Sunday newspaper

September 30, 2019

"Intelligent, dynamic, warm, authentic, persuasive..." From the appointment of Jacques Chirac , just elected MP for Corrèze, as Pompidou's Secretary of State for Employment in April 1967, American diplomats posted in Paris never stopped no praise for this young 34-year-old "athletic-looking" enarque. According to them, he has a "taste for adventure", since he spent a summer as a waiter in Boston in 1953, before criss-crossing the United States as the driver of the widow of a Texan billionaire. Above all, he has to his credit "close ties with the Prime Minister which enabled him to be elected to the Assembly and the aura of success that surrounds him".

Invited with other Gaullist leaders to the United States Embassy on October 16, 1967, Jacques Chirac impresses his interlocutors because he evokes his trips across the Atlantic and his short aborted romance with a fiancée from South Carolina: "He seems to be as American – and not just pro-American – as many Americans,” enthuses Ambassador Charles Bohlen. Chirac was "the revelation of lunch"!

Chirac, an "Americanophile" Gaullist

After Zambian authorities arrested four Croatian couples on suspicion of child trafficking in early December, the issue of cross-border adoption raised many questions.

On this occasion, an international conference of the conservative foundation New Direction took place in Zagreb. The host of the conference, Croatian MEP Ladislav Il?i?, advocated suspending adoptions from countries that have not signed the Convention on the Prevention of Trafficking in Children.

Ladislav Il?i?, Member of the European Parliament, explained in an interview:

"In general, we aim for better cooperation and a better exchange of experiences, and this conference can be very helpful in that regard. In addition, these intermediaries and agencies need to be better monitored to see who is involved in the adoption process. And yes, we want a temporary or even permanent suspension of adoptions from countries that have not signed the Hague Conventions; in other words, countries where child trafficking has taken place."

"In general, human trafficking - and child trafficking in particular - is regulated by various European and global agreements. Unfortunately, in this tragic case, Croatia has to ask itself what it has done and what it will do in the future to prevent illegal adoption," he said Dubravka Hrabar from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb.

Urteil im Prozess

Pforzheimer CDU-Stadträtin Oana Krichbaum diffamiert: Freiheitsstrafe für Angeklagte

Die Pforzheimer Stadträtin Oana Krichbaum wurde in den sozialen Medien und in Mails mehrfach des illegalen Kinderhandels bezichtigt. Nun erhielt die Angeklagte eine Freiheitsstrafe.

Gunther und Oana Krichbaum als Delegierte beim Bundesparteitag der CDU in Hannover

Nebenkläger: Oana und Gunter Krichbaum sahen sich auf Facebook bösen Behauptungen ausgesetzt. Foto: Oana Krichbaum

The newborn was rescued from the drain by a couple—Shivaji and Jayashree Ragade—on December 30, 2018. Till the time of his adoption, the Ragade couple looked after all his requirements

Ambernath: Tiger, now four-year-old, who was abandoned in a drain in Ambernath hours after his birth, on Friday got a new home and set of parents after he was adopted by an Italian couple.

The couple visited Vishwa Balak Kendra in Nerul and flew back with Tiger.

The newborn was rescued from the drain by a couple—Shivaji and Jayashree Ragade—on December 30, 2018. Till the time of his adoption, the Ragade couple looked after all his requirements.

“After an eight-month-long process Tiger finally got his parents. It is not that we did not try to adopt him, but one cannot adopt a child by choice. Hence, we had to wait for another family to adopt him and look after his future,” Ragade said.

Born on July 12, 1948, in Galati. Graduated from the Faculty of Sociology in Bucharest. Scientific researcher at the Institute of Studies and Research for Economic Forecasting and assistant at the University of Bucharest. Doctorate in philosophy, in 1977, at the same university. He collaborated in various newspapers and magazines.

In 1976, he was co-opted into the external intelligence service (DIE, later CIE) of the State Security Department, advancing to the rank of major. Initially, it was assigned to the Political-Economic Division, the service for North America (V 2).

He was promoted to head of office, then head of the operative service for the USA/Canada and head of the Western Europe service, the Germany, Austria, Switzerland space group.

He was involved in informative-operative activities in the political-economic field, under the diplomatic cover of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the USA, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark and in addition to UN international bodies.

In January 1989, while he was on a temporary mission in Vienna, under the guise of a counselor, he decided not to return to Romania and requested political asylum in the USA. He was the last major defector from the Bucharest spy service before the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu's communist dictatorship.

For more than 25 years, yes, I repeat, for more than 25 years, the rulers of Romania, be they from the Ceausescu or post-Ceausescu era, have been faced in international relations with a problem that directly affects the interests and public image of the Romanian state: the problem institutionalized children .

The common denominator for the persistence with which the international community refuses to remove this topic from the political and moral agenda is, above all, the still unsatisfactory situation of the living conditions of these children. Starting with the animal kingdom and ending with what we call a civilized human society, the way in which the mentioned communities relate to the protection of their own offspring is customarily constituted as the supreme criterion that delimits "normality" from the state of "degeneration".

Case Study

For reasons that are not exclusively of a financial-economic nature, and which should invite the Romanian intellectual elites to a serious reflection, the problem of institutionalized children and especially of international adoptions continues to be the subject of a political ping-pong in the country's international relations. A more careful analysis of the causes of this persistence can be, paradoxically, a real barometer of the general political strategy itself and especially of the foreign policy carried out by the current rulers. In this sense, the latest polemical "developments", on the edge of a barely disguised diplomatic conflict, between Bucharest and Washington represent an interesting "case study" intended to demonstrate the consistency of the above statement.

Before embarking on this foray, as one who has addressed this tragic topic several times both informally and in the mass media, I feel the need to specify from the very beginning that naturally "the place of institutionalized children was and it must be in Romania". The tradition of the Romanian people has always been that, regardless of the size of the resources, "parents should go out of their way to ensure their children maximum comfort and physical and mental well-being". How much was affected in the last 50 years the moral fiber of the Romanian to reach the situation where not the orphans, but the children abandoned by their own parents and including their relatives to "produce" today's amazing share of this category per the total number of institutionalized children, by the gravity of the social implications, it far exceeds the dimension of misery and poverty circulated as the only explanatory factor. Add to this situation the lack of social solidarity and the ignominy of the ruling political class and you will have in the mirror of 2004 a hideous image of the "actual state of the nation" in which the rulers continue to give priority, it is fair, peripheral, only to the effects and not to the causes what is proliferating this compromising phenomenon for the entire country. The great dilemma in terms of decision-making was and continues to be the critical threshold where, seriously considering the number one priority, namely "protecting the fundamental interest of the child", in the absence to a satisfactory national solution, one must resort to others, of higher quality, such as international adoptions.

HARRISBURG - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced today that Shelley Noreika, age 49, of Dillsburg, PA, was sentenced to 30 months’ incarceration by United States District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo for making False Statements Relating to Health Care Matters.

According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, Noreika fabricated serious illnesses and made fraudulent statements to healthcare providers in connection with her 5-year-old adoptive daughter. As result of Noreika’s false statements, the minor child was subjected to unnecessary medical treatment and the downstream insurers incurred monetary losses in the six-figures. In particular, and as admitted by Noreika to federal investigators, Noreika told her daughter to pretend and fake having a seizure while Noreika videotaped her. Noreika then emailed the video clip of the fake seizure to her daughter’s pediatric neurologist, along with false statements concerning the minor child’s medical condition. On multiple other occasions, Noreika likewise falsely reported to medical providers that her daughter experienced seizures, when in fact no such seizures occurred. In fact, at no point did Noreika ever witness her daughter have an actual seizure.

As recognized by both the government and defense, Noreika’s conduct is consistent with factitious disorder imposed on another, formerly known as munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental illness in which a caregiver makes up or causes an illness or injury to a person under their care, to gain attention and sympathy for themselves. However, the government pointed out to the Court there was also a clear financial motive – Noreika received enhanced Medicare and adoption subsidiaries for taking care of a medically ill child, and she promoted the minor child’s purported conditions to seek donations from local organizations and through online fundraising efforts.

“Today’s sentencing sends a strong message that protecting children is a top priority,” said Special Agent in Charge Maureen R. Dixon of the Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) Philadelphia Regional Office. “HHS-OIG will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to thoroughly investigate allegations of abuse against children and ensure claims submitted to federal and state programs by caregivers are truthful and accurate. We would like to thank the Pennsylvania State Police and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their partnership and commitment in this investigation.”

In addition to the 30-month prison sentence, the Court ordered Shelley Noreika to serve three years of supervised release following incarceration, and to pay a fine of $500 and restitution of $137,710.86 to the victims of the offense. Noreika is no longer in care of the minor child, and she also faces related state charges which are pending.

More than a decade after Cambodia banned inter-country adoption over human trafficking and corruption allegations, Italy is inching closer to resuming the practice amidst widespread concerns about lack of adequate child protection measures

WRITTEN BY:

avatar-Beatrice Siviero

BEATRICE SIVIERO

Follow

Unforgettable moment for Maria Paola. For the very first time in 37 years, she met her biological mother. “I dropped all my bags to hug her.” Maria Paola was only a few days old when she flew from Guatemala to Belgium. She was received at Zaventem airport by her adoptive parents and her brother. She spent all her childhood in Belgium, but as a young woman she began to question her identity. That's why she went looking for who she was. She flew to Guatemala to consult the local database and came up with something surprising.

“According to the state, I never left Guatemala and I was not adopted at all,” says Maria Paola. "I have my doubts about how the adoption came about, but I have no idea about the extent of the smuggling and the falsification of documents."

She did not stop there and continued to look for her biological family. She found out with a DNA test that she has a half-sister with the same mother. This is how she first came into contact with her biological mother via FaceTime. "She saw me on the screen and she knew I was her daughter." When she meets her mother, Maria Paola has no more questions about who she is.

Billionaire Benjamin Steinmetz, the owner of two iron and gold mining companies in the Balkans, who is wanted by anti-graft prosecutors in Romania, has been arrested in Israel for alleged money laundering.

Israeli billionaire Benjamin Steinmetz, who has strong business ties to the Balkans, was detained for questioning alongside three other businessmen on Monday for allegedly using fake contracts to move and launder money in connection with an iron-mining operation in Guinea.

The homes and offices of some of the men were raided by law enforcement officers on Monday morning, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

One of Steinmetz’s associates, political advisor Tal Silberstein, who was close to former Romanian president Traian Basescu, former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and former Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, is also among the detained businessmen, according to Israeli media.

Silberstein has also advised politicians in Austria.