MARK ADOMANIS writes at FORBES:
I’ve written numerous times before about the sharp improvement in Russia‘s demographic indicators through the first half of 2012 and the fact that the country was likely to experience natural population growth. However I had to use hedges like “the population is likely to grow,” “if trends hold,” “unless there’s a sudden downturn in births,” and “the data seem to indicate,” This was partially because I generally like to be cautious and measured in my analysis but also because while it was possible to argue that Russia’s population would start to grow at some point in 2012, in reality it was still shrinking (albeit shrinking at a greatly reduced pace). READ MORE.