Since the Africa blog is temporarily without someone attending full time, I'm paying even closer attention to issues of the continent that pertain to children in general and to adoption specifically.

This story stands out this morning. Titled, "Africa: Poverty Can Separate A Child From Family", reflects on the condition and plight of African Children as seen by Halifa Sallah, a Gambian opposition politician and sociologist.

During this year's commemoration of the Soweto massacre of school children in 1976, Halifa spoke on the roll of families and communities in protecting children from trafficking.

An interesting article that combines history, fable and reality, this is most certainly worth a read for anyone with children's issues or Africa at heart.

International adoption specifics for South Africa can be found here. For Gambia, here.

News from Kenya includes this about the World Bank giving the country $80 million to fight AIDS.

"We are determined that the support should reach the 5 million people in Kenya -- especially orphans and young women -- who are directly and indirectly affected," Colin Bruce, World Bank country director for Kenya.

We'll see how this works out.

Adoption information for Kenya is here.

In Mozambique, Laura Bush has announced that the US will be giving $507 million to build roads and fight malaria ... a killer of about 150 people in the country every day.

The money is to come from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a division of USAID.

A look at international adoption and Mozambique and be found here.

And speaking of money, it's not worth much in Zimbabwe these days, and losing value so fast that the ink must cost more than the bills' value.

It's so bad now that the people are moving back to the ancient tradition of bartering for goods and services.

The country's inflation rate is said to be somewhere around 20,000 percent, and expected to reach 1.5 million percent by the end of the year. Even the smallest shopping trip has locals toting suitcases and garbage bags stuffed full of cash ... a must when a bar of soap costs $270,000 Zim dollars which yesterday was equal to US$ 0.67, and today is most certainly worth less.

No one wants the money anymore. Even landlords have begun asking for rent to be paid in fuel or other things that have real value.

This is a country on the slide.

For a disturbing look at how and why Zimbabwe is being helped into the toilet by other African nations, take a look at story from the CSM from a while back.

There will be hell to pay in that part of the world, and you can bet the children of Zimbabwe will be paying the highest price.

The US State Department look at international adoption regarding children from Zimbabwe is here.