Here are some news stories that I am reading now.

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BIRD FLU

H5N1 - Avian Influenza in Ukraine for the Third Time in June in Sumy. In December 2005 it showed up in Kherson.

And now it is the Crimea. Really bad news for the chicken farmers. Russia has... more

Yesterday's great news is that people are getting their appointment letters. There are many families (around 50?) who know an older child (hosting or met at an orphanage during their first adoption) and are adopting them. The SDA is giving these familiies priority which is why they are getting appointment letters first.

The first few families to get the appointment letters had to pay about $50. SDA sent them COD. However UPS seems to be billing... more

Picture source: pdphoto PAINTBALL

I love this story; Ukraine in sights of paintball group. It starts off with:

You don't see too many grandmothers playing a rollicking game of paintball. But you've never seen Marci Anderson, a 44-year-old grandmother from Clancy.

"I started that about five years... more

Continuing about this inspiration story of special needs adoptions by Ukrainian citizen Svetlana Bondareva. She started adopting children when she was 20 yeasr old. In 2001 she had adopted 15 children. Even though this article doesn't mention it, I am almost 100% certain that she also adopted black children.

Her attitude toward adoption secrecy seems to still be typical. Most Ukrainian families adopt babies so that they can hide the adoption.

What I found interesting is the older children's... more

Continuing about this inspiration story of special needs adoption by Ukrainian citizen Svetlana Bondareva. Her life experiences build empathy in her and she started adopting children at 20 years of age.

When Bondareva was 12, her father, grandfather and two grandmothers died within a few months of one another, leaving her alone with her mother.

"I felt it very acutely. I thought, 'How can other children live without any parents?' I decided when I grew up I would take in orphans," she said.

So at 14, she began collecting addresses of orphanages.... more

When I read this story in 2001, it inspired me. A single Ukrainian woman, Svetlana Bondareva, adopted 15 children. Her mother supported her decision, but most other people (including Ukrainian government officials) didn't.

I have no plans to adopt 15 children. I have never felt called to have a large family. (I am hoping to parent 2 or 3 children. Right now I just have 1 child.) But I love reading these types of stories.

Sveta [adopted at 8 years of age] is now 17. She is mobile with the help of artificial limbs. She loves to read novels... more

I remember reading this news story in 2001 and I just stumbled across it again. It is a wonderful story because it so clearly expresses many different issues.

Why are children in Ukrainian orphanages? Plight of disabled children Secrecy in domestic Ukrainian adoption Large adoptive families are rare in Ukraine Ukraine foster care vs adoption

November 2001

Svetlana Bondareva adopted 15 orphans. Six of them are disabled.

When she was 8, the girl's future... more

I ran into a couple of nice adoption news stories recently. I found the first one thanks to a poster on FRUA chat board.

It is about a domestic Ukrainian adoption that should happen in August. And it fits with what the SDA has been saying about timeline.

1996 Olympic all-around champion Lilia Podkopayeva of Ukraine says her upcoming agenda includes adopting a child in August

.............

Podkopayeva said she and her husband, Timofey Nagorny, are looking forward to adopting a 7-month-old... more

H5N1 has been found in a small village in the Sumy Oblast. This is near the Ukrainian/Russian border, so you can believe the Russians are paying close attention. The village of Pisky is small (about 500 households) and isolated. So I bet folks are thinking the chickens/turkeys got H5N1 from wild birds.

On June 12

An operational group of the Emergencies ministry..... [arrived] as soon as the information on the epidemic was received

From: All domesticated fowl in Pisky to be... more

Here is what I am reading about Ukraine right now.....

I have been following the Crimean protests against NATO (U.S.-Ukrainian military exercise). But I hadn't realized that President Bush was going to visit Ukraine until the visit was canceled.

President George W. Bush’s June 13 visit to Baghdad may have been the top of the news, but his cancelled visit to Kiev, Ukraine, only made the inside pages. The Kiev “postponement,” announced June... more