women who just had their fallopian tubes tied at a clinic in northern Colombia as foot soldiers in Erwin Goggel’s lonely war on overpopulation and poverty.

A film producer and heir to a dairy fortune, Goggel is offering nine-acre plots rent-free to poor men and women who agree to have vasectomies and tubal ligations. He pays for all the surgical procedures, including the 10 operations performed late last month in Monteria, the capital of Cordoba state, about 30 miles south of here.

For full article, visit:
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nu-birth-control

I’m thinking the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Vatican are a bit clueless. How else, truly, to describe this?

Pam Spaulding, writing at Pandagon about a story first reported by CNN, reports that Roman Catholic Bishops in Connecticut are fighting a bill aimed at rescinding the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse. The Connecticut Bishops released a letter to their parishioners Saturday imploring them to oppose the change in law.

Breathtaking.

For full article, visit:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/04/15

Mexican educators and officials defended the country’s public school sex education Friday from criticism by a Roman Catholic bishop who said such teachings make celibacy vows more difficult for priests to keep.

Education Secretary Alonso Lujambio told reporters that public-school sexual education texts “seek to make our boys and girls responsible, to take responsibility for their actions, and for that they need information.”

Lujambio said the programs are careful to avoid “hurting any social sensitivities.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.awid.org/eng

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.
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From the window of the house in Pasay where she was born and has lived for more than 80 years, Dr. Mercedes B. Concepcion has witnessed firsthand the burgeoning growth of the country’s population.

Once upon a time, this was a genteel neighborhood, the suburbs to which prominent families
moved to escape the congestion of the city. Now it has been engulfed by the sea of teeming humanity that is Metro Manila.

“Look at all the side streets and see how many children are on them,” she says.

It is both appropriate and ironic, since Concepcion is the country’s foremost demographer. (Demography is the statistical study of human populations.) Last February, she was conferred the rank and title of National Scientist in recognition of her achievements in the field of demographics and population, which include several landmark studies on population growth in the Philippines and Asia, and the establishment of the UP Population Institute.

For full article, visit:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.
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Ibrahim Issa, a jovial Syrian taxi-driver who wears a blue robe over an ample belly, has nine children from two wives. He plans to marry a third wife soon.

He says it is up to Allah whether more children arrive, and not for him to interfere, say, by using contraception. Like all Damascus taxi-drivers, he complains about the cost of living and how hard it is to make ends meet on the $300 a month he earns.

Issa, 43, shrugs when asked if all those mouths to feed don’t make life harder for him. “No, I’m delighted,” he grins.

For full article, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6522FS20100603

PMC’s President, Bill Ryerson, wrote a report for the Post Carbon Reader, where he talks about the need to openly and thoughtfully address the critical issue of population growth.

Download the report here
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 19, 2010

Contact: Katie Elmore
Director of Communications
Tel: 802-985-8156 ext. 205
elmore@populationmedia.org

New Report on Population Asks Americans to Start Talking About What Really Matters

Shelburne, VT (19. August 2010) – When a man and a woman have unprotected sex, babies are quite often the result. Sexual decisions not only impact the lives of those involved, but impact the planet we all share. Currently the world’s population is growing by 80 million people every year. On a planet with finite resources this means we either take a rational approach to addressing population issues, or we ignore simple mathematics and pay the unimaginably horrific consequences. Sound bleak? Well it is. Which is why everyone needs to talk about it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Many thanks to Richard P. Cincotta for a paper on the alternative demographic futures of Afghanistan and their implications, which can be downloaded at http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bxq

Richard is the consulting demographer to the Long Range Analysis Unit of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). His research focuses on the political, economic, environmental, and social implications of the demographic transition and human migration. The NIC’s “Global Trends 2025″, which includes a chapter on the implications of the demographic future, can be found and downloaded at: http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html.

From Foreign Policy.
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One day in November 2009, in Helmand province’s capital of Lashkar Gah, a group of Afghan widows and divorcees met with Patricia, who had been commissioned to write a series of success stories for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). All the women were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s but looked to be in their 60s. Until very recently, none of them could work because they possessed no marketable skills, could neither read nor write, and were at risk of being killed if they left their homes. A number of women said that, before the program — which focused on tailoring and basic literacy — their children used to weep at night from hunger.

As Patricia prepared to leave, the women fluttered around her like moths, touching her sleeves and speaking all at once. “What are they saying?” Pat asked the young Pashto-speaking interpreter. “They are telling you to go back to your country and to ask your people not to abandon them. The women of Afghanistan don’t want you to leave. They will quite literally die if the Taliban return,” she said.

For full article, visit:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles

Thanks to Moya Muller for this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
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As spring sunshine pours over the campus of Kabul University, three young women sit under an oak tree preparing for their Farsi exam.

Agha Crul Hosaimi, Rana Mohammadi, and Jahantab Jafaree talk cheerfully. All three are from remote provinces of Afghanistan, where women rarely imagine themselves in professional careers.

“I was one of the very few girls in my town allowed to seek higher education,” says Ms. Hosaimi, who, like the others, covers her head with a light scarf. “I was lucky that my parents allowed me to study.”

For full article, visit:
http://chronicle.com/article/WomenHigher-Education/64858/