With the weekend behind me, it's time to catch up with all the bits of news that I have collected and to pass the information along.

Starting with a brief report from Nepal on discussions coming up today on provisions regarding adoption.

It is said that today's meeting will be to acquire information, and that to date the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare has given approval to foreign nationals of 17 countries to take 1,800 children for adoption.

We'll see what new information comes this week.

China is announcing plans to address the gender difference in their country by drafting laws that will set specific punishments for parents and doctors who abort female fetuses.

Great. Another command. My prediction? More female infanticide.

As long as girls have less value than boys, boys will be preferred and girls will be killed. SImple as that.

Yes, they are most certainly facing a serious problem of not enough wives for the grown sons of China -- a problem the government exacerbated significantly when they made One Child the law of the land -- but this is not a fix.

If parents aren't able to abort girls for fear of punishment ... abortions usually involving more people, so therefore likely to be discovered ... quiet murder will substitute. It's a much easier crime to hide.

Education and work toward an sexually equitable society are the only things that will eventually make a difference.

After writing yesterday about domestic adoptions in India, this story about the same in Nigeria deserves a mention.

Apparently fifty Nigerian families have expressed an interest in adoption children from one orphanage ... more children than the orphanage houses.

The nun in charge "expressed happiness at the low rate of child abandonment in Plateau and encouraged women to keep their babies."

There was an interesting article in the Sunday Times on transracial adoption, for those who like to keep on top of what's being spoken about in the media.

And this on open adoption from New Zealand gives a good look at the practice there and encourages other families in that direction.

And this out of Israel to Rwanda by way of Manhattan and Ethiopia is a great story of making a difference for the positive.