Marking the latest stage of global population:

World’s seven billionth person to be born today

UN: The world’s seven billionth person will be born Monday into what UN leader Ban Ki-moon calls a “world of contradiction” — and facing an uphill battle if it is on the wrong side of the poverty line. While many countries around the world will be choosing their own symbolic baby, holding rallies and other events to mark the latest stage of the global population explosion, Ban will not be seen cuddling a newborn.

In Zambia there will be a seven billion song contest, while Vietnam will stage a “7B: Counting On Each Other” concert. Russian authorities are to give gifts to selected babies while in Ivory Coast national comedians are staging their own show.

According to the UN secretary general, however, the seven billion day is no laughing matter.

Ban said he suspects the seven billionth person, wherever he or she is born, “will be born into a world of contradiction.”

“Plenty of food, but still a billion people going to bed hungry every night. Many people enjoy luxurious lifestyles, but still many people are impoverished,” he said in an interview with Time magazine.

Monday’s birth should be seen as a “clarion call to action,” he insisted.

An extra billion people have been added to the world’s population since just after midnight on October 12, 1999 when the United Nations named a Bosnian baby, Adnan Mevic, as the Earth’s six billionth inhabitant.

AFP