UN lowers projection on future population growth.

The new projections of future population growth released by the UN Population Division in late October 1998 are lower than previous projections. This has happened, as reported, owing to a number of reasons, including an expected increase in AIDS-related deaths. However, the projections suggest than even in the countries hardest hit by AIDS the population will keep growing because of continuing high birth rates. The projection, routinely updated every 2 years, suggests that the world will reach 6 billion in 1999. By the middle of the next century, global population will be between 7.3 and 10.7 billion. Under the medium variant projections reflecting a middle range of assumptions regarding future birth rates, the world would reach 8.9 billion in 2050. This is nearly half a billion lower than under the medium variant in the 1996 projections. Almost all future population growth, about 97%, is projected to occur in developing regions. Populations in the developed regions on the other hand are projected to stabilize and even decrease in some cases. By 2050 nearly 60 countries, including all of Europe, China and Japan, would experience a decline in population size according to the medium variant projections.