'Madonna about to adopt a second Malawi orphan'

By Lucretia Munro - More by this author »Last updated at 00:48am on 30th August 2007

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Madonna is planning to bring a second Malawian baby to the UK despite the controversy still raging over her previous adoption.

The 49-year-old superstar has to face inspectors next month to decide whether she should be allowed to keep 22-month-old Malawian David Banda.

But despite the question mark over his future, Madonna has already chosen a 13-month-old girl called Mercy from another orphanage.

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Officials in Malawi yesterday confirmed they had given the singer the go-ahead to adopt the child from the Kondanani Orphan Care Centre.

She will have to lodge a formal application with the country's child welfare services but could bring the girl to her London home as soon as April next year.

Mercy - who has the nickname 'smiling angel' - will join David as well as Lourdes, Madonna's tenyearold daughter by her former personal trainer, and Rocco, her seven-year-old son with her British husband Guy Ritchie.

The singer is said to be overjoyed to be able to give her African son a sister from the same country 'to redress the balance'.

She hopes to have David's adoption finalised in January.

When she embarked on the process last October, Madonna was accused of cutting through red tape by offering to build a £2million orphanage instead of adhering to normal adoption laws, under which prospective parents have to live in Malawi for 18 months before they are allowed to take a child home.

But despite the controversy, the singer soon began to search for a little girl at the Kondanani orphanage in Blantyre.

She is said to have watched a video of 11 girls who were all potential candidates for adoption and spotted a three-yearold called Grace who had been at the orphanage since she was three months old.

Although she apparently set her heart on adopting Grace, the child's extended family objected.

Now she has been told she can adopt Mercy instead.