Iran May Face Zero Population Growth

Translated by Atefeh
Rezvan-Nia
Edited by Mohammad Reza M. Karimi

Iran may experience a zero population growth by 2041.
Announcing this, Alireza Zahedian, the head of Statistics Research Center, said if Iran’s population were to continue to decline at the current pace, Iran may face difficulties in future.
“Over the next 30 years, the country’s young population, which accounts for the overwhelming majority, will join the elderly category,” he said, adding that costs related to this age-group, including health insurance and healthcare, will be significant, IRNA reported.
Zahedian noted that Iran experienced the highest birthrate during 1981-86.
“Births exceeded deaths during the 1980s and every year 2.2-2.3 million births took place in the country,” he said, noting that currently the annual number of births is 1.3 million.
He added that 400,000 deaths are registered annually.
“There is no doubt that in the coming years, the death rate will increase in Iran due to old age,” he said, adding that the elderly population will reach 20 million by 2040.

Changing Demography
According to the recent census, the average household size in Iran is less than four members while three-member families constitute the majority of households.
“The number of single-child families is expected to increase sharply in the coming years in Iran, threatening the family and kinship concepts, and causing social problems,” he said.
He added that the next generation will lack the support of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins.
Zahedian said economic growth is linked to a country’s young workforce.
“According to statistics, the demand for jobs will decline in the next four years in the country and Iran could face labor shortage if the current trend were to continue,” he said.
The official stressed that zero population growth will create many difficulties for the nation.
“With the sharp increase in the number of aging Iranians, the workforce will face many problems with regard to meeting the needs of the elderly and children,” he said.
He said many European countries with low population growths were forced to increase immigration to compensate for labor shortage.
“Immigrants can cause social problems for the hosting nations,” he said.

Supportive Policies
Iran recently adopted many policies for boosting population growth, including granting marriage incentives, improving the families’ quality of life, supporting working mothers, reducing mother’s working hours, supporting university students to get married and increasing maternity leave.
“According to statistics, the average marriage age is 26.7 for men and 23.4 for women, which shows a sharp rise compared with the statistics released in the 1980s,” he said, adding that the average marriage age was 23.8 for men and 19.9 for women in 1980s.
He pointed out that the age of first-time mothers should decline by 25 in Iran to increase the fertility rate.
Zahedian said Iran experienced a population explosion in the 1980s, as the number of births increased significantly.
“Those born in the 1980s are now qualified to get married and form a family, but statistics show they are avoiding marriage for several reasons,” he said.
The main obstacles to marriage are economic in nature, such as lack of jobs and high cost of marriage.
Zahedian also encouraged couples to make plans before the next baby arrives to prevent unwanted and risky pregnancies.

Development Targets Ride on Vitamins

One hundred and ninety million--that’s more than the populations of Germany, France and Poland combined. It is also the number of children affected by vitamin A deficiency around the world.
An insufficient intake of this vital nutrient--found in foods like liver, carrots and kale--can be fatal and causes blindness in 250,000 to 500,000 children every year, Globalissues.org reported.
One hundred years after Polish scientist Casimir Funk formulated the concept of vitamins, substantial progress has been made in promoting awareness that proper nutrition is vital to health.
Yet much remains to be done, especially in the developing world, to spread awareness that simply solving the problem of hunger does not necessarily tackle the question of nutrition. Currently, 7.3 percent of the global health burden are caused by vitamin and nutrient deficiency.
Poverty is the leading cause of many vitamin deficiencies, especially vitamin A. Much of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa is affected by severe cases of vitamin A deficiency-- since many diets in this part of the world include only staples. For instance, rice can represent up to 70 percent of caloric intake in many Asian countries, while cassava--rich in calories but poor in nutrients--is the main food source for many Africans.
In contrast to other countries in South Asia, such as Bangladesh and Nepal, India has been slow to tackle vitamin A deficiency. As a result, India represents 37 percent of victims, including roughly 80 million children.
Dr. Klaus Kraemer of Sight and Life, a Swiss nutrition advocacy group, laments this lack of focus.
“The World Health Organization recommends two to three doses of vitamin A per year for children under the age of five years. This is based on scientific evidence indicating a mortality reduction of 24 percent.
“It is tragic that India is lagging behind in implementing this guideline, resulting in needless child deaths,” he said.
The Copenhagen Consensus 2012 Expert Panel of top global economists assessed the most effective ways of allocating funds to address the world’s toughest challenges, and reported that “bundled micronutrient interventions” should be the top priority for investments in global health and development.
Experts argue these benefits should be seen in the light of the Millennium Development Goals, targets agreed upon by all UN member-states in 2000 to tackle extreme poverty and improve lives.
The most recent UN scorecard showed that hunger and malnutrition rates are still abysmally high.
The UN and national governments provide vitamin A capsules equivalent to the needs of 390 million of the 540 million children with deficiencies, but a lack of coordinated action has left millions outside the scope of these efforts.

Iraq Conflict: Crisis of Orphaned Generation

A recent survey in Iraq found that between 800,000 to a million Iraqi children have lost one or both of their parents.
According to aid workers, this figure is a conservative estimate of the many thousands growing up in the shadow of violence.
Twelve-year-old Saif lost both his parents in a bomb attack--in which he was also injured--in the province of Diyala in 2005, BBC reported.
“I don’t remember what happened,” he says, quietly. “I was small. A man came and took me away and afterwards told me what had happened to my mother and father. There is no life when you’ve lost your mother and father.”
Saif is now being brought up in a private orphanage where, despite the trauma he has been through, he enjoys playing computer games and singing, and dreams of becoming an actor.
No one knows the exact number of Iraqi children who, like Saif, have been orphaned by Iraq’s unrelenting violence.
But with bombs and assassinations still a daily occurrence, the number of orphans is continually growing.
Beyond the individual tragedies, the sheer number of Iraqi orphans has created a social crisis in a country that has less than 200 social workers and psychiatrists put together, for a population of 30 million people. It has no child protection laws.
Officials say that desperately needed welfare legislation has been held hostage to sectarian squabbling in parliament.
The orphanage in central Baghdad where Saif lives was set up by Hisham Hassan and funded by private donations.
“The government has not grasped the size of the problem,” he says.
Among the 32 boys he looks after are brothers Mustafa and Mortada, ages 10 and 11.
Their mother was killed in a shootout and their father disappeared during the height of Iraq’s sectarian war.
They remember and miss a “good mother” and a father who used to play football with them.
Hisham Hassan and his small staff have done their best to create a homely atmosphere at the orphanage.
There is one room for the boys to create art, and a computer room where games are allowed once homework is done. And they are taught to sew clothes and cut hair.
After the harrowing experiences of their past, they are being encouraged to prepare for a better future.

40% of Turkish Teachers Victims of Violence

A survey released by the Turkish Education Personnel Union (Turk Egitim-Sen) has indicated that 40 percent of teachers have been subjected to violence either by students or parents in Turkish schools.
Turk Egitim-Sen shared the results of its survey, which was conducted with the participation of 14,794 teachers, TodaysZaman reported.
According to the survey, 40 percent of the participants said they had been the victim of physical violence either by students or by their parents at least once during their career.
A total of 69.2 percent said they had been subjected to verbal abuse while working in schools.
In response to the question “Do you think is Education Minister Omer Dincer defends the rights of teachers who are exposed to violence satisfactorily?” 93.7 percent of teachers answered “no.”
The survey also reveals that 87.4 percent of teachers do not have confidence in Dincer. Of the participants, 38.6 percent said the teaching profession is being devalued, while 94.9 said their perspective on teaching has become more negative in the last 10 years.
The percentage of teachers who said they had lost interest in their job is 92.6.
The survey suggests that 57.2 percent of those who took the survey said they suffer from financial problems, 49.5 percent said they spent a large part of their monthly income on paying off bank loans while 5.6 percent said that their house or car had been seized in lieu of their debts.

Eternal Peace Does Not Last Long in Singapore

Starting early next year, workers with heavy machinery will begin constructing an eight-lane highway across the small country’s oldest surviving major cemetery, overriding the objections of nature lovers and heritage buffs.
Singapore, with its 5.3 million people crammed onto an island less than half the size of London, is already more densely populated than rival Asian business center Hong Kong, making permanent burial space unfeasible, Reuters reported.
The whole of Bukit Brown--the resting place of more than 100,000 people, including some of Singapore’s pioneering business and clan leaders and their large, intricately carved tombs--will eventually be used for residential development. At least 30 people buried there have streets named after them.
Some families have begun removing the remains of their ancestors and authorities plan to dig up the remaining graves in January.
But Nature Society (Singapore) and other groups want Bukit Brown left alone, describing the forested area as “a natural and historical treasure trove”.
Another body, the Bukit Brown Community, has been conducting weekly tours to raise awareness of the area’s rich past.
“There is no other cemetery like Bukit Brown. The amount of historical information that we can find there and the amount of Chinese culture, heritage and custom is unique,” said Raymond Goh, a founding member of Bukit Brown Community.
In 1998, the Singapore government announced a policy to limit the burial period to 15 years. Bodies are then dug up and either cremated or interred in small plots to save space in the case of Muslims and other groups whose religions require burials.

Vampire Warning!

If western Serbia smells a little garlicky these days, locals will tell you it’s for a good cause.
Oddity Central reports that villagers in Zarozje are stocking up on cloves of the pungent bulbs due to fears that Sava Savanovic, one of the area’s most fearsome vampires, has resumed his blood-sucking activities after centuries-long slumber, News.Yahoo.com reported.
We’re not talking about love-struck vampires who sparkle in the sun either. Eastern Europe has established itself as Vampire Ground Zero when it comes to fanged folklore and Serbia’s Savanovic is a particularly nasty fellow.
Legend has it he would kill and drink the blood of the peasants who came to grind their grain at his watermill on the Rogacica River.
A local family bought the building in the 1950s and reopened it as a profitable tourist attraction. But they were so terrified by what may be lurking within that they refused to go near it--even to perform repairs.
Recent trouble began when the old mill collapsed due to decades of neglect.
Now that the mill lies in a pile of rotted wood, everyone is terrified. Particularly since Mayor Miodrag Vujetic told Orange UK there had been numerous reports of “strange growls, neither animal nor human” coming from the mill, along with sightings of a “dark tall individual” standing next to the mill in the “dead of night.”
“People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people. We are all frightened,” Vujetic said.
And thanks to the wintery time of year, repairs will have to wait until spring. So to prepare citizens, the city council has put out an official vampire warning and encouraged residents to fill every room of their homes with garlic and crosses.

Clinical Trials for Drugs

Few drug companies have robust measures to ensure outsourced clinical trials in developing countries are safe and ethical, an independent report says.