China Adoption News for January, 2007

China gets too strict on adoptions

"Chinese children deserve better than the highly restrictive new foreign adoption guidelines their government is eyeing."more>>

FOCUS ON POPULATION CONTROL Too many bachelors and too many grandmas

"The world’s grandest social experiment has failed. And it has done so on a grand scale. But those who conducted the experiment are yet to fathom the magnitude of the crisis they will soon have to endure."more>>

Golden Dragon Acrobats bring Chinese culture to Bloomington

"A team with almost 30 years of talent and more than 27 centuries of tradition is flying to Bloomington with the greatest of ease.

The Golden Dragon Acrobats are on tour and making a stop to perform at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, Jan. 26 at 8 p.m."more>>

China eases the old-child policy

"Recent reports from official sources in China claim that the country's one-child policy has averted some 400 million births, but that China is still expected to add 200 million people to its population in the next 30 years. Now, the government has announced that the one-child policy will be seriously modified."more>>

State changes policy to assist people seeking to adopt from China

"The state agency that oversees adoptions announced late this afternoon that it would speed up criminal background checks for people seeking to adopt from China."more>>

China sticking to one-child policy

"BEIJING - China will not loosen its one-child policy, despite a top family planning official‘s acknowledgment Tuesday that it was partly to blame for a worsening problem of too many boy babies and not enough girls in the world‘s most populous nation."more>>

China battles gender based abortion

"Gender imbalances have led China to step up efforts to curb sex-selective abortions."more>>

China vows to halt growing sex ratio imbalance

"BEIJING -- Chinese authorities have vowed to take tough measures to control fetus gender testing and sex-selective abortions to hold back rising sex ratio imbalance."more>>

Parents' love knows no borders

Overseas adoption rules get tougher but...

"Jaime Dean is a mother without a child.

After more than a year of hoping, praying and waiting, the 26-year-old Flint resident and her husband, Philip, legally adopted their 7-month-old son in December. But the couple is still waiting to bring Lincoln Joshua José Dean home from Guatemala."more>>

Adoption rules shouldn't be enacted early

"As more and more Americans are looking abroad to adopt, it is getting increasingly difficult to find a child. In 2005 alone, Americans adopted 7,906 children from China. Today, China's adoption agencies receive more applications from foreigners than they have children up for adoption. Due to this recent jump in application numbers, Chinese officials decided to create new rules barring certain individuals from adopting."more>>

Classic start to Chinese New Year

Music and dance, East and West come together for "Legends of Love"

"Legends have always been one of the fundamental features in Chinese culture and tradition, says Lei Weng, a concert pianist and doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music."more>>

3,000 Christians added daily in China

Faithful undefeated by beatings, arrests, confiscations and destruction of churches

"Worship services are being broken up by baton-wielding police officers, participants arrested, Bibles confiscated and Christian church buildings demolished. But still, an estimated 3,000 people every day come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ in China."more>>

Just Do It

Chinese New Year Spectacular

"Obscured by modernization and nearly destroyed by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Chinese cultural traditions are largely unknown to the children of immigrants. So when New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) formed in 2002, its organizers hoped to wipe the dust off 5,000 years of cultural history."more>>

US families puzzled by tighter China adoptions

"NEW YORK - New York lawyer Meg Tolan is the mother of three adopted daughters, all of them from China, but if she wanted to adopt another, she couldn’t. Beijing no longer considers her a suitable parent."more>>

Chinese child finds new beginning in Sask.

"Four wasn't enough for one Emerald Park family.

Randy and Donna Johnson travelled to China in October to meet the newest addition to their family, three-year-old Hannah. She's the Johnsons' fifth child, joining Kelsey (17 years old), Lindsey (15), Josh (14) and Hailey (3)."more>>

'The best thing I ever did'

"She has yet to hit kindergarten, but little Ruby Fu Ping Pigott already has three seasons of cross-country skiing under her belt with the "Jackrabbit" program at the Yellowknife Ski Club.

Born in the Chinese province of Guangxi, five-year-old Ruby is now defining herself as a northerner in Canada's rugged Northwest Territories."more>>

Drop in foreign adoptions has ripples among Minnesotans

"Adoptions of foreign children by American families are declining for the first time in more than a decade, an apparent sign of new anxiety abroad about how prevalent the practice has become."more>>

China faces population imbalance crisis

"China will be short of 30 million brides within 15 years, according to an official report into the country’s burgeoning population. About one in every ten men aged between 20 and 45 - equivalent to almost the population of Canada - will be unable to find a wife, it has projected."more>>

China Facing Major Gender Imbalance

"(AP) China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the country's tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced, state media reported Friday. Traditional preferences for sons has led to the widespread - but illegal - practice of women aborting babies if an early term sonogram shows it is a girl."more>>

'Golden age' of China adoptions fading

"Anne Marie Devine has always felt blessed to be a mom. But now she feels even luckier.

Devine, who is single and lives in Newmarket, adopted her daughter Julia, 4, from China and brought her to Canada just before the girl's first birthday. And she is eagerly awaiting news about her application to adopt a second daughter."more>>

Foreign Adoption Rates Fall

"Fewer Americans are adopting foreign children. A new report may shed some light on why more and more countries are trying to place children domestically."more>>

Family Denied

"Patricia Mounts has adopted three children and was planning on adopting more from China. But sweeping changes in China's adoption system will guarantee the 62-year-old Valparaiso woman -- and many others -- will never be able to permanently cradle another Chinese baby in their arms."more>>

Three Girls And A Lady

"The middle child actually came first. It was 1996 when Marie Carmenati traveled to Gejiu, China, to adopt her first child. The baby, whom she named Olivia, was 8 months old."more>>

New Chinese adoption rules leave some families wondering, others scrambling

"Julie Ann Gallagher has a picture of the 2-year-old Chinese boy she hopes one day will be her son.

She knows his name.

She knows what needs to be done to correct his congenital cataracts, which affect his vision.

What she doesn't know is if she'll get the chance to adopt him."more>>

Foreign Adoptions In U.S. Drop In 2006

"(AP) NEW YORK After tripling over the past 15 years, the number of foreign children adopted by Americans dropped sharply in 2006, the result of multiple factors which have jolted adoption advocates and prompted many would-be adoptive parents to reconsider their options."more>>

China's new limits on adoptions hit home

"Judy Williams and her 3- and 5-year-old daughters would never have become a family without China's adoption program.

Williams was single and older than most adoptive parents when she adopted her first daughter from China in 2003. "I thought I was too old, but they were lenient with me," said Williams, who declined to give her age and is a doctor at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk."more>>

China Strengthens Requirements for International Adoptions

"China has become an increasingly popular destination for overseas adoptions. Over the past ten years, 55,000 Chinese children have been adopted by American families, including 8,000 in 2005 alone."more>>

Ex-professor leads adopted kids home

"Jane Liedtke remembers vividly the first time she set eyes on her adopted daughter.

'She was tiny, underfed and covered in lice," she said. "But we had an immediate bond; I could feel it so strongly.'"more>>

New adoption rules not to deter foreign adopters

"BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's new adoption rules are not meant to restrict the number of foreigners who can adopt Chinese children, but to ensure that kids receive the best possible family care, according to an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs."more>>

New Chinese adoption rules raise concern

"Julia Trawick has been answering call after worried call the past few weeks from people hoping to adopt a child from China.

Trawick, a representative of Great Wall China Adoption and the mother of two daughters adopted from China, is an expert in helping prospective parents through China's adoption process, which will see new restrictions starting May 1."more>>

Knowing Your Body Mass Index Useful Guide for More Than Health

"In the past, you could learn a lot about a person from a group of letters: Ph.D., DDS, VFW, DWI.

Now another set looms, and it affects everyone from teeny tiny models to adoptive parents to schoolchildren: BMI or Body Mass Index."more>>