Others suggested it be replaced with other holidays marking the births and deaths of Shia imams and martyrs.
Stefansson can trace his own ancestry back to the year 1000, when Iceland accepted Christianity and priests began recording births and deaths.
If March 2013 there is another month of offsetting increases in births and deaths, then alarm bells should be ringing.
FORBES: Russian Demographics Update: Births And Deaths Both Increase In January 2013
The figure of 87, 500 is based on the last census carried out in 2001, employment records, plus births and deaths registered.
BBC: NEWS | Europe | Jersey | Population sees increase of 400
The biggest impact will be felt at the Home Office, which oversees the registration of marriages, civil partnerships, births and deaths.
These figures are from the country's Sample Registration System (SRS), a comprehensive monthly survey of 1.5m households on births and deaths.
If in, say, February 2013 Rosstat also shows identical upticks in births and deaths, then people should start being much more skeptical.
FORBES: Russian Demographics Update: Births And Deaths Both Increase In January 2013
In China and most of the industrialised world, births and deaths are at or below replacement level (though America's population still rises because of immigration).
Mostly, New York City's growth is due to a widening gap between the numbers of births and deaths as life expectancy increases, according to city planners' analysis of the census estimates.
In each household, the interviewers (all Iraqis fluent in English as well as Arabic) asked about births and deaths that had occurred since January 1st 2002 among people who had lived in the house for more than two months.
Geraldine Lynch (Dumfries) - For services to the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Russia will probably achieve natural population growth in 2012, but, before the recent uptick in births and decrease in deaths, the country experienced a substantial natural population increase as recently as 1991.
FORBES: Walter Russell Mead's Very Strange View of German Ascendancy and Russian Decline
This is down to the ease with which even a beginner can trace past generations, thanks to registers of births, marriages and deaths from 1837, census results from 1871 and parish records among the resources available online.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Magazine | 'My ancestors got hitched in this church'
Births outnumbered deaths, and the number of college graduates staying in the state for at least a year after graduation rose 3.5% to 57%.
There has been, the authors say, a "dramatic shift in the birth rate and death rates of words": Deaths have increased and births have slowed.
This would result in 25 million fewer abortions, 22 million fewer unplanned births, and 680, 000 fewer deaths among women and newborns.
The data, based off of births, deaths, administrative records and survey data, reflects the rate of population growth over the 12 months ending July 1, 2012.
FORBES: North Dakota Leads List Of America's Fastest-Growing States
But what is really interesting about the January 2013 is that, although the overall population change was the same, there were actually large increases both in births (10.5%) and deaths (9.1%).
FORBES: Russian Demographics Update: Births And Deaths Both Increase In January 2013
Compared with the relevant period in 2011, births are up by 6.5% and deaths are down by 1.5%.
FORBES: Russia's Population is Growing For The First Time Since The Early 1990's
The gap is measured against predictions based on results from births, deaths, past censuses, immigration figures and other demographic trends.
If official statistics are to be believed, Cuba's levels of infant mortality (7.2 deaths per 1, 000 births) and of life expectancy are comparable to those of rich industrial countries.
One paper, by Robert Black of Johns Hopkins University and others, reckons underweight births and inter-uterine growth restrictions cause 2.2m child deaths a year (around one every 15 seconds).
应用推荐