Madonna's Malawi trip in confusion over adoption

Madonna

BLANTYRE, Malawi - Officials in Malawi insisted today that pop star Madonna was going to adopt a local child but acknowledged tension with the visiting singer, who denies having chosen an orphan boy.

"Madonna's people asked us to identify 12 children aged one, and the Ministry of Women and Child Development has done (that), and what I know so far is that she identified one child yesterday," said Minister of Information Patricia Kaliati.

A spokeswoman for Madonna in the United States denied again today that the Grammy-winning recording star had adopted a child or had asked officials in Malawi to arrange an adoption for her.

The 48-year-old entertainer arrived in Malawi this week on a "fact-finding" trip as part of a charitable initiative to assist an estimated 1 million orphaned children in the impoverished southern African nation, her spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said.

"She is going to orphanages, and she is meeting a lot of children, but she hasn't adopted one," Rosenberg, a Warner Bros. Records executive, told Reuters. "She is not in the process of adopting a child as we speak. She has not selected one. She has not asked that 12 children be lined up. None of that has happened."

Rosenberg issued a similar denial yesterday following initial statements from Malawian officials that Madonna had adopted a baby boy.

Amid the conflicting accounts, Henry Chimunthu Banda, Malawi's minister of energy, mines and natural resources, said the government would say nothing more until he met the singer on behalf of the Malawian president on Friday.

"The earlier statements by government have caused some concerns from the Madonna camp in Malawi," Banda, a senior minister, told Reuters when asked about the dispute.

He did not provide further details.

Reporters in Malawi have had no access to the pop star or her entourage since they arrived on a private jet.

Madonna's trip has stoked high expectations among Malawi's poverty-stricken 13 million people, who are dependent on tobacco exports for economic survival.

Madonna has said she plans to spend at least $3 million on programmes to support orphans in Malawi and another $1 million to fund a documentary about the plight of children there.

Madonna, who is the mother of two children, yesterday travelled to a village 20km outside the capital Lilongwe, where she is funding the construction of a centre to feed and educate about 1000 orphans.

Today she and her husband, British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, visited an orphanage outside the country's business capital Blantyre, in southern Malawi. She did not talk to the press.

- REUTERS