Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he would declare the first child born in the Bosnian capital after midnight local time Baby Six Billion. The United Nations had hoped to keep the baby's identity secret until Tuesday afternoon, when Annan plans to visit mother and child. Nevic and her husband, Jasminko, are from the Bosnian town of Visoko. The couple was married last year, she said. Regardless of whether he's the six billionth baby or not, I'm a happy mother.
In 12 years, the world's population grew from 5 billion to 6 billion, spurred by a population explosion in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and West Asia.
Population growth has slowed or stopped in Europe, North America and Japan. The United States is the only industrial nation where the population is projected to increase, largely as a result of immigration, the UNPFA report says.
Population growth as a whole is slowing, due to falling birth rates. Populations are not expected to decline because of the high birth rates in these countries, but to slow and stop the spread of infection will require better public education and improvements in reproductive health care. Reuters contributed to this report. Headline News brief. CNN networks. CNN programs. Go To Sarajevo baby to be honored as 6 billionth person on Earth. Matej Gaspar is also aggrieved at the way the UN picked him out at birth and then ignored him for the rest of his life.
Adnan and Gaspar are friends on Facebook and have discussed what they regard as their unfair treatment. It would not be surprising if the UN is touchy about its approach to population questions. For two decades, population concerns have been pushed to one side as governments have become increasingly sensitive about the issue.
There are several reasons — fear on the part of rich countries of being seen to attempt to control the fertility of developing nations; an emphasis on other problems, such as diseases, that seemed less intractable; and religion, which took population firmly off the international aid agenda for the whole of George W Bush's US presidency.
Even usually outspoken green groups have censored themselves on the subject, avoiding the question of whether the number of people on the planet has an impact on our ecology in favour of pointing out that the west consumes a far larger share of available resources than the south.
Some of this reticence is well-founded. Previous discussions under the heading of "overpopulation" implied that some of the world's inhabitants were surplus to requirements, an unpleasant suggestion that carried overtones of eugenics.
Population experts lament that these fears prevented a frank discussion for years of whether we should be trying to curb the growth of population in our own interests. Women's rights are central to this framing of the argument. Hundreds of millions of women around the world, but mainly in developing countries, have families bigger than they wish, because they are being denied the ability to control their own reproductive health, according to Population Action International. Although the planet may be able to support billions more people than are forecast to join us, the question of how all of those new people can live decently, rather than in unnecessary misery, will not be answered by nature or technology but by politics.
Whether our political systems can cope with the strain — of competition for resources, of the distribution of Earth's natural wealth, of the potential for runaway climate change, and of the economic and social crises that will follow — without collapsing into destitution or war is a matter for conjecture.
Asked what he hopes for the seven billionth child, Adnan is unhesitating: "I wish that the birth of the seven billionth child brings peace to the planet. From someone else, this might sound like a pious cliche. But from Adnan's fourth-floor bedroom window, you can look out to see another block of flats close by. Some critics said it was far more likely the 6 billionth baby had been born in a country like China and India, which were experiencing massive population growth.
Annan defended Sarajevo as an appropriate site for the milestone, saying the event could help restore "the tolerance and multireligious atmosphere" that had been lost in the Balkans after nearly a decade of war. One Special Day Adnan's mother, Fatima, remembers being "very happy" at the birth of her first child after a long and difficult labor. When she was told he was the 6 billionth person, she adds, she was "even happier.
Fatima, a former textile worker, lost her job after Bosnia's war and has difficulty finding employment in the economically stagnant Visoko region. Her husband, Jasminko, suffers from cancer and was no longer able to keep his job as a boiler operator. But nearly all that money goes toward basic provisions for the household and medicine for Adnan's ailing father.
Fatima, whose face still occasionally breaks into the same radiant smile she displayed in newspaper photographs of her and her famous baby, says local authorities still come to the house every year on October 12 to celebrate Adnan's birthday. But That's Where It Ends But, she says, the cakes and publicity have done nothing to improve the family's deepening poverty.
And when we explain our situation, everyone is horrified," she says. Fatima, who pores through an album of photographs and newspaper clippings about her son's famous beginnings, says she feels abandoned by both the Bosnian government and the international community. Breaking into tears, she says her worst fear is that Adnan will become seriously ill and she will not be able to help him.
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