WASHINGTON DC — Since the Russian offensive inside Ukraine commenced on February 24, the Ukrainian military has cultivated the image of a plucky little army standing up to the Russian Goliath. To bolster the perception of Ukrainian military mettle, Kiev has churned out a steady stream of sophisticated propaganda aimed at stirring public and official support from Western countries.

The campaign includes language guides, key messages, and hundreds of propaganda posters, some of which contain fascist imagery and even praise Neo-Nazi leaders.

Behind Ukraine’s public relations effort is an army of foreign political strategists, Washington DC lobbyists, and a network of intelligence-linked media outlets.

Ukraine’s propaganda strategy earned it praise from a NATO commander who told the Washington Post, “They are really excellent in stratcom — media, info ops, and also psy-ops.” The Post ultimately conceded that “Western officials say that while they cannot independently verify much of the information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom.”

Key to the propaganda effort is an international legion of public relations firms working directly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to wage information warfare.

Abstract

The right to personal identity begins with the right to life. Therefore, the notion of individual identity and personality has been encouraged. Whenever there is question of adoption, and in particular about inter-country adoption, all the different elements that constitute the identity of the child, including not only name, nationality and family relations, but also cultural environment, must be taken into account. This chapter deals with children’s right to identity, guiding principles/policies, understanding the surrendering process, feedback from recognized adoption agencies in India and information tips for older adoptees.

A member of Congress from North Carolina has called on the Biden administration to expedite the adoption process for Ukrainian children. In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Deborah Ross urged the federal government to expand and streamline the adoption process. “We must take concrete steps to bring orphans in critical danger to safety in our country,” the Wake County Democrat wrote. “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has created a dire humanitarian crisis, leading millions of people to flee their homes,” Ross said. “However, children without families have been left behind with no means to evacuate Ukraine’s war-torn cities, making them particularly vulnerable to the resource constraints and violence rampant throughout Ukraine.” She added Russian advances could block adopted children from coming to the United States, noting that President Vladimir Putin banned American adoptions from Russia nearly a decade ago. The call for an expedited process came as Ukraine fights to halt an invasion by Russian forces. Hundreds of Ukrainian people have been killed by Russian bombs, while millions have hidden in underground shelters or fled the nation, the Associated Press reported.

In the letter, Ross urged the federal government to appeal to the Ukrainian government and gain permission for the U.S. embassy in Warsaw, Poland, to issue expedited visas for Ukrainian children already in the adoption process with U.S. families. Since the war began, more than 2 million people have fled to Poland, which borders parts of western Ukraine, according to the AP. Ross said the federal government should also work with Ukraine to allow families in the adoption process to attend court at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C., instead of in Ukraine. She added that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should work with the State Department to “streamline humanitarian parole applications in conjunction with normal visa-issuing procedures.” “To be clear, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should by no means compromise vetting standards for organizations that work with orphans or prospective parents in the interest of moving children out of Ukraine quickly,” Ross said. “I ask that the federal government maintain all necessary protocols to ensure unaccompanied children do not face trafficking, exploitation, or abuse.” The Friday letter came nearly a week after Ross shared concerns about the safety of orphans stranded by the war. “With everything going on, we really have to highlight this and show that we can make a difference in these children’s lives,” she told MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin. “There are loving families in the United States who are ready to welcome them.”

The European Adoption Consultants (EAC) is a business that was set up in 1991 by then President George H.W. Bush and Bill Barr, his Attorney General.

This agency has been caught numerous times in its 41-year history trafficking children by fooling parents in poor countries with financial incentives, like promising an education for their children abroad, and then placing them in Christian orphanages where American families will pay a high price to adopt the children.

These families willingly buy these children because in most cases they have been lied to, stating that the children were either orphans, or that their parents did not want them, when the truth was that these children were kidnapped for financial gain.

CNN actually did an investigation on the EAC in 2017, interviewing parents who had been lied to about their adopted children, and then found out from the children themselves that they had parents back in their home country who loved them. This is still up on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jeuSgtFepwE

I am certainly not a fan of CNN, nor Anderson Cooper and his known ties to the CIA, but this is undoubtedly one of the best investigative reports they have ever done, even if it was politically motivated.

Paying an official visit to Brussels Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakc? attended the 79th Türkiye-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) Meeting and held a string of meetings with high level EU Officials between 16-18 March 2022.

On the first day of the Brussels programme, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakc? held meetings with Oliver Varhelyi, EU Commission Neighborhood and Enlargement Commissioner, Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth and Nacho Sanchez Amor, the European Parliament Türkiye Rapporteur.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakc? also came together with Ylva Johansson and European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Simon Mordue, Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of the European Council Charles Michel, Themis Christophidou, European Commission Director-General for Education, Youth, Sports and Culture, Charles Fries, Deputy Secretary-General in charge of the Common Security and Defence Policy and Crisis Response,

On the last day of the programme Deputy Minister Ambassador Kaymakc? came together with Marie Arena, European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights Chair and Fernando Andresen Guimaraes, Diplomatic Advisor in the cabinet of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

The Bombay High Court said that the adopted child will take the caste of single mother and authorities cannot insist on the caste certificate of father.

The Bombay High Court has directed the administration to issue a caste certificate to the adopted son of a single mother, assigning him the same caste as her.

The woman had adopted a boy from an orphanage in the Tardeo area of Mumbai. At the time of adoption, the 5-year-old boy was called Pappu and the identity of his biological parents was not known. According to procedure, the woman had applied for registration of birth in the record of the Municipal Corporation and the certificate was issued in 2010 which showed the woman as the mother.

Since the woman was from “Hindu Mahyavanshi” caste, which is a scheduled caste, she applied for issuance of boy’s caste certificate to the deputy district collector. However, the authority, in 2016 rejected the application on the grounds that documents of the caste of the boy’s father were not submitted and so the boy was not entitled to get a caste certificate.

Aggrieved by the order, she approached the District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee in Mumbai City, which dismissed the appeal in 2017 and confirmed the order passed by the deputy district collector.

Liz Harvie was 16 years old when she discovered her name was actually Claire Watts.

Sitting on the sofa of her childhood home, on a tree-lined street in a Birmingham suburb, she had just been given a sheet of paper containing the first chapter of her life.

The document said “Claire”, a “compact baby” with a “pale complexion” and “light auburn hair”, had been born at a Northampton hospital in January 1974 and then put up for adoption.

It also included descriptions of her birth parents: Yvonne, a “neat”, “articulate” and “quite attractive” telephonist who liked swimming, reading and knitting, and Andrew, a “well-built” wireless operator who liked rugby and tropical fish.

“It was mind-blowing,” said Harvie, now 48. “I was reading about a different person born in a different part of the country. Technically, it was me.”

The Michigan Supreme Court will hear a challenge that could upend a law that allows birth parents to anonymously drop off newborns at a hospital, shelter, fire department, or other safe space.

The case deals with a complex set of facts that revolve around a couple’s troubled relationship, divorce and her decision to surrender the infant for adoption without naming her ex-husband as the father.

Much of the confusion stems from the fact that there were two separate cases dealing with the divorce and custody that proceeded simultaneously in two counties. The result was a court in Ottawa County granting custody to the ex-husband as a judge in Kalamazoo County terminated his parental rights.

That was a surprise to Peter Kruithoff, the ex-husband, who did not find out his parental rights had been terminated until after the child had been placed with a family.

“We’re all entitled to due process and having a child and raising a child is a fundamental constitutional right,” said his attorney, Michael Villar.

When I told my sister Livia, a teacher in Craiova, that I was coming home at the beginning of March, she replied that I had chosen the most unfortunate moment possible. "We have notice to vacate the cellars in the block for shelter, in case of attack. Stay there because you're fine!", she closed the conversation. She thought I was listening to her.

Three days later, we land at the airport in Otopeni, at midnight. Ioana, a neighbor, was waiting for me. "Hey, you chose when to come!", he said to me instead of "You're welcome", on the way to the parking lot.

Then, in the morning , Ioana 's mother, who lives upstairs in my Victorian house on Pia ?a Roman? , called me to the window. A gesture that dates from the time when I lived there more than twenty years ago , from the time when I was a special reporter at the National newspaper and then, at Antena 1 , for the "Prezentul Simplu" show. Usually, my upstairs neighbor made a comment about a broadcast report, or about what else she had read written by me. Now, in a whisper , he said to me, "Hey, Dana, don't you know what's going on here?"

And I knew. "Well that's why I came. Let me lend a helping hand and document what is happening. I got angry when some colleagues from the press here told me that they don't think the war is real, that the images broadcast by television are not from the scene . That they are rigged. I want to get involved.”

A few hours later, I set up with Ioana at the Help Center for Refugees at the North Station. "Just see how crowded it is," said Ioana, juggling among the cars as I closed my eyes in fear . We signed up for volunteers, they gave us a yellow jacket, and five minutes later, they sent us on our first mission. "A train with refugees is coming . Go to the platform and identify the refugees, help them with their luggage, and bringthey are here, at the Center", someone from the guard instructed us. We looked at each other and took her to the platform. "But aren't they training us?" asked Ioana, in her somewhat lazy but resonant voice. "I could see," I told him. "What would be so hard?" I answered, not believing what I was saying either.

Just 3,559 children were placed for adoption with families living in India and abroad in 2020-21

In the summer of 2019, Vinay Raj* and his wife Kanika gathered their family and friends to announce the most important decision they had made in their eight years of marriage: they were going to adopt a baby girl. They had registered on the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) website in April that year, and the home survey report was approved in a month. The couple, based in New Delhi , was told they could take the baby home in a year. The prospect of adopting a baby allayed the trauma of the miscarriage Kanika had just suffered. The couple pulled out all the stops: “We bought little blankets and baby clothes, soft toys and books,” says Vinay.

And then began the wait. It’s been three years now, and CARA has not yet referred a child to the couple. “We have almost given up hope,” says Vinay. “It has been emotionally exhausting.” To make matters worse, there has been no word from the adoption authority either. “No one picks up the phone, and when we meet them they blame the pandemic for the delay. But now they have no excuse,” he says. So interminable has been the process and so great the emotional toll that Vinay and Kanika have changed their mind about adopting a second child.

For Bhuwaneshwari Chandrashekharan, a lecturer in Kuwait, the endless wait for adoption meant putting the brakes on a promising career shift. She had registered with CARA in February 2019, and expected to wait months, not years. Two years ago, Bhuwaneshwari, who specialises in organic chemistry, applied for a Ph.D in Canada, and made plans to eventually move to that country. “But I’ve had no choice but to stay on in Kuwait; this is the address with which I have registered with CARA,” she says. The wait has been tough. “I don’t know who to turn to. I feel blindfolded,” says Bhuwaneshwari, who continues to attend pre-adoption workshops in anticipation of bringing a baby home.

Behind the numbers