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Population: the Awkward Truth

Why do Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles tend to have more children than impoverished peasants living in Mexico City? The answer helps explain why the international community has so far failed to slow the population explosion, and why it will probably fail again this fall when delegates from 180 nations meet in Cairo to address the issue. But first a little background.

Twenty years ago in Bucharest, the United Nations World Population Conference produced a wish list of things governments might do to get a grip on population: improve the status of women, expand access to health care, alleviate poverty. With...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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