Madonna child ruling delayed until Friday

LILONGWE – A Malawian judge held a closed-door hearing yesterday on Madonna’s application to adopt a second child but delayed ruling on the matter until Friday, a court official said.

The 50-year-old pop star spent about an hour in court yesterday in the Malawi capital of Lilongwe. Court official Thomson Ligowe confirmed that Madonna’s adoption application was adjourned until Friday but said he could not reveal any more details.Yesterday’s court docket listed only the child’s name – Chifundo James, which means ‘Mercy’ in the local language.A Malawian welfare official and another person involved in the adoption proceedings say the girl is about four years old and her unmarried mother died soon after she was born. The girl’s father is believed to be alive but no other details were available. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is considered sensitive.Madonna has not commented on the adoption application and did not speak to reporters yesterday morning.The adoption of her three-year-old son, David, whom she had met at a Malawian orphanage in October 2006, was finalised last year.Madonna has come under fire from Save the Children UK charity who claim the superstar risked sending the wrong message by going through with the second adoption. It claimed adoptions from orphanages encourages poor parents ‘to abandon children in the hope that they will have a better life’.Madonna brought both David and her biological daughter Lourdes to Malawi, arriving on Sunday. David later spent two and a half hours with his biological father at an exclusive lodge where the pop star is staying.’I was very happy to see him,’ the father, Yohane Banda, told The Associated Press.David’s mother died when he was a month old. His father has said he believed he could not care for him alone, and that placing him in an orphanage was the best way to ensure David’s survival.On Sunday, Madonna and Lourdes visited the Malawi village of Chinkhota and Madonna spoke to residents and looked over drawings for a new school there.Madonna first travelled to Malawi in 2006 while doing charity work and filming a documentary on the devastating poverty and AIDS crisis here. Her Raising Malawi organisation, founded in 2006, raises funds to fight poverty by providing food, shelter, education and health care for children here.The UN estimates that half of the one million Malawian children with one or no parents was orphaned by AIDS, and that the virus that causes AIDS has infected 14 per cent of adults here. – Nampa-AP