NAMES & FACES
Monday, October 16, 2006; Page C03
Madonna's family life got more complicated over the weekend, with the father of the Malawian child she wants to adopt saying he had not planned to give up his son for good.
Yohane Banda told a British newspaper he put young David in an orphanage after the death of his wife last year, fearing that the child was ill with malaria, which killed his two other sons.
  Madonna visiting in Malawi this month. She and her husband adopted a year-old boy. (By Shavawn Rissman -- Associated Press) |
"I suppose deep in my heart I always imagined that when he was better, or I had got another wife, I would go and take him back," Banda told the Mail on Sunday. "I did not think anyone would want to take him away."
But Banda, 31, said he had agreed to allow Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie to adopt the boy, believing it would ensure him a good education and healthy upbringing. Malawian law prohibits adoptions by nonresidents, but officials granted an exemption for the Material Girl. Human rights groups are challenging that decision and plan to seek a court injunction today.
Until recently, Banda said he had no idea the woman seeking to adopt the year-old child was a pop star. He said all he knew was that she was a "nice Christian lady."
Kidman in Kosovo
Nicole Kidman is touring Kosovo as a United Nations goodwill ambassador to the tense region.
She's in the Serbian province "to learn so that I can help your country at this crucial, crucial time for the future, to meet people, hear their stories and educate myself, and I suppose be a voice for you if you need it," Kidman said after arriving Saturday.
The tour of Kosovo is the actress's first as a goodwill ambassador of the U.N. Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM. The two-day visit comes at a sensitive time as ethnic Albanians and Serbs are negotiating the status of Kosovo, which has been run by a U.N. mission since the 1999 end of the province's separatist war against Yugoslavia.
Hi, I'm Bill, Bill Murray
Wanna be the life of the party? Show up with Bill Murray .
The 56-year-old actor had the Scottish town of St. Andrews buzzing last week after joining Scandinavian college students at a late-night house party, the Sunday Telegraph reports.
"Nobody could believe it when I arrived at the party with Bill Murray," Lykke Stavnef , a social anthropology student, was quoted as saying. "He was just like the character in 'Lost in Translation.' " The newspaper reported that Murray met Stavnef at a bar where he was drinking with fellow golfers after playing in the Oct. 5-8 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Stavnef said Murray was happy to drink vodka from a coffee cup and later helped wash dishes in the cramped kitchen.
