Jolie completes adoption signing

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By Dominic Whiting

HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) - Actress Angelina Jolie completed procedures with Vietnamese authorities on Thursday to adopt a boy from a Ho Chi Minh City orphanage.

Officials said the boy had been renamed Pax Thien Jolie and the adoption would be final once U.S. consular and embassy officials give approval.

The boy had been registered as Pham Quang Sang at the Tam Binh orphanage in the city, Vietnam’s largest urban area with 8 million people.

Jolie and the child were driven by car from the orphanage to the nine-storey Justice Department building in the city centre to sign adoption documents. Jolie’s car was seen leaving the underground parking area 30 minutes later.

"It is lucky for him. It’s wonderful to be adopted by someone really famous. You can have a good life," said Nguyen Thi Thuong, 39, who was at the office with her British husband to register their child’s birth certificate.

The boy adopted by Jolie is aged between 3 and 4. She has three other children -- an adoptive son and daughter and a biological daughter with actor and partner Brad Pitt.

Jolie flew into Ho Chi Minh City late on Wednesday from Japan on a chartered plane, accompanied by her son and daughters.

The boy, described by adoption authorities as healthy, had been abandoned at a local hospital .....continued below

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Senior officials said Jolie’s adoption had been speeded up, partly due to her celebrity status.

The actress, 31, filed adoption papers in early March through an unidentified American agency without Pitt. Under Vietnamese law, a single person may adopt a child but an unmarried couple may not.

In Vietnam, adoptions can take as little as one month if background checks are quickly completed along with confirmation the adopting family can support a child. The process can drag on for six months or more.

Jolie and Pitt visited Ho Chi Minh City last November and met children at the orphanage.

The couple say they have no plans to marry but are committed to raising their children together. Their biological daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, was born last year. Jolie adopted Maddox from Cambodia and Zahara from Ethiopia before her relationship with Pitt, who has now become their adoptive father.

The couple starred in the 2005 movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". They are also working together on the film "A Mighty Heart" about the killing of a U.S. journalist by Pakistani militants.

Jolie won an Oscar in 1999 for best supporting actress in "Girl, Interrupted". She starred in the 2001 movie "Tomb Raider" which was filmed in Cambodia, neighbouring Vietnam.