Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous country, with 96 million inhabitants, which is expected to reach 119 million in 2030. Egypt is mostly uninhabitable desert, so people are concentrated near the Nile. Many Egyptians view children as caretakers for their parents in old age. Poor families view children as sources of income. The standard of living is declining, and the government is promoting the slogan “two is enough.”
Ali Abdelaziz sees children as a “gift from God”, so much so that he has 10 of his own, even as Egypt’s government struggles to stem a “catastrophic” population boom.
Abdelaziz works in the capital as a doorman, but his children stay in a village with their mother in the southern province of Minya where life is cheaper.
Egypt’s overpopulation is adding pressure on the economy, already reeling from the political and security turmoil since the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
With 96 million inhabitants — and 9.4 million expatriates — the Arab world’s most populous country adds 1.6 million people every year to its population.
At the current rate, Egypt’s population will reach 119 million in 2030, according to a May report by the United Nations Population Fund.
With 95 percent of Egypt’s land uninhabitable desert, the population is concentrated around the narrow Nile valley and Nile Delta, with smaller numbers along the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.
A fall in mortality rates in the early 1970s further boosted the population growth.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has said population growth is “a challenge as critical as that of terrorism.”
The government launched a new family planning campaign this year under the slogan “two are enough,” to try to contain the phenomenon.
“Children are protection: they care for their parents when they grow older,” said Abdelaziz, the doorman, unconvinced of the campaign.
But Hayam Mohamed, a mother of three, does not want more children and uses a government family planning center in Umm Khenan village of Giza province.
“I don’t want my children to feel deprived,” Mohamed, 32, said after receiving her contraception pills, free of charge, from the center’s doctor, like many others in her village.
“Education is expensive, and life has become difficult with the rising prices.”
Fardous Hamed, a doctor at the center, told AFP that the number of people seeking its services has risen with the latest round of price increases since authorities floated the pound in November 2016.
“Awareness grew among people here,” said Hamed.
Following the currency flotation, the pound lost more than half its value and inflation jumped to 33 percent in September.
“If I give birth to five or six children, I won’t even be able to provide them food,” said Mohamed.
‘Collective suicide’
Abu Bakr el-Gendy, the head of Egypt’s state statistics bureau which carried out the latest census, described the current rate of population growth as a “catastrophe.”
He said the annual rate accelerated between 2005 and 2014, before stabilizing in 2016 at around 2.6 percent.
The rate must be at least three times lower than economic growth for people’s living standards not to deteriorate, according to Gendy.
This 4-minute video excerpt focuses on what Mr. Gates thinks the future will hold following the Covid-19 pandemic, which was underway at the time. Mr. Gates is an oligarch with the money and power to make things happen globally. What he sees for the future has a good chance of coming to pass.
Approximately one-third of the entire population of the globe now is under some sort of a lockdown order. A few are able to work at home, but the vast majority are forcibly unemployed. Many small businesses will not survive the folly of their leaders, and the number of homeless will drastically rise.
Projection for COVID-19 infections is about one one-thousands as severe as for the common flu. [1-billion infections of flu compared to approximately one-million infections of COVID-16.] In other words, the common flu is a thousand times more dangerous than COVID-19.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot threatened fines and arrest for people who defy her stay-at-home order. She said that outdoors is only for brief respite, not long long exposure. The mandate that carries a $500 fine, if violated once. Repeat offenders will be arrested. This is the face of martial law.
The web site for CovidActNow, that is being used by media, state governors, local leaders, and county judges as a reason to quarantine, says: “this [computer] model is designed to drive fast action, not predict the future.” [In other words, the predictions are propaganda, not science.]
Scientist and Imperial College author Neil Ferguson several weeks ago warned that the coronavirus would kill 500,000 people in the United Kingdom. He now says that, if all goes as expected, the death toll will be 20,000 people or fewer. Ferguson has tested positive for COVID-19 and is not expecting to die.
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow announced the total coronavirus relief package will come to around $6-trillion, with $2-trillion in “direct assistance” to Main Street and “roughly $4-trillion in Federal Reserve lending power” for Wall Street.
The UK government website reads: “As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.”
These experts’ concerns include: the fact that the destruction of the economy will cause more deaths than the coronavirus, there are no scientific standards for testing for the presence of the virus, most deaths are only in the elderly population, and more!
The mayor said that water and power would be turned off for nonessential businesses to force them to close. He called the businesses that have yet to close “irresponsible and selfish.” While small business owners are fighting for economic survival, the Mayor enjoys a handsome salary with no interruptions or reductions.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell cut interest rates to zero, launched unlimited quantitative easing (money creation), has committed to buy $1-trillion in Treasury Bonds and mortgage-backed securities, and municipal bonds. All this adds up to a death warrant for the American economy.
India’s economy has come to a screeching halt as residents in 75 districts across the country, including in major cities, such as the capital New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore have been forced into mandatory quarantine by the government until March 31.
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Egypt: ISIS claimed responsibility for two bomb blasts that killed at least 45 Coptic Christians at St. George’s Coptic Church in the city of Tanta and at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria.
The UN estimates that almost half of the world’s population lives in countries with below replacement fertility rates. The main clusters of low fertility generally are found in advanced and industrialized regions. The big story here is that all the hand-wringing over an overcrowded future planet is scientifically unfounded. If the current trend continues, it is even possible that mankind soon will be worried about population shrinkage and underproduction.
A group of Maine abortion and birth-control clinics is extending contraception prescriptions for women by three months for fear more time at home due to the coronavirus will result in a “baby boom.”
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