
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 15, 1990                   TAG: 9005150235
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Short

POPULATION EXPLOSION PREDICTED

World population, now 5.3 billion, will increase faster than ever in the 1990s and could almost triple in 100 years with catastrophic effects on the environment, the annual U.N. population report said Tuesday.

"The next 10 years will decide the shape of the 21st century. They may decide the future of the Earth as a habitation for humans," said Dr. Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund.

Every year during the 1990s, the population will increase by 90 million to 100 million people, roughly equivalent to the current population of Eastern Europe or Central America, the report said.

Over the decade, a billion more people will inhabit the planet, equivalent to an extra China, it said.

World population growth continues to be grossly out of balance, with 90 percent of the increase in developing countries, and the biggest growth in the poorest of them, said the State of World Population 1990 report.

- Associated Press

by CNB