The World - News from May 24, 1989

The world’s population stands at 5,234,000,000, an increase of nearly a quarter of a billion people since it passed the 5-billion mark just two years ago, the Population Reference Bureau in Washington said. Demographers Carl Haub and Mary Kent, in a statement released with the bureau’s report, said world population growth slowed in the 1970s but then accelerated and, as the 1980s draw to an end, is rising by 1.8% annually, the highest rate of the decade. “It appears quite possible that the sixth billion (person) will be attained in record time--just 10 years,” they said. The Population Reference Bureau is a private, nonprofit research organization.