Tears as Angelina Jolie adopts Vietnamese boy

She is a Hollywood idol, he is a three-year-old boy abandoned after birth, but their lives joined Thursday when Angelina Jolie adopted the tearful Vietnamese into the family she has formed with Brad Pitt. The Oscar-winning actor and five-year-old son Maddox, himself adopted in neighbouring Cambodia, picked up Pham Quang Sang from his orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City before a formal ceremony with Vietnamese officials.

"They tried to make friends with the Vietnamese boy, who cried when he saw them because for him, they are strangers," said Nguyen Van Trung, the director of the Tam Binh centre for orphans and abandoned children. "Jolie was very moved. Both of them tried to comfort the little boy," Trung said. She tried some Vietnamese to comfort him, repeating the phrase 'khong sao dau,' or 'no problem,' to the boy, who she plans to rename him Pax Thien -- a combination of the Latin word for peace and the Vietnamese word for heaven.

Trung said the children and female staff at the orphanage 'said farewell to Jolie and the two boys' and gave the actor flowers. It was the latest celebrity adoption of a child from the developing world after pop star Madonna and her director husband Guy Ritchie adopted a baby boy from a Malawi orphanage last October amid global controversy. Pham Quang Sang is the fourth child for Jolie and fellow film star partner Pitt, who lives with her in New Orleans but did not join her for the Vietnam visit.

Aside from Maddox, the golden couple have a two-year-old daughter, Zahara, who was adopted in Ethiopia, and a biological daughter, Shiloh, born last May in Namibia. Abandoned in a local hospital when he was a month old, Pham Quang Sang had to be soothed by an orphanage staff member who promised him a 'fun excursion,' Trung said. On Thursday morning, he said, "there was a small ceremony, announcing the decision of the chairman of the city's people's committee. Jolie then said she agreed to adopt the child."

The adoption was officially confirmed later in Ho Chi Minh City when Jolie signed the official adoption paper. "After that, she took a picture with everybody, together with the two boys. She will handle the rest of the administrative procedure with the foreign side because she is a foreigner," a senior department official said. Jolie and the two children, travelling with several bodyguards, are set to fly by private jet to the capital Hanoi to complete US adoption formalities, although the date of the trip was not clear.

An embassy spokeswoman said US immigrant visas for adoptive children from Vietname were always processed in Hanoi. She declined to comment on Jolie's adoption, saying only "we try to provide any adoptive parent with a dignified process." Pham Quang Sang now reportedly weighs 14.5 kilogrammes (39 pounds), is 93 centimetres (three feet) tall and likes noodles, yoghurt and football. He has recently learnt some basic English phrases and how to count to 10. Jolie, one of Hollywood's best known and highest paid actor, filed the adoption papers in late January through an agency as a sole parent, as she is not married to Pitt.

The couple, who acted together in the 2005 film 'Mr and Mrs Smith,' first met the boy during a Thanksgiving Day trip last November. At the time she and Pitt were pictured riding a motorcycle through the southern commercial hub. The A-list couple had been on a break from filming in India of 'A Mighty Heart,' a movie about the 2002 abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl by Islamic militants in Pakistan. Jolie -- who won an Oscar in 2000 for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 'Girl, Interrupted' -- is a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency. She has visited scores of refugee camps in Africa, Asia and South America.

Source DNAIndia