Danish-born actress and filmmaker Dina Rosenmeier attempts to square her mother Jessie’s seemingly obsessive need to aid the world’s underprivileged children — while regularly leaving her own six kids back home — in the stirring, if inconclusive documentary “A Journey in My Mother’s Footsteps.”

Jessie Rosenmeier, 75 when this film was made, is dubbed here “The Mother Teresa of Modern Times” for her four-decade devotion to the welfare and international adoption of children in such countries as Kenya, Haiti, Korea and, especially, India. Dina travels across the last, revisiting the orphanages and foundations in Kolkata, Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai where Jessie made her mark. En route, the writer-director explores her prospects for motherhood and even a potential adoption, which furthers her understanding of Jessie’s humanitarian impulses.

Jessie, who joins Dina on-camera in Mumbai, explains how her passion for helping the destitute began after her third child died at birth, which connects at least a few dots. But the deeper implications — Jessie’s desire for escape, her volunteerism’s true emotional and financial toll on her family — are largely skirted here, even throughout Dina’s various chats with her supportive father.

That none of Dina’s siblings is interviewed here about their extraordinary mother may speak volumes.

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November 10, 2011 1:11 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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From: Arun Dohle

Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 at 5:19 AM

Subject: ISS Black Germans: Die Kinder weisser Mütter und schwarzer GIs in Deutschland versammelten sich als Erwachsene erstmals in den USA (WOZ, Thema)

To: Roelie

Minister pledges to get to the bottom of allegations that adoption officials have been effectively selling off babies for large fees.

Macedonian officials have ordered an investigation of the country’s adoption agency, following last week’s dramatic sacking of the entire national commission in charge of adoption, a source from the Ministry of Social Affairs said.

The same source told Balkan Insight that preliminary findings had boosted suspicions that adoption officials “may have been stripping babies of their identities and selling them to rich couples for a fat fee”.

Last Friday, the Minister of Social Affairs, Spiro Ristovski, replaced all 15 members of the commission for adoption. He then offered no explanation for the act and said only that all ongoing adoptions had been stopped.

He has not since specified what is going on, but, tellingly, said that the ministry would be “ruthless” towards possible wrongdoers.

Kortgeding: Brandpunt over adopties uit Ethiopië

Posted on januari 5, 2011 by eremelamela

Zondag, 9 januari besteedt het Nederlandse actualiteitenprogramma Brandpunt (KRO) een uitzending over adopties uit Ethiopië.

“Naast een algemeen beeld zal vermoedelijk één bemiddeling worden uitgediept. Het betreft de case van twee meisjes, waarvan adoptieouders en biologische ouders volledig toestemming hebben verleend aan de adoptie en ook elkaar in Ethiopië hebben ontmoet, maar waar in de rechtbank uitspraak staat dat de biologische ouders zijn overleden.” (c) Wereldkinderen

Zondag, 9 januari, Nederland 2, KRO, 22.15 Brandpunt

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A man accused in the death of his infant son in Iowa City denies he ever hurt the boy.

Brian Dykstra is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his son, Isaac, in 2005. The Gazette in Cedar Rapids reports Dykstra took the stand on Tuesday and told the jury “absolutely not” when asked if he ever “beat up” the child, who was adopted from Russia.

Dykstra says Isaac fell down two stairs three days before he was rushed to the hospital on Aug. 13, 2005. Dykstra described a knot on his son’s head, and said it turned soft. He also described a slow change in behavior and said he wished they would have taken him to the hospital after the fall.

Your father abandoned your mother... who should have aborted you’