The Global Times said abductions and trafficking of women were "rampant" in areas with excess numbers of men, citing the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

Illegal marriages and forced prostitution were also problems in those areas, it said.

Authorities put the normal male-female ratio at between 103-107 males for every 100 females. But in 2005, the last year for which data were made available, there were 119 boys for every 100 girls, the newspaper said.

However, the study said that in some areas the male-female ratio was as high as 130 males for every 100 females, a report by the Mirror Evening newspaper said.

You may read the entire article at Yahoo News

By Kathleen Gilbert

BALTIMORE, Maryland, January 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A local Planned Parenthood official has bluntly admitted why health insurance companies are increasingly comfortable with covering abortions: because the choice to kill an unborn child is cheaper than giving birth.

"A first trimester abortion is $300 to $450," Baltimore Planned Parenthood CEO John Nugent told the national business magazine Forbes Thursday. "But if the gestational age is higher you're paying for a surgical suite. That's why the insurance companies think they should be offering it. It's cheaper to terminate an unwanted pregnancy rather than taking it to term."

The Forbes article points out the cost estimates offered by the Health Care Blue Book: it lists a typical abortion in a physician's office costing $397, while a vaginal delivery costs $5,992, and a caeserean section is $8,558.