Where there's war, there's Amanpour.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent and ABC News global affairs anchor, said she recalls screaming out loud when she learned of Marie Colvin's death. Colvin, a reknowned international journalist from Oyster Bay, was killed Feb. 22, 2012 during a rocket attack amid violent conflict in Homs, Syria. "When somebody like Marie Colvin has endured and survived for so long in the worst possible places ... You just don’t think this person is destructible," Amanpour said, speaking to a crowd of students, journalists, and community members on Tuesday night at the official kickoff for the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting. "I remember saying, 'This is too much ... the price is too high,'" Amanpour said. "We were just stunned and staggered."

International Adoption Rates Plummet in U.S. Just as the new year began, Russia banned American citizens from adopting its orphaned children. The adoption ban was a tit-for-tat, politically motivated move in response to the Magnitsky Act, a new U.S. law that imposes sanctions for human rights abuses in Russia. It meant instant heartbreak for hundreds of Russian orphans and the American families currently in the process of adopting them. U.S. families adopted more Russian children than any other country, about 60,000 since the late 1990s.

Russia’s adoption ban puts a further dent in the number of international adoptions overall in the United States. Since 1999, Americans have adopted more than 233,934 children, mostly from China, Ethiopia and Russia – an average of 17,995 children per year. International adoption reached a high in 2004, when 22,991 adoptions were processed. The numbers have fallen precipitously since then. In 2011, only 9,319 children found new homes with American families. Worldwide, adoptions of children from another country have also fallen after reaching highs in the last decade.

The drop in adoptions is the result of tighter restrictions in countries such as China and South Korea. China, for example, imposed a host of regulations in 2006, including barring adoptions by prospective parents who are obese, disfigured or on antidepressant medication.

The State Department has also stopped processing adoptions from several countries, including Guatemala, Vietnam and Cambodia, where there were allegations of fraud, corruption and baby-selling.

For all the children who are adopted worldwide, the spotlight shines most brightly on the outlier cases. High-profile celebrities, including Angelina Jolie and Madonna, have adopted children from overseas. There was also the controversial case of 7-year-old Artem Saveliev. Citing his violent behavior, his adoptive American mother, Torry Hansen of Shelbyville, Tenn., sent him back to Moscow, alone.

Global Gay Rights, from Marriage to the Death Penalty A lawmaker called it “a Christmas gift to the people.”

But the proposed law late last year in the East African nation of Uganda was not a reprieve on taxes or better social services. It would add harsher punishments for convicted homosexuals, even up to a life sentence in prison.

Uganda’s treatment of homosexuals is one end of a wide range of approaches to gay rights around the world. Even as several U.S. states recently voted on same-sex unions, and the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in two different cases, rights for the LGBT community differ from country to country, from full recognition of same-sex marriages, even up to the death penalty for homosexual acts. As gay rights supporters push for more acceptance, the issue is increasingly being framed worldwide as one of fundamental human rights.

The Netherlands was the first country to recognize gay marriage about a dozen years ago, and now 12 countries, mostly in the developed world, recognize same-sex unions. But a significant portion of the globe, mostly in the Muslim world and Africa, considers homosexuals as criminals, sentencing them to prison and even capital punishment. In many countries, even where the law is unclear, members of the gay community are subject to enormous societal pressure. They are ostracized, bullied and sometimes physically attacked.

Russia has recently seen an uptick in attacks against gay people, since nine regions of the country have banned the promotion of “homosexual propaganda” among minors. Using that law, conservative activists even tried to sue Madonna after her summer concert, but a St. Petersburg court threw out the case.

Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda and the pending anti-gay bill is broadly popular among citizens and legislators. The country’s parliament was set to vote on the bill around the holidays but will likely take another look early this year. World leaders have denounced the proposal. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu likened the law to apartheid in an open letter to Ugandan lawmakers.

U.S. leaders have recently been more outspoken on the issue of gay rights. In an exclusive interview with ABC News in May 2012, President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. In late 2011, during remarks in recognition of International Human Rights Day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct; but, in fact, they are one and the same.”

From Graphics to the Gulf War: Christiane Amanpour Reveals Her First Big Break While our mediabistroTV crew is busy putting the finishing touches on next week’s “My First Big Break” we thought we’d give you a little preview of what you can expect.

Christiane Amanpour tells mediabistroTV how her journey from Tehran during the revolution and first TV job as a graphics coordinator for WJAR in Providence, RI came together to lead her to the early days of CNN and finally to her role of global affairs anchor for ABC News.

Exclusive Preview of Christiane Amanpour’s Personal Journey – ‘Back to the Beginning’ This week on “Around the World,” we have an exclusive sneak preview of Christiane Amanpour’s very personal journey for her two-part ABC News special, “Back to the Beginning.”

It’s a journey back in time to explore the history and the mysteries of some of the oldest stories ever told: those of Abraham and Moses, King David and Jesus. As she visits the great sites common to the three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, she brought along her 12-year-old son, Darius. With a Muslim grandfather, Christian grandmother and Jewish father, these three religious traditions come together in him.

As they explore the ancient stories, Christiane and her son embark on an experience that takes them from the remotest corners of Turkey through the Middle East and even to the American heartland.