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[SSBubbles]

Is this still relevant - and, if it is -did anyone take the day off work?


RUSSIA: NATIONAL DAY OF CONCEPTION AND PROCREATION DECLARED TO FIGHT DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE

14/08/07 13:12 Filed in: Contraception Birth Control & Unborn
baby
On September 12th couples will get a portion of the day off of work to go home and procreate. Those who actually conceive and give birth to a "patriot" nine months later on Russia's National Day, will win prizes including money, cars, and refrigerators.

The lengths that certain nations will go to in order to persuade their citizenry to discard their birth control, and cooperate with natural law is growing more bizarre everyday, and is beginning to sound like something out of a science-fiction novel.

"Alexei Bezrukov and his wife, Yulia, won a 250,000 ruble (US$10,000, €7,316) cash prize in June after she gave birth to a baby boy, Andrei. Bezrukov said patriotism wasn't their motive for having a child, their third, although the money was welcome."

"Russia, with one-seventh of the Earth's land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. Due to a low birthrate and very high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s.

"It is now falling by almost half a percent each year. Demographic experts expect the decline to accelerate, estimating that Russia's population could fall below 100 million by 2050.

"In his state of the nation address last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia's birthrate, including cash incentives to families to have more than one child.

"Since the campaign began, the birthrate in the region has risen steadily and is up 4.5 percent so far this year over the same period in 2006, according to the regional administration's Web site.

"Everyone who has a baby in an Ulyanovsk hospital on Russia Day gets some kind of prize. But the grand prize winners are couples judged to be the fittest parents by a committee that deliberates for two weeks over the selection.

"The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, an SUV made in Ulyanovsk. They told reporters they were planning to have another child anyway when they heard about the contest.

"The selection committee chose the Kartuzovs from among the 78 couples because of their "respectability" and "commendable parenting" of their two older children, a spokesman for the governor said.

"Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.

"Under the federal program, women who give birth to a second or subsequent child are to receive certificates worth 250,000 rubles, which can be used to pay for education or to improve the family's living conditions.

"Monthly support payments were raised this year to 1,500 rubles (US$60) from 700 rubles (US$28)."
Excerpts from International Herald Tribune

[baby-come-fly-with-me]

Fantastic.
you could pretend you want a baby, take half a day off work and do retail therapy instead, well thats for those who do not wish to have a baby.
But for those who do, its great you get half a day in bed to get up close and personal!!!