1.   And some officials in Washington and Moscow believe members of the Russian Mafia are involved in adoption procedures there.

2.   Meanwhile, a proposed law on adoption, to be considered by Congress early next year, would create an agency to regulate and oversee adoption procedures.

3.   The new role brings a plunge into the unfamiliar waters of complicated custody laws, adoption procedures and unexpectedly raising a child on a fixed income.

4.   Government welfare department officials have indicated that the couples who bought the babies would be allowed to keep them after legal adoption procedures are completed.

5.   Other government officials want less police interference and simplified adoption procedures.

6.   Private adoptions are illegal in Britain, but about a hundred children are brought into the country each year without clearing formal adoption procedures.

7.   She said the proposal that Russia sign bilateral agreements with foreign nations to set adoption procedures may end up in a bureaucratic quagmire.

8.   Since then, the pace of adoptions has risen sharply, as foreigners have grown increasingly frustrated with strict and bureaucratic adoption procedures in their own countries.

9.   The Cambodian government has been criticized for years by human rights groups for failing to bring order to its adoption procedures.

10.   The critics specifically assailed a proposal that adoption procedures must be codified in formal agreements between Russia and each country with prospective parents.