World IN BRIEF : ROMANIA : Controls Are Set Up to Halt Baby Trade

Government officials in Bucharest, Romania, centralized adoption controls to prevent baby-traders--middlemen ranging from taxi drivers to lawyers--from profiting from foreigners who seek children among Romanian orphans. A Committee for Adoption has begun screening all adoptions by both Romanian and foreign couples, an official said. Previously, adoptions were supervised by district courts. But the disclosure of the baby-trade abuses in the foreign press prompted the government to set up the new regulatory body.