Latvia's population closer to grave than cradle

Nov 04, 1999
By J. Michael Lyons

RIGA - Bouncing from one report to another in his yellowing fifth-floor office at the University of Latvia, demographer Peteris Zvidrins poured over yearly birth rates and median ages to illustrate what he calls Latvia's most disturbing crisis.The population here is estimated by United Nations experts to be decreasing faster than any country in the world except a tiny Polynesian island-state with a population of less than 2,000.Zvidrins dashes to a cluttered shelf for more statistics, his eviden ...

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