Women Affairs

The Malawi Government has applauded pop diva Madonna's efforts to put the plight of the country's Aids orphans on the global stage and raising money to support them. The American singer pledged last week to work with luxury goods maker Gucci to raise at least US$2 million ($2.68) million for Malawi's orphans - numbering more than a million. Madonna and the Italian firm will host a fundraising event with dinner, musical performance and a party in February to mark the opening of Gucci's largest store in the world, on New York's Fifth Avenue. Malawi's Information Minister, Patricia Kaliati, said: "What she is doing for the orphans of this country, very few superstars like her can do that - she has managed to raise their plight on the world stage. "Madonna has built clinics in rural areas where the government has failed to reach. Because of that, she has saved many lives of pregnant mothers who could have died." The bid by the pop star and her movie d...

Angelina Jolie's adoption of an Ethiopian baby was legal, the agency involved said today, rejecting reports that the child's relatives want her back. Newspapers have reported this week that relatives of two-year-old Zahara, including a woman who says she is her birth mother, want the child returned to Ethiopia. Jolie adopted Zahara in July, 2005. "The court in Addis Ababa approved the adoption after studying the document her grandmother wrote ... saying her daughter, the mother of Zahara, had died and she was too poor to bring her up," Tsegaye Berhe, the head of Wide Horizons for Children, which conducted the adoption, told Reuters. "The grandmother brought three witnesses to court who testified that Zahara's mother had died and that her father was unknown ... The court also investigated the social status of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt before approving the adoption." Tsegaye said the adoption was "legal and irrevocable", and he blamed reporter...

US pop star Madonna's attempts to adopt a Malawian child hit a snag after the court-appointed official on the case was refused permission to travel to Britain. One of Malawi's leading weeklies reported today that the Minister of Women and Child Development Kate Kainja refused to allow Penstone Kilembe to travel to asses the suitability of Madonna and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie. The minister was not immediately available for comment but Kilembe confirmed the minister had stopped him making the trip. Madonna took David Banda last October when he was 13 months old after his father Yohane Banda had placed him in an orphanage following the death of his wife. The High Court of Malawi appointed Kilembe to travel to Britain twice and was to have relied on his testimony in ruling whether Madonna should adopt the child in a hearing next year. The Malawi News newspaper reported that the minister accused Kilembe of obtaining an air ticket and money from Madonna without governme...