One bit of adoption news this week, though not the accreditation news we are all waiting to see. A former office manager and bookkeeper for the Florence Crittenton League Adoption Agency is facing federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges after allegedly stealing more than $600,000 from the agency. The Lowell, Mass.-based agency, which handled adoptions in Russia, Guatemala and China, said in a statement that the theft was uncovered in April 2006 and that it "in no way, shape or form" affected any adoptions it had handled. Florence Crittenton is currently awaiting re-accreditation by Russia. This was the second problem at an adoption agency reported this week. As I told you on Thursday, Children's Hope International is dealing with forged documents involving adoptions from Russia.

In Russia, officials are dealing with a massive oil spill that occurred during a storm on the Black Sea on Sunday. A report in The Christian Science Monitor says that at least 560,000 gallons of fuel oil were dumped in the Strait of Kerch, which empties in to the sea. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has called for an investigation into why several vessels, including a Russian oil tanker not certified to operate on the open seas, went into the strait despite heavy weather warnings. Three bodies have been recovered, five men are missing, and the Monitor says that up to 30,000 birds have died. Environmental groups are blaming the spill on lax safety standards in Russia.

The Associated Press is reporting that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is dropping plans to monitor Russia's December 2 elections because Russian officials won't issue its workers' visas in time. The OSCE had previously protested that Russia had cut the number of election monitors it would be allowed to send to just 70 to cover the entire country. The OSCE sent 400 observers to tiny Belarus to monitor the 2006 elections there. Russia's top election official is denying that he has refused the visas and said they were waiting in Warsaw. The OSCE is based in Vienna.

Reuters is quoting Russian news agencies as saying that a Russian deputy finance minister may be charged with embezzling state funds. Sergei Storchak and two individuals identified as the general director of Sodexim Zakharov and the president of Volkov bank were detained by police this week. Reuters says that Storchak is a close associate of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. The Associated Press said he is well-known in Western circles for having been the lead negotiator on the rescheduling of Soviet-era debt with international finance organizations.

On Thursday, Russia withdrew the last of its troops from the Republic of Georgia, ending more than two centuries of Russian military presence there. Russia had promised to withdraw all its troops by 2008. The Voice of America said Russia will continue to main peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are trying to break away from Georgia.

Police in the southern Russian city of Penza are negotiating with a doomsday cult that has barricaded itself inside a cave. The BBC said the group calls itself the "True Russian Orthodox Church" and that it expects the world to end next May. The group's leader, Pyotr Kuznetsov, is in police custody undergoing psychiatric tests.

And finally, a Russian woman gave birth to quintuplets at a British hospital on Thursday. According to Reuters, she had come to England for the delivery after Russian doctors had suggested she abort some of the fetuses. Hospital officials said the babies, all girls, are healthy. The BBC caught some flak over the birth though after it was revealed it had added a soundtrack of babies crying to a video report on the birth. The news footage released by the hospital had had no soundtrack.

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