Parents with kids from China will be interested to hear about "China Ghosts" a new book written by Jeff Gammage about the adoption of his daughter. It's the story of a girl, a father and a family that Lisa See, author of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" ... a lovely book of harsh realities ... calls, " ... the most informative and heartfelt book I’ve read about the adoption of girls from China.”

Parents in Pakistan have a strange take on children, with those in Karachi rating 34% of school-aged kids as "abnormal".

The article is interesting and rather complex, siting population-based epidemiological studies showing the prevalence of common mental disorders in Pakistan to be one of the highest in the developing world.

A British couple who have been trying to adopt a sibling group of two from Malawi have finally won their case and will be bringing the 9- and 11-year olds home next month.

The children are the wife's niece and nephew, and their mother, the wife's sister, died in a car accident in May 2006 after surviving the loss the father who died of AIDS in 2003. The case has been going on ever since.

Authorities had been insisting that the children could be cared for by relatives in Malawi, but after some attention from the British press the case went to an 'asylum and immigration tribunal' which eventually agreed to allow the children to go to Britain.

SOS Children's Villages has issued a statement on AIDS and orphans in Africa, saying that 20 million children will have lost parents by 2010 if present trends continue as the International Day of the African Child was commemorated.

Human rights activists in Kenya are calling for an end to child abuse, and in Sierra Leone people are being urged to fight child trafficking.

Well, problem solved, then. Right?

This is the sort of story that gives me pause for thought, as while it's picked up and run around the world someone might get the idea that spouting numbers and having and "International Day of the ... " is the same thing as action.

Well, it's not.