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On the birth rate I found this:

...important changes have contributed to the resolution of the demographic problem. It appears that the customary wails about "ultimate extinction at the rate of a million people a year" soon will have to end. The mortality rate between January and May 2007 was 6 per cent lower than it had been during those same months in 2006, and the birth rate rose: 625,000 babies were born - 34,000 more than during the first five months of 2006. The population is not growing yet, but the dynamics are unmistakable.

It is impossible to single out the role any one individual plays in such complex social processes in principle, of course, but there is no question that state policy has played a definite role and that this has not simply happened "of its own accord." Furthermore, this role clearly has been a positive one.

BBC Monitoring

Russian analyst on strategic roles of two main presidential contenders

Text of report by Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 17 July

[Article by Leonid Radzikhovskiy, political analyst: "Project Number One"]

...important changes have contributed to the resolution of the demographic problem. It appears that the customary wails about "ultimate extinction at the rate of a million people a year" soon will have to end. ...The population is not growing yet, but the dynamics are unmistakable.

They are past the point of no return. The BBC is blowing smoke on this issue. They haven't even faced their own population decline. The article should have asked how many of these babies were born to Muslim families. The abortion rate there is %70! They have the fastest growing rate of HIV in the world, faster than Africa. The mortality rate can only increase as the population ages. One small bump does not a recovery make. Here's what Mark Steyn says about Russia/China:

So the world's largest country is dying and the question is how violent it's death throes will be...A potentially African-level AIDS crisis and an Islamist separatist movement sitting atop the biggest pile of nukes on the planet...poor old Russia is awash in resources but fatally short of Russians...Russian east there are 16 million people and falling. In China, there are 1.5 billion...China is resource poor; the Russian east contains %80 of that country's resources...It will be Russia's fate to have large chunks of its turf annexed by the Islamic world, and mush of what's left fall to the Chinese.

He also says that there's no need to worry about China becoming a super power. Their one child policy will collapse their society before they have time for their economic promise to pay off. Talk radio was making fun of the Russian "pro-creation day" this week, but I think it shows their desperation. Desperate people do desperate things. Like sell weapons to Iran and land to China. Ollie is on the money to bring this up.