As usual for a Monday, there's loads of reading to be done on many different international adoption-related topics for anyone interesting in keeping abreast of the latest.

Starting with Vietnam, if you have not yet seen the most recent announcement put out by the US Embassy's adopted children immigrant visa unit, the link is here.

Explaining the present situation as the US sees it and going into some detail on the process of denying a petition, this is pretty gloomy material.

Continuing with countries taking hits for corruption, this story from the Chicago Tribune talks in the usual language about Guatemala, mentioning "a well-organized lobby of pro-adoption groups in the U.S".

Hmmmm. Well organized? As opposed to UNICEF well organized? I don't think so, but perhaps the letter-writing campaign and petition were instigated by another huge multinational, billion-dollar-funded group we just don't know about ... ?

Anyway, it looks like our very own Guatemala blogger, Lisa was quoted, sort of, in the piece, so apparently whoever put the story together does know how to use Google.

And speaking of UNICEF, here's a story of more unhelpful blah, blah from them, this time in Kenya.

The have "launched a campaign to encourage incoming MPs to build on the successes of the Ninth Parliament in tackling children’s issues" that will be about as helpful as it was for the eight parliaments before.

Before the 2002 General Election, the UN children’s agency was involved a similar campaign in which aspiring MPs committed themselves to doing something about the growing number of orphans and other vulnerable children.

And we all know what a great amount of change has happened since then ... about zilch. Okay, there have been Acts passed, the Hague has been ratified, free primary education ... of a very low standard, it must be said ... has been introduced and some free heathcare, but in the big picture the state of Kenyan children has become more dire over the past two decades, not less.

As it stands now, almost 40,000 Kenyan babies die in the first month of life and one out of nine never sees five years, and of those who do on-third have not reached anywhere near their mental and physical potential because of poor nutrition.

For a look at the reality for some of the luckier kids in Kenya, check out this story from the country's Standard news organization about one women who has taken in a number of children that were not welcome anyplace else.

Still in Africa, here's a piece about an Australian couple starting up a university for orphans in Uganda.

Some people really know how to grab a bull by the horns.