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Current topic: Health and mortality in Belarus

• Life expectancy is increasing, yet still far from the EU level
• Losses due to high mortality
• The burden of some causes of death
• Infant and maternal mortality: trends are positive
• Health and measures for its improvement

European demographic barometer

• At the beginning of 2011, the population of the European Union amounted to 502.5 million
• In 2010, the population increased in 20 countries of the EU-27
• Natural increase of population and net migration in the EU-27 were at approximately the same level as in 2009 (1.0 ‰ and 1.7 ‰ respectively)
• In 2010, the rate of net migration in the EU countries ranged from 15 ‰ in Luxembourg to 24 ‰ in Lithuania
• Among immigrants who entered the EU countries in 2002-2008, the number of citizens from the other countries of the EU was growing especially fast

Analytical articles

• Methodological approaches to assessing the harm caused by drinking and alcoholism
• Heavy drinking and alcoholism as a health risk factor in Belarus
• Migration in Belarus
• The labor market in the regions of Belarus: an analysis of employment trends
• Daily life and migration (based on an example of the Belgorod-Kharkov boundary area)

Recent polls

• "The falling out of lovers is the renewing of love, but if he beats you it doesn’t mean he loves you!"
• Why do Russian families separate?
• Emigration attitudes of Russians
• Attitude to the smoking ban in public places
• Where in Russia do most smokers live?

Russian news

• Compared with the end of 2010, the number of poor increased by 4.8 million people
• The authors of the 2020 strategy suggest reducing the public sector
• Should Russians put up with raising the retirement age?
• Starting from 2014, pensions will be linked again to wages and labor experience
• New premium rates are beneficial for companies with salaries of employees below 60 thousand rubles per month
• Russian women are paid less than men for the same work
• Next year maternity capital will be increased to 387000 rubles
• Queues to kindergartens in Moscow reduced by almost 4 times in June
• 4.7 billion rubles will be additionally allocated on housing subsidies for young families
• Ministry of Agriculture will allocate more than 4.5 billion rubles to improve the villagers’ living conditions
• Foreign adoptive parents will have to pay alimony to Russian children they abandoned
• High schools this year failed to recruit students for a number of specialties
• Putin insists on creating an employment forecast system
• Medvedev doesn’t see the need to adopt a new Labor Code
• Government will continue to fight unemployment in mono- and system-forming cities
• In Moscow, the number of employed exceeds 6 million people
• An expert explained why more and more Russians want to go abroad
• Medvedev signed a bill ratifying the agreement on combating illegal labor migration
• The draft concept of the state migration policy of Russia assumes three phases of implementation
• Will migrants be selected by points?
• Migrant workers will be tested for knowledge of Russian
• Children of migrants will have to pass the Russian language test in order to be admitted in Moscow schools
• Massacre in Norway may affect the fate of migrants from the North Caucasus
• Putin warned about inadmissibility of "rocking" the inter-ethnic situation in Russia
• Native minorities of the North are beginning to forget their native languages
• Beer has been equated with alcohol
• The new law on alcohol will reduce mortality in Russia
• Mortality from causes related to alcohol consumption in Moscow declined by 6.3%
• The number of officially registered drug addicts in Moscow increased by 3.9%
• Over the first half of 2011, the incidence of newly diagnosed active TB decreased by 2.7%
• Ministry of Defense "rejected" every third draftee
• The Supreme Court supported the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) in the argument with opponents of vaccination
• It will become harder to promote abortions in Russia
• Church considers proposals for legal regulation of abortion prevention insufficient
• According to the majority of Russians, measures to reduce the number of abortions should not be radical
• Law on Public Health Protection must be adopted this year
• Ministry of Natural Resources promises to reduce fivefold the number of environmentally disadvantaged cities by 2020

Eurasian news

• Georgia's population in 2010 grew by more than 32 thousand people
• Kazakhstan is leading in the region by the difference in life expectancy of men and women
• Natural population increase is declining in the capital of Belarus
• During over 20 years of independence the population of Ukraine has never been correctly counted
• The maximal decline in number of secondary school graduates in Ukraine fell on 2011
• Quarter of Ukraine's population lives in abject poverty
• Belarus raises labor and social pensions from August 1
• Ukrainian pensioners are promised the second level of the reform
• In Belarus, for each unemployed there are two vacancies
• In the labor market of Belarus, there’s an acute shortage of healthcare workers and a surplus of accountants
• Unemployment is still problem number one in Armenia
• Migration and border service will be created in Moldova
• Moldova toughens entry for foreigners
• Moldova plans to simplify the procedure of entry for foreign investors
• Armenia becomes deserted
• There’s no exact data on emigration from Armenia
• Does Russian program "Compatriots" provoke unwanted emigration flow from Armenia?
• The number of Azerbaijani citizens willing to leave the country does not decrease
• Most migrant workers from Kirghizstan does not return to their homeland
• 95% of Tajik migrant workers go to Russia
• The number of Kirghiz having obtained a patent for work in Russia increased twice in 6 months
• Migrants from Kazakhstan will be able to find work in Russia and Belarus easier
• Ukrainian peasants are no longer attracted to the cities
• Child labor is used for cotton harvesting in Tajikistan
• Ukraine remains among the leaders on the speed of spreading HIV / AIDS and tuberculosis
• In Kazakhstan, in the first half of 2011, maternal mortality decreased by 1.6 times

World news

• The Earth's seven billionth person will be born in October
• Europe’s population is growing mainly due to migrants
• Lithuania will no longer have three million people as early as 2035
• For the 26th consecutive year Japanese women occupy the first place in the world by life expectancy
• Results of the Census is the failure of Latvian Statistics
• 30-40 thousand Latvians were enumerated twice
• The share of foreigners in Lithuania is the smallest in the EU
• In 2030 in Latvia there will be 2.4 persons in working age for each retiree
• Spanish Parliament has finally approved a bill on raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 years
• By 2030 food prices will be doubled
• Thousands of people may die of starvation in East Africa in August-September
• $ 7.9 billion is needed for the implementation of UN humanitarian programs this year
• Cuba will soften its immigration policy
• Emigration flow from Lithuania in 2010 was four times greater than in 2009
• Latvia will become more attractive to residents of the former Soviet Union
• President of Latvia approved a new program of national identity and integration
• 7000 people get infected with HIV and 5000 die from AIDS in the world daily
• More than a quarter of British drivers admit they drink and drive
• Tobacco addiction shortens life of every third Cuban
• 14 thousand people in Austria die from smoking-related diseases every year
• President of Argentina signs smoking ban bill into law
• El Salvador bans public-area smoking
• Australian teens are smoking less, but doing more drugs
• Germany's E. coli outbreak is over
• More than a billion people worldwide have some form of disability
• American maternity hospitals were accused of lack of attention to breastfeeding
• Nigerians will be sent to jail for refusing to inculcate children against polio
• The world faces a severe shortage of fresh water in many regions of the world

Newspapers write about ...

• "Day" and "Ukrinform" about the demographic situation in Ukraine
• "Moscow News" and "Vedomosti" about pension issues in the world
• “Slon.ru” about pension issues of separated countries
• “Obozrevatel.com” about the pension reform in Ukraine
• "Nezavisimaya gazeta" about the social burden of the Russian economy
• "Polit.ru" about social and demographic background of the U.S. economy issues
• "Zavtra tvoey strany" about nuptiality and divorce in Belarus
• "Litovskiy kurier" about sham marriages in Lithuania
• "Nezavisimaya gazeta" about infant mortality in the regions of Russia
• "Belorusskiye novosti" about midwifery in Belarus
• “Armtoday.info” about selective abortions in Armenia
• “The New York Times” about anti-abortion advertisements in Russia
• "Kommersant" about health care expenditures in Russia
• “The New York Times” about anti-HIV pills
• "Polit.ru" about an anti-alcohol campaign
• "Rossiyskaya gazeta" about the maternity capital in Mordovia
• "Moscow News" about national policy issues in Russia
• "NG-religions" about religion and the question of national identity
• "Moscow News" about the problem of illegal migration from the point of view of Marie Le Pen
• "Izvestiya" about demographic and migration problems in Russia
• "Vedomosti", "Rossiyskaya gazeta" and "Migrant.Fergana.ru" about migration policy in Russia
• "Vedomosti" about migration and economy
• "Vzglyad" about the agreement of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on the fight against illegal migration
• "Nezavisimaya gazeta" about remittances of Ukrainian migrants
• “Novoye-vremya.com” about migration issues in Azerbaijan
• "Novaya gazeta" about the end of repatriation policy in Finland
• "Novye izvestiya" about Indian immigration to the United States
• "Vlast” about about migrants integration policy
• "Izvestia" and “Slon.ru” about a Kamchatka "ghetto"
• "Gazeta" about temporary housing for migrant workers in Moscow
• “Forbes” about the problems of regulation of migration within Russia
• "Gazeta" and "Rossiyskaya gazeta" about the peculiarities of the system of registration in Russia
• "Novaya gazeta" about potential emigration from Russia
• “Comments.ua” about emigration intentions of the Ukrainians
• "Money", "Moscow News" and "Rossiyskaya gazeta" about the expansion of Moscow
• "Ogonek" about the lack of big cities as sources of growth in Russia
• "Ogonek" about the three scenarios of Russian small town development
• “Global Post” about depopulation in the Russian hinterland
• "Rossiyskaya business-gazeta" about the Russian middle class
• "Nezavisimaya gazeta" about salaries in different regions of Russia
• "Vedomosti" about the deficit of qualified personnel in the world
• "Novye izvestiya" about a “non-male” employment in Saudi Arabia
• "Rossiyskaya gazeta" about the interest of Russians for the census results

Recent publications

• Global adult tobacco survey (GATS). Russian Federation, 2009
• State of the World's Children 2011 Report
• Tuberculosis surveillance in Europe 2009
• Financing health care in the European Union
• Russia in Figures 2011
• Through the pages of magazines “Narodonaseleniye” ("Population") and “Vestnik MGU. Seriya 6. Ekonomika.” ("MSU Vestnik. Series 6. Economics.")
• Contents of the journal “Demographic Research”

Profession: Researcher

• Vladimir Gimpelson’s 55^th birthday
• Nikita Mkrtchyan’s 40^th birthday
• Lilia Karachurina’s small jubilee
• Alexei Shevyakov, Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Studies of Population, died at 66

Internet Journey

• UNFPA in Belarus
• Program of alternative consultations (professional treatment of alcoholism on the Internet)
• Virtual Gulag Museum

New in the Reading Room

• E.M. Andreyev. The componential method in the analysis of life expectancy
• Official documents
  • Federal Law of July 17, 2011 N 211-FZ "On housing subsidies to citizens moving from the closing settlements in the Far North and similar areas"
  • Federal Law of July 11, 2011 N 186-FZ "On ratification of the Agreement on Legal Status of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families"

DW Web Site Traffic Statistics in May-June 2011

• DW Web Site Traffic in June reduced by 35%
• DW was read in June in 87 countries
• The geography of Russian visitors has narrowed
• The most attentive DW readers overseas are from Ecuador
• DW was read in 14 cities in Ukraine
• The most attentive DW reader in Russia is in Chernogolovka
• Languages of our visitors
• The rating of our web site in the Science category of OpenStat has fallen
• We were quoted...
• The most popular pages of DW in June 2011

New ads

• Center of Advanced Training of HSE organizes a short-term training program on "Population and Development". September 19-30, 2011.
• Call for abstracts. European Population Conference 2012. Gender, Policies and Population. Stockholm, Sweden. June 13-16, 2012.
• Centre for Development of Scientific Co-operation (Novosibirsk) provides services of publication of research results
• Call for abstracts. XIII International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development. Moscow, Russia. April 3-5, 2012.
• Call for papers. International Seminar on Violence in Adolescence and Youth in Developing Countries. Asunción, Paraguay. May 2012.
• Levada Centre (Russia) and Institute of Public Affairs (Poland) call for participation in the Training Program for Russian Policy and Opinion Makers
• German Historical Institute in Moscow (GHIM) offers scholarships for researchers in the field of Russian and German history of XV-XX centuries.
• Call for abstracts. XVII International Seminar of the Association of French-speaking demographers (AIDELF) "Demography and Social Policy". Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. November 12-16, 2012.
• European University in St. Petersburg (EUSP) with the assistance of Skolkovo Fund offers scholarships for EUSP students planning to engage in science and technology studies.
• Mikhail Prokhorov Fund and the Faculty of Management of Socio-Cultural Projects of Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences announce the continuation of the scholarship program for cultural workers.
• Call for abstracts. Seminar "No common yardstick. Mass sources for studies of social and economic history of Russia in XVI-XXI centuries”. Moscow, Russia. December 9-10, 2011.
• Call for papers. International Seminar on Demographic Perspectives on Forced Migration and Refugees. Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. May 14-16, 2012.
• Calls for papers. Sixth Annual Research Conference on Population, Reproductive Health and Economic Development. Accra, Ghana. January 18-21, 2012.
• Call for abstracts. Conference: "Research on Family Demography and Children's Lives: Future Directions and Infrastructures". Stockholm, Sweden. September 27-28, 2011.
• Call for applications. Paris International Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences Research. Paris, France. July 24-28, 2012.