Population now shrinking in Japan
Tokyo Japan’s population dropped this year for the first time on record, the government said today, signaling a demographic turnaround for one of the world’s fastest-aging societies.
The Health Ministry’s annual survey showed deaths outnumbered births this year by 10,000 – the first time that had happened since such data were first compiled in 1899, ministry official Yukiko Yamaguchi said.
The announcement marked an acceleration of earlier projections that forecast Japan’s population of 127.7 million would start declining as early as 2006 and would likely fall by 27 million people to 100.7 million by 2050.
The crowded nation’s declining birthrate – 1.29 children per Japanese woman in 2004, also a record low – is at the root of the population turnaround. Later marriage ages, cramped housing and high education costs are cited as reasons for women having fewer children.
While fewer people could mean a roomier Japan, the shrinking population could threaten the country with labor shortages, tax shortfalls and an overburdened pension system as the ratio of taxpaying workers shrinks in comparison to the number of retirees.
U.N.’s Annan lashes out at media
United Nations After a tumultuous year for the world, for the United Nations and for himself, Kofi Annan said Wednesday that he wants to spend his final year as U.N. secretary-general fighting poverty and promoting peace and U.N. reform.
At a year-end press conference, Annan lashed out at what he said was unfair media coverage of his and his son’s role in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, and he told reporters that they had missed the big story. That, he said, was the charge that more than 2,200 companies and individuals from some 40 countries paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein’s government to get contracts.
“I’m not afraid of criticism,” the secretary-general told reporters. “Some criticisms have been constructive and helpful, and I accept that. Some have been out of place and have really gone beyond the zone of all reasonableness, and you wouldn’t expect me or anybody in this house to accept that.”
It was a rare outburst for the U.N. chief, who was cleared by an 18-month investigation of influencing an oil-for-food contract that went to a company that employed his son, Kojo. Annan was strongly criticized for his management of the $64 billion program.
Morales winning with historic margin
La Paz, Bolivia Nearly complete vote tabulations Wednesday pointed to an easy victory by leftist leader Evo Morales, showing the coca grower with more popular support than any Bolivian president since democracy was restored two decades ago.
Morales, an Aymara Indian active in street protests that drove two presidents from office since 2003, had 54.3 percent of the votes cast in Sunday’s election, according to official returns based on tallies from 93 percent of polling places.
Morales’ outright majority in the eight-man race was unexpected. It is the first time since democratic rule resumed in 1982 that Bolivia’s presidential election did not end inconclusively at the ballot box, leaving it to Congress to make the final choice.