Filipina Baby is 7th Billion Inhabitant

Danica Camacho seen with her mother Camille

Newly-born baby girl Danica Camacho is the world’s symbolic seven billionth baby who was born at Fabella Maternity hospital in Manila, Philippines today, Monday October 31, 2011. India also greeted its version of the 7 billionth person on earth.

It took only a dozen years to make the leap from 6 billion. And according to the same projections found in this year’s State of the World Population report from the UNFPA, the population will top 9 million by 2050 and 10 billion by the end of this century.

Total population is still climbing, but the rate of growth peaked in the 1960s at about 2 percent. It has steadily declined since then, although it remains well above replacement level in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where it still tops 2 percent.

Read more at The Christian Science Monitor

Photo from The Christian Science Monitor

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President Manuel L. Quezon is Israeli Hero, Too

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Hitler and his Nazi had killed more than 6 million Jews in Europe. But in 1939, when the Jews and their families were fleeing Europe at a time when several countries refused to open their doors to them, the Philippines did the highly risky and the unlikely. Through President Manuel L. Quezon, the Philippines opened its doors and nation’s heart to the fleeing and persecuted Jews. Quezon offered to absorb 10,000 European Jewish refugees but only 1,200 Jews and their families made it to Manila.

Last 21 June 2010, or 70 years later, the first ever monument honoring Quezon and the Filipino nation for this “open door policy” was inaugurated on Israeli soil, at the 65-hectare Holocaust Memorial Park in Rishon LeZion, Israel.

Source: Alex Lacson through e-mail of Jun Benito