                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, December 28, 1995            TAG: 9512280300
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Brief 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Short :   26 lines

WORLD'S POPULATION SOARS BY A RECORD 100 MILLION IN `95

The world's population grew this year by 100 million, to 5.75 billion, the largest increase ever, a population research group said Wednesday.

Ninety percent of the growth was in poor countries ``already terribly torn by civil strife and social unrest and where all too many people live in brutal poverty,'' Werner Fornos of the Population Institute said.

Fornos said that effective birth control policies and practices could stabilize the world's population by 2015 at 8 billion. But unless family planning is promoted actively, he said, there could be an increase to as many as 14 billion. by CNB