Every year over 200 million peasants flock to China’s urban centers, providing a profusion of cheap labor that helps fuel the country’s staggering economic growth. Award-winning journalist Michelle Dammon Loyalka follows the trials and triumphs of eight such migrants,offering an inside look at the pain, self-sacrifice, and uncertainty underlying China’s dramatic national transformation.

Ten years ago, demography was hardly on the radar screen of policymakers. Today, it’s a part of almost every discussion of America’s long-term fiscal, economic, or foreign policy direction. With the world’s population hitting 7 billion last year, and headed for 10 billion in the next century, it is crucial to assess the impact of global population trends on international security and national politics. Top demographic security experts discuss this important trend at a half day workshop at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Biologists have identified 35 areas, called biodiversity hotspots, which are especially rich in endemic species but threatened by human activities. Can addressing population growth in these areas help conserve threatened species and improve community health?

“If we want to have a people-focused understanding of resilience then…reproductive health, women’s ability to choose, and the number and spacing and occurrence of birth is, I think, at the very center of that,” said David Schensul of the UNFPA.