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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Breed and we'll beat West, says Ahmadinejad |
| 2006-10-24 |
| IRAN'S President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for a baby boom to almost double the country's population to 120 million and enable it to "triumph" over the West. Mr Ahmadinejad told MPs he wanted to scrap birth control policies that discourage Iranian couples from having more than two children. Women should work less and devote more time to their "main mission" of raising children, he said. His comments amounted to an attack on official policies sanctioned by senior Islamic clerics aimed at limiting Iran's population, now 70 million. The Government backs birth control measures including female sterilisation, vasectomies and mandatory family planning classes for newlyweds. Iran also has a state-owned condom factory. "I am against saying two children are enough," Mr Ahmadinejad said. "Our country has a lot of capacity. It has the capacity for many children to grow in it. It even has the capacity for 120 million people. "Westerners have got problems. Because their population growth is negative they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them." Critics said Mr Ahmadinejad's call was ill-judged at a time when Iran is struggling with surging inflation and rising unemployment, unofficially about 25 per cent. Mr Ahmadinejad's call is similar to one by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The policy led to a population explosion but was reversed because of the strain on the economy, and population growth dropped from an all-time high of 3.2 per cent in 1986 to about 1.2 per cent, similar to Australia. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #11 Hey! Yo! Somebody tell our BIATCHEZ that we have to close the "Fertility Gap". |
| Posted by: Hupailing Ebbuns2352 2006-10-24 21:13 |
| #10 Try outbreeding Irish Catholics? Yeah, go try. :-) |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-10-24 23:06 |
#9
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| Posted by: Hupailing Ebbuns2352 2006-10-24 21:13 |
| #8 Oops - don't know what happened to the formatting, The degree symbol was originally a 'c' with the curly tail. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2006-10-24 21:09 |
| #7 Didn't Ceauºescu and Mussolini try this also? Here's hoping Mahmoud shares their fate soon. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2006-10-24 21:07 |
| #6 I'm willing to do my patriotic duty here in the West. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2006-10-24 20:46 |
| #5 They've no chance against the Irish Catholic red-staters. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-10-24 20:37 |
| #4 I wonder if Mr Math is aware that it takes 2.1 to break even. Ironically, the Iranian pop has boomed because Khomeini decreed birth control to be haram back in '79. So they have this large bubble or relatively young folks - and these are the people that, largely, are pro-western / anti-mullah. Sadly, there seems to be a majority across all age groups who get a woodie about having nukes, so the rest of it sorta doesn't matter. Sad, that. Dickhead calling for these people to reproduce for the state won't mean much - they're not his little 'bots. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-24 20:11 |
| #3 They've been workin gon that for years, and all they get is internal problems. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-10-24 20:05 |
| #2 Baby boomers. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-10-24 20:02 |
| #1 gotta get enough for those human-wave attacks to repeat, huh? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-10-24 19:29 |