Digging around

Not content to sit through the next 48 hours with no explanation why our court date is (again!) postponed, I decided to do a little snooping, I mean, research. I first checkedour agency's Yahoo! group with little success, but that was really too obvious, right? Then, I decided to check out a few of the waiting families blogs to see what insight they might have. Unfortunately, there is not much out there as far as a reason for the court delay. Now, before any of you who have played Ethel in many of my Lucy hair-brained schemes get too concerned, rest assured that Ricky is safely here at home this weekend keeping me from mailing myself to Ethiopia in some type of bongo drum. Although...no, nevermind...back to my "research". It seems that this situation is affecting not just all of the American adoption agencies in Ethiopia, but also ALL of the international agencies (out of Europe and Australia ) who process Ethiopian adoptions as well. I located a statement on the website for the Australian district of New South Wales Department of Community Services (which provides their local adoption services) that I found intriguing:

"The Australian Delegation to Ethiopia has recently returned and issued the following statement in early October 2006:
"The delegation had a successful visit to Ethiopia which included meetings with officials from all relevant government departments, including the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The delegation also met with the President of the First Instance Federal Court.
"All officials confirmed their support for the continuation of the Australian program, including the direct government to government bilateral agreement.
"Detailed discussions, particularly with Dr Bulti, provided a clearer picture of the Ethiopian Government’s policy for the overall intercountry adoption program into the future. Final policy guidelines are expected to be announced by the Ethiopian Government in the coming weeks.
"The delegation provided Dr Bulti and the other ministries with a first draft of a possible new bilateral agreement for the consideration of the Ethiopian Government prior to its consideration by the relevant Australian ministers.

Now, remember, I am no one who knows anything about what is going on with the exception of what I've read, but it seems to me that if they are still waiting for "final policy guidelines" to be announced by the Ethiopian Government for use in Australia then those same policies would apply to the US and Europe, n'est-ce pas? I'm wondering if these two things are just coincidental or if this may be at the root of our court delays and if so, then I'd love to just get the 4-1-1 on what the big deal is. It's also occured to me that there is another striking *coincidence* in the timing of our court snafu and a certain celebrity, who shall remain nameless, adoption in Africa. Hmmm...does anyone have Oliver Stone's phone number?