text:
Lee, southeast London. A young girl has disappeared. There are no witnesses, no leads, no clues. The police are tracking a shadow, and time is running out …The book comes adorned with some rather fine blurbs from Ken Bruen and Cathi Unsworth, who between them manage to reference AM Homes, Ann Tyler, Nicci French and Sophie Hannah. For all the details, clickety-click here …
DI Ellen Kelly is at the top of her game – at least she was, until she took the law into her own hands and confronted her husband's killer. Now she's back at work, leading the investigation into the missing child. Her superiors are watching her; the distraught family is depending on her.
Ellen has a lot to prove. And she knows it.
A tense thriller that stalks the urban streets of southeast London and the bleak wilderness of the North Kent coast, Hunting Shadows introduces the forceful, compromised police detective, DI Ellen Kelly.
Praise for Declan Burke: "Burke shows again that he's not just a comic genius, but also a fine dramatic writer and storyteller." – Booklist. "Proust meets Chandler over a pint of Guinness." – Spectator. "Among the most memorable books of the year, of any genre." – Sunday Times. "A hardboiled delight." – Guardian. "Imagine Donald Westlake and Richard Stark collaborating on a screwball noir." – Kirkus Reviews. "A cross between Raymond Chandler and Flann O'Brien." – John Banville.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Trumpets Please, Maestro
They Write Wrongs
Have you ever considered where you might hide a body? Thought about being the gumshoe who follows clues to find a killer? Daydreamed on a Monday morning where you might like to retire with the proceeds of ill gotten gains? If so, join author and publisher, Arlene Hunt, to explore the underlying themes of crime fiction. Focusing on characters, plot development, story arcs and mystery, we will dissect our story with gory relish. We will explore intent and red herrings, create tension; and ultimately unmask our villain.The course takes place from July 29th to August 2nd. For all the details, clickety-click here …
This is a writing-heavy, intensive course that deals with the complicated business of crime fiction. Over five days we are going to develop and craft a functional crime fiction novella to be read on the final day.
Not for the faint hearted!
Friday, July 26, 2013
A Horse Of A Different Colour
THE OUTSIDER (Portnoy Publishing), which is due for publication in October. Delicious, no?
As for what THE OUTSIDER is all about, here's Arlene chatting to Louise Phillips over at the writing.ie site:
As for what THE OUTSIDER is all about, here's Arlene chatting to Louise Phillips over at the writing.ie site:
"Living in a small village in Ireland, Emma Byrne has always been considered an odd ball by those who know her. As a child she barely communicated with anyone other than her twin brother, Anthony. Emma's family are baffled by her. But Emma has a gift, she understands animals - particularly horses - in ways that amaze people and before long folk the length and breadth of the country are lining up to work with her. So why would anyone want to hurt this shy reserved young woman and who was it that tried to shoot her dead in the woods?"For more in the same vein, clickety-click here …
Posted by Declan Burke at 8:50 AM No comments:
Thursday, July 25, 2013
The Cain Mutiny
THE BETRAYED (2011), which was set during WWII. Ten years on from the events of that novel, the Cold War is in full freeze, which suggests that SONS OF CAIN is a spy novel with a rather unusual backdrop. Quoth the blurb elves:
The year is 1953. As the Cold War divides the world into East and West, childhood friends and old foes - Karl Hamner and Fr Max Steiger - live their lives. Karl, haunted by the past and a devastating truth he discovered about his old friend, teaches history in his home town of Hallstatt. While Max, intent on power and wealth, builds the Fratres, an extreme branch of the Catholic Church, with control of the Vatican his ultimate goal. When news of the Fratres reaches the CIA, an alliance between the two is formed, raising the stakes. But when Karl is called to Rome to expose the corruption that has infiltrated the Church, he has to face the past - and Max. From Moscow to CIA Headquarters to a Budapest prison, Sons of Cain is an epic tale of lust, power and corruption where deception is a way of life.
Posted by Declan Burke at 7:56 AM No comments:
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Is This A Pair Of Daggers I See Before Me?
For all the details, clickety-click here …
Monday, July 22, 2013
The French Connection
To be honest, I'm not the best of it yet – I'm still struggling in low gear and trying to get back into the swing of things, which is why this space will very probably remain quiet for the next few days. That said, I should really kick-start myself: I missed a host of stuff while I was away, including a couple of CWA longlist nominations for Stuart Neville and Michael Russell, the announcement of launches for novels by Louise Phillips and Joe Joyce (both of which appear to be launching on August 7th, which is a pity), and the very quiet release of CUT by Frank McGrath, which I suspect will be a crime novel a cut (oh yes) above the ordinary.
It was a good fortnight, though, a goodly chunk of which was spent on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean with a notebook (and perhaps a cold beer or two) on the table, pen in hand, sketching out the next book. All very pleasant, of course, but I've been putting off said book for more than a few months now, and I need to buckle down and write it. I'm dreading the prospect of starting it, because it seems forever since I began writing a new book, and I seem to have forgotten how to do so. Happily enough, that's generally the case, and a couple of weeks of eating my eyebrows in front of a blank page should soon sort that out.
Anyway, it's good to be back. Everyone else well, I trust?
Posted by Declan Burke at 8:46 PM No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text: What? The infallibly poker-faced, cross-armed Spock (the Leonard Nimoy version) will not be swayed by anything in the world. Not by My Little Pony ponies. Not by eBay Buyer Protection. Not even by a singing William Shatner thrown in his general direction. Come rain or come shine, Spock will be Spock.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Category: Home Affairs Select Committee
The UK Border Agency's long, punitive campaign against children
Today OurKingdom publishes Clare Sambrook's damning indictment of the UK Border Agency's systematic failure to protect some of the most vulnerable children in Britain – children whose parents have survived imprisonment, torture and rape in the countries they have fled only to find themselves under lock and key for failing to persuade the Home Office that their claim for asylum is genuine.
Children who became victims of abuse while in detention and whose voices can no longer be heard because the UK Border Agency has forcibly removed the victims from the jurisdiction of the UK justice system.
It is a harrowing story, but also an alarming account of institutional collusion, cover up and lying which reveals the complete lack of accountability of Britain's highly profitable outsourced security state and the politicians and civil servants who are still bent on serving and protecting it.
The appalling Rochdale sexual abuse scandal prompted long-overdue scrutiny of our children's homes. Another national disgrace ripe for exposure is the UK Border Agency's serial and repugnant oppression and abuse of vulnerable children over more than a decade. Today OurKingdom publishes Clare Sambrook's exposé of the Border Agency's abuse of children and its relentless misrepresentation of evidence of harm. We call upon Parliament to hold ministers, the Home Office and its ugly agency to account. (The material that follows is distressing.)
Lunchtime at Yarl's Wood
Sunday, 20 September 2009, the UK Border Agency's Yarl's Wood detention centre run by commercial contractors Serco.
A woman enters a room and finds a five-year-old child inserting his finger into another five-year-old's anus, moving it backwards and forwards.
The little boy whose anus has been penetrated tells his mother that one of the other boy's much older brothers has done this to him several times before. He complains of pain in his bottom, has become emotionally distant, will not let his mother touch him.
A GP employed by Serco does not examine the boy internally, concludes that his bottom is sore because he has scratched it, says psychological effects are a matter of "wait and see". Bedfordshire children's services decide not to take the matter further.
There is no investigation of the young people who might have sexually abused the little boys, or of whether they might pose a continuing threat to other children within the detention centre.
The mother's pleas for a specialist's opinion, for therapeutic help for her son, for an independent investigation, are all refused.
The Border Agency's so-called "Children's Champion", whose job is to protect and promote children's welfare and safety, fails to intervene. The Children's Society, a Church of England charity that provides welfare services to Yarl's Wood families, also fails to act. Mother and son are rapidly transferred out of Yarl's Wood and removed from Britain.
A special culture
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this story, which is fully documented as we shall see, is that it holds so few surprises for people familiar with the Border Agency's special culture.
Paediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists and child welfare experts who have exposed inconvenient truths have seen their work and reputation traduced by Border Agency officials. Their advice has been ignored, summarily dismissed, even derided. Viable alternatives to detention offered by reputable experts have been ignored. Parliament has been repeatedly misled.
Doctors, nurses and charities who step inside the culture may forget their critical faculties, their moral compass and professional ethics.
This dossier highlights just some of the Border Agency's attempts to misrepresent evidence that children, including the sexually abused little boy, have been harmed in its care. It follows the pattern of misrepresentation and denial all the way to the current "compassionate approach" to child detention — a practice that continues despite the Coalition promise to end it.
An exciting growth market
For the Agency's commercial partners, security companies G4S, Serco and the rest, immigration detention is one growth market within an "exciting" outsourcing boom, grounded in cosy relations with ministers and civil servants.
The Labour government's aggressive acceleration of the detention policy in 2001 gave the security industry new opportunities to extract profit from every step of the process: arrest, transport, detention, removal — even healthcare and social work within the rapidly expanding "detention estate".
From its opening in 2001, Yarl's Wood detention centre was run for profit, first by GSL, part of what is now the world's biggest security company G4S,* later by service company Serco.
The Border Agency and its commercial contractors set about the raiding and detention of families with remarkable enthusiasm and disregard for children's welfare, detaining up to 2000 children a year in prison-like conditions, sometimes for weeks and months on end, against all professional advice.
The Home Office and its Agency brushed aside repeated warnings fromsuccessive European Union Human Rights Commissioners and repeated recommendations from the HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP), urging over years that the detention of children should happen only in exceptional circumstances, and decisions must be based on "independent and immediate welfare and needs assessments of each child."
For the border control mind, and commercial contractors' culture rooted in the cash transit business (G4S), and transport and maintenance (Serco), "children's welfare" has proved an inscrutable concept.
An HMIP team visiting Yarl's Wood in the Spring of 2005 found three children who had been detained immediately before their GCSE exams and one autistic five year old so distressed she had not eaten for five days.
England's first Children's Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, called repeatedly for detention to cease, saying that nothing in his 30-year career as a children's doctor prepared him for his first visit to Yarl's Wood.
His first report, "An announced visit to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre 31st October 2005" records that none of the children he encountered had any idea why they were locked up. Many had been in Britain for years or were born here. One boy in school uniform had been snatched with his mother as he was about to catch his school bus, with no opportunity to say goodbye to his classmates. The children were subjected to body searches, sometimes several times a day. Three had been locked up for more than 57 days.
Handcuffs in hospital
The security industry's priorities, culture and clout shine in a chilling "Memorandum of Understanding" struck in 2005 between Yarl's Wood's managers, GSL, and Bedford Hospital which empowered GSL to handcuff children who needed hospital care. The document (in my possession), which defines a child as "a human being up to the age of 18", permits GSL escorts to overrule medical objections to the handcuffing of child patients. If doctors or nurses persist in objecting, GSL escorts may insist the cuffs stayed on, pending a decision from a higher authority, namely the GSL Duty Shift Manager who would rule on whether the cuffs stayed on or not, or whether to delay medical treatment "until alternative security measures can be put in place".
"For staff in general the centre is like a human clearing house," Yarl's Wood chaplain Larry Wright told a team from HM Inspectorate of Prisons who visited the detention centre in February 2006. Their report, "Inquiry into the quality of health care at Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre", published in October 2006, found multiple healthcare inadequacies, compounded by the Border Agency's "unresponsiveness . . . to clinical concerns about an alleged history of torture or adverse medical consequences of continued detention."
When clinical concerns were raised, the Inspectors found, "the information was not systematically addressed or actioned. Nor was independent medical opinion sought or adhered to."
HM Prisons Inspectorate urged the government quickly to transfer responsibility for detention centre healthcare from the Home Office to the National Health Service. A very important recommendation, since the Home Office's behaviour towards people in its care was plainly distorted by its over-riding concern to police national borders.
Serco took over the running of Yarl's Wood (including healthcare) from GSL in April 2007 with an eight-year contract valued at "around £85 million".
That same year, under pressure, the government instructed the Border Agency to require all staff dealing with children to undergo mandatory training in child safeguarding. Instead of commissioning an independent, accredited provider, the Agency's "Children's Champion" turned to unaccredited G4S. Since then, without any independent scrutiny or evaluation, G4S has trained 7,800 UKBA personnel in "keeping children safe".**
"Wholly inaccurate" records of child detainees
Children were anything but safe. In February 2008 HM Inspectorate of Prisonslearned that some children detained time and again had been locked up for a cumulative 275 days. "Wholly inaccurate" official figures had calculated their cumulative totals at 14 and 17 days.
Visiting Yarl's Wood again, in May 2008, Children's Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green found that "Children's physical and mental health rarely appears to inform the decision to maintain detention," and medical assessments were poor.
In his report on the visit, published in April 2009, Aynsley-Green notes that one mother locked up at Yarl's Wood was a victim of torture with "a severe depressive illness" and "auditory hallucinations", yet her two-year-old son was assessed by detention centre medical staff as just a "happy boy". The mother "was prescribed anti-depressants and put on suicide watch in the light of three suicide attempts. Yet no mental health support was provided, nor was an assessment of her parenting abilities conducted." Aynsley-Green repeated his call for child detention to end.
Roll calls, body searches, sex games
The first peer-reviewed clinical study of children locked up at Yarl's Wood,"The mental and physical health difficulties of children held within a British immigration detention center," appeared in the medical journal "Child Abuse & Neglect" in October 2009.
The authors, Lorek et al, a team of NHS paediatricians and a clinical psychologist, recorded children's "increased fear due to being suddenly placed in a facility resembling a prison", their weight loss, headaches and tummy pains, their clinical depression and anxiety, the trouble they had sleeping, how older children were so stressed they wet their beds and soiled their pants.
The Lorek team described the body searches, the photographing and the fingerprinting of the children, the roll calls, the ID cards they had to carry at all times, the ten locked doors between freedom and the family centre, the steep deterioration in parents' mental health and parenting abilities, the self-harm and the suicide attempts.
And the sex games. One father, "spontaneously complained that he had found his daughter in the centre without any clothes on. His child explained that she had been encouraged to undress and play 'sex games' instigated by another detained child."
Another mother, "spontaneously commented on the sexualized behavior of children within the center".
The doctors wrote: "The high levels of mental and physical health difficulties detected support the view that detention, even for short periods of time, is detrimental and not appropriate for children."
(One of the authors speaks about their findings on the BBC here.)
The study was sent to members of the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee ahead of their visit to Yarl's Wood on 15 October 2009 in the course of their inquiry into the detention of children in the immigration system. (The committee's duties include scrutinising the Border Agency's work). Committee chairman Keith Vaz MP later reported to the House: "Our visit was somewhat marred by the Home Office officials' terrible anxiety about the Select Committee visit."
What the Border Agency did next is quite shocking.
An ex-policeman assesses the medical evidence
The Agency's director responsible for children and their welfare, the curiously entitled "Director of Criminality and Detention", Dave Wood, decided to offer his own assessment of the clinical evidence.
Dave Wood is not a paediatrician or a child psychologist. He is a former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner who led the Met's Anti-Corruption Squad as Detective Chief Superintendent. (He gave evidence to theIndependent Police Complaints Commission's 2006 inquiry allegations of police corruption in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation.)
In September 2009, in oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Wood had said that although absconding wasn't an issue — "it's not terribly easy for a family unit to abscond" — families should be locked up anyway, because the lack of detention, "would act as a significant magnet and pull to families from abroad".
In a memo to the Home Affairs Committee, dated November 2009, Wood set out to be "helpful" and "provide some further details in response to concern you may have about the contents of the [Lorek] report."
The study, he claimed, "was undertaken without any reference to the UK Border Agency or its clinicians. At no point were healthcare or centre staff, who would have known the children, asked for their views or comments. A number of criticisms are therefore made without any corroborated evidence, or with any opportunity for the centre to comment."
(Here is Wood on local BBC TV again asserting that the doctors failed to discuss their research).
This was demonstrably false. Lorek's peer-reviewed study clearly demonstrates their contact with Yarl's Wood clinicians; indeed the Lorek team's psychologist had recommended that five parents should be "assessed by a psychiatrist as a matter of urgency due to the severity of their mental health difficulties and the level of risk".
Meetings the Agency claimed did not happen
What's more, Home Office documents (in my possession) record that two of the authors presented their research to Border Agency officials in a roundtable discussion held at the office of the Children's Commissioner for England on 19 June 2007, during which Jeremy Oppenheim, the Border Agency's then "Children's Champion" invited the doctors to make a further presentation inside Yarl's Wood.
And they did, at a formal meeting on 27 September 2007 entitled "Meeting to Discuss Health Impacts of Detention on Children".
The 26 invitees listed on another Home Office document (in my possession) include Serco healthcare staff, Bedfordshire County Council Social Workers, a representative of security company G4S, the Border Agency's Chief Immigration Officer Fiona Jack, its "Children's Champion", its Deputy Director of Enforcement Policy Stephanie Hutchinson-Hudson, its Head of Detention Brian Pollett and its Assistant Director, Detention Special Policy Unit, Simon Barrett.
According to the Home Office Agenda, at 10.10 am, after an introduction from the "Children's Champion", two of the authors, Dr Lorek and Dr Nesbitt, gave a presentation entitled, "Physical and Mental Health Difficulties of children within a UK Immigration Detention Centre".
The Home Affairs Committee's report, The Detention of Children in the Immigration System was published on 29 November 2009. It completely ignored the Lorek study.
It is hard to understand this significant omission. Perhaps MPs on the committee simply accepted Wood's assertion that the study "was undertaken without any reference to the UK Border Agency or its clinicians." It seems that they did not challenge him. But even if what he alleged were true, the weight of Lorek et al's professional assessment surely ought to have commanded the respect of the committee and formed part of their report.
Still, the evidence of harm to children did not stay buried long.
Royal Colleges exhume evidence of harm
On 10 December 2009 The Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Royal College of Psychiatrists and the UK Faculty of Public Health issued a joint statement drawing upon Lorek et al's evidence and urging the government to stop detaining children "without delay".
Until detention stops, said the Colleges, detained children and young people should be referred immediately to Local Authority children's social care as "children at risk of significant harm". No child or young person with mental health problems or at risk of developing them should be detained. The Colleges, echoing urgent advice from HM Inspectorate of Prisons a full three years before, urged the government to put detention centre healthcare into the hands of the National Health Service and not the Home Office.
The Colleges' widely publicised statement was backed by the Royal College of Nursing, the Association of Child Psychotherapists, British Association of Social Workers, the British Psychological Society and the UK Council for Psychotherapy.
But it cut no ice at the Border Agency, whose Director of Criminality and Detention Dave Wood assured The Guardian: "Treating children with care and compassion is a priority. Families at Yarl's Wood should get the same level of care available on the NHS, and they do."
On 14 December 2009, the Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael asked the Labour government when it would stop detaining children. He said: "The report published last week by the coalition of the royal medical colleges made it clear that children who are detained in immigration removal centres suffer from mental health problems and consider self-harm and occasionally even suicide."
Minister Meg Hillier, briefed by officials a few days previously, parrotted the Border Agency's false claim about Lorek et al's research:
"Let me point out that the report in question . . . did not take into account the views of the clinicians who worked with those children and who know them."
And so, again, medical evidence of children's suffering was misrepresented and dismissed, and again Parliament was misled.
Security industry nurses see "jolly happy children"
Amid continuing grave concern about medical ethics and competence inside the "detention estate", the Royal Colleges had reminded practitioners working for the Border Agency and its commercial contractors of the basic competencies of their craft — history-taking, examination, investigation, treatment, referral and record-keeping, and of their legal duty to declare children unfit to be detained where detention appears detrimental to their mental health or wellbeing.
Nurses employed by Serco at Yarl's Wood routinely described child detainees in medical notes as "jolly" and "happy", according to the third and final report on Yarl's Wood from Sir Al Aynsley-Green in February 2010 ("The Children's Commissioner for England's follow up report to: the arrest and detention of children subject to immigration control").
The father of a 12-year-old girl told the Children's Commissioner's team that she had been arrested, beaten, sexually abused and humiliated by Nigerian soldiers. On admission to Yarl's Wood she was mute, refusing food for seven days. About one Yarl's Wood child whose mother had been raped in Africa and was hepatitis B positive, Serco nurses wrote under family history, "nil of note".
The Children's Commissioner, an eminent paediatrician, reported that the Border Agency continued to send children unvaccinated to areas where TB is prevalent and measles and malaria endemic. More than a year after he had suggested it, the provision of bed nets was "still under consideration". Aynsley-Green repeated his call for child detention to cease.
A covert attack on the Children's Commissioner
The Border Agency had read the Children's Commissioner's report in advance of publication. Yet again, its response to expert medical advice was to go on the attack.
The Home Office press office circulated an unattributable and defamatory advance note to journalists, undermining the integrity of Aynsley-Green and his work. That extraordinary note, which invented inaccuracies in the report and then knocked them down, can be found here on page 13 of my own Parliamentary submission on official lying.
The black-ops briefing got results: Aynsley-Green's February 2010 report was arguably under-reported in the media. And the Border Agency carried on misleading.
Agency officials and their commercial partners Serco gave a positive, upbeat presentation about children's experience of detention to Bedford Borough Council's Children's Services Committee on 23 February 2010, assuring committee members that the Children's Commissioner's report contained "issues" that were "unsupported or factually incorrect".
But inconvenient evidence of distress and physical damage kept on piling up. In March 2010 the government published Baroness Nuala O'Loan's independent inquiry into evidence of widespread abuse of asylum detainees, including children, at the hands of Border Agency escort contractors, including G4S. The abuses had been documented in the 2008 Medical Justice reportOutsourcing Abuse. O'Loan's inquiry found that there was "inadequate management of the use of force by the private sector companies"; she made 22 recommendations for change.
Readers might by now be able to guess what the Border Agency did next.
In a foreword to O'Loan's report, Border Agency chief executive Lin Homer attacked the doctors and lawyers who had brought the abuses to light, accusing them of "seeking to damage the reputation of our contractors".
Leaving aside the defamatory nature of Homer's allegation against the doctors and lawyers, it is the case that "reputational risk" is a commercial matter and the proper concern of the companies themselves, their executives, directors and shareholders — not for the Home Office.
Only months after the Border Agency had dismissed the evidence of abuse by escort contractors, a previously healthy man called Jimmy Mubenga diedduring a form of "restraint" by private escorters G4S exposed as dangerous inOutsourcing Abuse.
The sexually abused little boy is not totally forgotten
The little boy sexually assaulted over and over again during his weeks locked up at Yarl's Wood in the autumn of 2009 might have been forgotten by the Border Agency, its contractors and the resident children's charity. But somebody else had found out about him.
The Children's Commissioner's team, in their review of the detention centre medical notes, had spotted the little boy's horrible ordeal, had noted the lack of proper investigation, that safeguarding procedures had not been followed, had noted the mother's desperate requests for independent investigation and medical examination, and that they had all been refused.
Sir Al Aynsley-Green sent a detailed and confidential report on the case to Bedford Borough Council, the UK Border Agency, Serco and Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board, whose Serious Case Review Panel commissioned an independent investigation in October 2009. The panel decided that "a legally qualified person, independent of all the participating agencies" should conduct the Review, and appointed a barrister and mental health review tribunal judge in December 2009, causing real anxiety to Border Agency executives and their commercial partners, Serco. The profitable business of locking up families at Yarl's Wood, which served as a useful deterrent in border control, was in jeopardy.
Only weeks ahead of the 2010 General Election, and before the independent investigation had made its findings public, the Home Office handed Serco a £32 million contract, without competition, to carry on running Yarl's Wood for three more years.
The Coalition Agreement of 12 May 2010 promised to end the detention of children, but instead of immediately ending it, immigration minister Damian Green said on 15 May that he was "launching a comprehensive review of alternatives to child detention, including opening a dialogue with relevant stakeholders, organisations and experts."
To lead this Review, a legally qualified person, independent of all the participating agencies was not appointed. Damian Green turned instead to the Border Agency's own Director of Criminality and Detention Dave Wood, who would co-chair a "working group" of invited civil society and voluntary sector groups. The other co-chair was the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund to whom besieged Border Agency executives had turned for help in the anxious months ahead of the General Election. The Fund's representative, Patrick Wintour (founder of the Employability Forum), had engaged in private pre-election talks over months with officials — including chief executive Lin Homer, deputy chief executive Jonathan Sedgwick, the latest "Children's Champion" Kristian Armstrong, and Dave Wood.
The Review started work formally on 1 June 2010. (Its terms of reference arehere.) Immigration minister Damian Green told Parliament on 17 June: "We are carrying out the review as fast as humanly possible, so that the detention of children for immigration purposes can end and a practical alternative be put in its place."
That might have been Damian Green's intention, but it was no part of the Border Agency's plan.
A shameful account of institutional incompetence
On 14 June 2010 the Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board released an executive summary of the independent investigative report into the case of child sexual abuse that had been so disgracefully mishandled. The investigators found that the Border Agency, the Agency's "Children's Champion", its independent social workers, Serco's medical staff and social workers, Bedford Borough Council's children's services and the local police had all failed in their duties to safeguard children in the Border Agency's care.
What's more, Border Agency officials had — yet again —misrepresented evidence that children were being harmed and being put at risk of harm. The Bedfordshire independent inquiry found that executives misled ministers about the safeguarding shambles that failed the little boy, and that ministers, relying on the Agency's misinformation, decided to carry on detaining children:
"UKBA provided information, on the basis of which a ministerial decision was made affecting the continued detention of children. Although that factual information included reference to the incident leading to this review, there was no evaluation of the impact that this incident had on the propriety of detention."
Malcolm Stevens, a former lead Children's Services Inspector with the government's Social Services Inspectorate, described the findings as "a shameful account of institutional incompetence".
Commenting in The Daily Telegraph on 18 June 2010, Stevens urged the government to "reconsider the wisdom of its decision to repeat the error of the previous government in allowing the organisation most culpable – the UK Border Agency – to lead its current review of services for children in detention."
He went on: "From the recommendations of this review, if there is one thing on earth that Border Agency should not do, it is that."
But the government did not reconsider, and the Border Agency carried on leading the Review, with thoroughly predictable consequences:
"All summer, the UKBA made it plain that they were not willing to give up the power to detain children, as part of the policy of ending the detention of children," said one participant, Syd Bolton, co-director of the Refugee Children's Rights Project, Children's Legal Centre.
"In the many discussions about how to end detention held with the UKBA over that review period, it was clear that the UKBA simply would not entertain the possibility of a major plank of its border control powers being removed." (Bolton was speaking on 26 March 2011 at the launch of End Child Detention Now's "Keep Your Promise" campaign.)
Rebranding child detention
What emerged from the Review was not an alternative to detention, but detention rebranded.
The Yarl's Wood family unit closed on 16 December 2010, but the Agency has carried on locking up children at G4S Tinsley House, where a 10 year old girl had tried to strangle herself in 2009.
A new detention facility called "Cedars" opened on 17 August 2011, with a new vocabulary ("family friendly" "pre-departure accommodation"), run by a familiar security company, G4S, and with the same fundamental safeguarding flaw highlighted in the Bedfordshire Safeguarding Children Board independent report on Yarl's Wood, namely, "a gap in regulatory arrangements . . . no single agency has an adequate overarching responsibility for regulation of services to children in immigration detention".
G4S 'won' the £15 million contract to run Cedars against no competition. (The name is a government acronym for Compassion, Empathy, Dignity, Respect and Support).
Contract-hungry children's charity Barnardo's provides welfare services and delivers, by its presence, a reassuring endorsement. When, last year, an independent doctor asked Barnardo's to take action about the continuing practice of sending families to danger zones without essential immunisation and malarial protection, Barnardo's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie replied: "G4S, the UKBA contractor for the site is contracturally responsible for ensuring appropriate health services to residents at Cedars," and she had raised his concerns with the management team.
The doctor wrote to the G4S site manager and got a reply from the Border Agency in an envelope stamped with the G4S logo; it said malarial protection was a matter for the families and those who "have not arranged any malaria prevention will be provided with an information leaflet".
A so-called "Independent Family Returns Panel" guards children's welfare.One of its members is Dr John W. Keen, who has advised the Border Agency for years, and whose assessment of a vulnerable patient was deemed "irrational" and "tainted" by the then Mr Justice Leveson in a 2006 High Court Judgement.
The Border Agency's office of "Children's Champion" carries on regardless of its catastrophic failure to intervene on behalf of the sexually abused little boy at Yarl's Wood, and Border Agency staff continue to be trained in child-safeguarding by G4S.
The Department of Health assumed policy responsibility for detention centre healthcare in April 2012; the transfer of budgetary responsibility is due, "subject to legislation", by April 2014. (Hansard)
In the first quarter of this year 53 children were reported detained, far fewer than under Labour's 2000-per-year peak, but higher than might have been inferred from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's December 2010 forecast of"tiny numbers of cases" detained as "an absolutely last resort".
In March 2012 Dave Wood was promoted to the post of chief operating officer of the UK Border Agency. In April, the Home Office quietly appointed aschairman of the UKBA board a career investment banker, Philip Augar (ex NatWest and Shroeders).
The narrow thread of recent history exposed here resonates beyond the hard lives of asylum-seeker families.
Security companies G4S and Serco have moved far, far beyond their security-industry base, deep into our public sector, securing massive government contracts in policing, health, education, welfare.
Senior civil servant and ministerial loyalty to "our contractors", as revealed in this case, is a recurring phenomenon that merits further inquiry and real vigilance as Britain undergoes what the Financial Times has called "the biggest wave of outsourcing since the 1980s".
The pattern of Border Agency behaviour unfolded here suggests a rogue organisation, shielded by the Home Office, beyond accountability to Parliament and the public. Nobody has been held to account for the misleading of ministers, Parliament and the public over years, as a direct result of which thousands of innocent and vulnerable children have been locked up to the detriment of their health and wellbeing. Relations between the Border Agency and its contractors are intimate, enduring and enmeshed. Children remain at risk of harm.
The Home Affairs Select Committee should wake up to its duties, which include scrutinising the Border Agency's work, call its executives to account for their repeated denial of evidence of children's suffering, and urge the government to bring about a real and honourable end to child detention.
This document is also available in PDF format.
With huge thanks to Martin Rowson for his specially designed cartoon.
* GSL and G4S
GSL was part of Group 4 Falck, the huge Danish security company that merged with Securicor in July 2004 to create Group 4 Securicor, rebranded in 2006 as G4S.
In June 2004, just ahead of the merger, Group 4 Falck sold GSL to its management in a £207 million deal backed by private equity firms. Then, in December 2007, G4S bought it back again (for £355 million).
G4S chief executive Nick Buckles told the Financial Times in December 2007 that GSL had been sold "to ease the progress of the merger as there would otherwise have been competition issues over prisoner transportation." GSL, he said, would now "slot neatly into the next stage of G4S's strategy to focus on long-term government contracts."
** The UK Border Agency and "Keeping children safe"
Thanks to pressure from the first Children's Commissioner for England and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, among others repeatedly highlighting multiple deficiencies in the Border Agency's treatment of vulnerable children over years, mandatory training in child safeguarding for all Border Agency staff in contact with children has been required since 2007.
That was enshrined in the statutory guidance to section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, which gave the Border Agency a duty to promote and safeguard the welfare of children.
The equivalent statutory duty on other public bodies to safeguard children was provided by Section 11 of The Children Act 2004 following the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, but the UK Border Agency and its predecessors resisted these duties until they were imposed on them under section 55.
Children subject to immigration control, including those held in immigration detention in the UK, were excluded from the full rights and protections of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child until November 2008 when, under great pressure, the UK withdrew most of its reservations to the Convention.
Unpublished documents in the author's possession:
Carrie, Anne Marie. Chief executive, Barnardo's. Letter to Dr Frank Arnold (27 September 2011).
Foley, Gillian. Detention Services. UK Border Agency. Letter to Dr Frank Arnold. (8 November 2011).
GSL, Yarl's Wood, and Bedford Hospital. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR CHILDREN NEEDING SERVICES AT BEDFORD HOSPITAL NHS TRUST AND YARL'S WOOD REMOVAL CENTRE JANUARY 2005. Review date: JANUARY 2006. Ray Reveley, Centre Manager, Yarl's Wood Removal Centre; Andrew Reed, Chief Executive, Bedford Hospital NHS Trust
Home Office Border & Immigration Agency. INVITEES: MEETING TO DISCUSS THE HEALTH IMPACTS OF DETENTION ON CHILDREN WILL BE HELD AT YARLSWOOD DETENTION CENTRE ON THURSDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2007 AT 10.00AM
Home Office Border & Immigration Agency. Letter from Joe Heatley, Professional Adviser to Border & Immigration Agency, Children's Champion, Social Policy Directorate, 17 August 2007 RE: HEALTH IMPACTS ON CHILDREN OF FAMILY DETENTION IN YARL'S WOOD IMMIGRATION REMOVAL CENTRE
Home Office Border & Immigration Agency. AGENDA HEALTH IMPACTS OF DETENTION ON CHILDREN. THURSDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER 2007
Home Office. Press Office. Response to criticism – these are not to be attributed as direct statements. Nick Logan. (February 2010)
Public domain documents:
Aynsley-Green, Al. An announced visit to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre 31st October 2005. London: The Office of Children's Commissioner. (December 2005)
Aynsley-Green, Al. The Arrest And Detention of Children Subject to Immigration Control: A report following the Children's Commissioner for England's visit to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre 16 May 2008 (April 2009)
Aynsley-Green, Al. The Children's Commissioner for England's follow up report to: The Arrest And Detention of Children Subject to Immigration Control. Visit to Yarl's Wood October 2009 (February 2010)
Aynsley-Green, Al. Speedy end to child detention is needed. The promised review must not be an excuse for civil service prevarication – the welfare of children has to come first. guardian.co.uk (23 May 2010)
Bedford Borough Council: Minutes for Children's Services Policy Review and Development Committee meeting, Feb 23 2010, 6.30PM. (23 February 2010)
Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board. Independent Review.Executive Summary. Child A and Child B Placed with Family at Immigration Removal Centre (June 2010)http://www.bedfordshirelscb.org.uk/pro_files/executivesummaryforchildaandchildbindependentreviewfinalversion090610unprotected(2).pdf
Bercow et al. Alternatives to immigration detention of families and children. A discussion paper by John Bercow MP, Lord Dubs and Evan Harris MP for the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Children and Refugees (July 2006)
Bolton, Syd. Co-director of the Refugee Children's Rights Project, Children's Legal Centre. Launch of End Child Detention Now's "Keep Your Promise" campaign. Oxford House, Bethnal Green, London, (26 March 2011)
Green, Damian. Immigration minister. Letter to Keith Vaz, MP, chairman, Home Affairs Select Committee, on UK Border Agency and Border Force governance and the appointment of investment banker Philip Augar as chairman of the UKBA board. (6 June 2012)
Burstow, Paul. Written Answer to Question from Simon Kirby MP on transfer of detention estate healthcare to the NHS. (31 January 2012)
Carmichael, Alistair. Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael. "The report published last week by the coalition of the royal medical colleges made it clear that children who are detained in immigration removal centres suffer from mental health problems and consider self-harm and occasionally even suicide." House of Commons. Oral Answers to Questions. Home Department. (14 December 2009)
Clegg, Nick. Speech. Nick Clegg confirms end to child detention (16 Dec 2010) Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg this morning announced that child detention for immigration purposes is to end.http://www.libdems.org.uk/speeches_detail.aspx?title=Nick_Clegg_confirms_end_to_child_detention_%28full_speech%29&pPK=d73b587e-f837-4b16-b7d5-a14b1bfa8a9b
Coalition Agreement reached by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats (12 May 2010)
Crawley, Heaven. Ending the Detention of Children: Developing an Alternative Approach to Family Returns. Centre for Migration Policy Research (CMPR), Swansea University. (June 2010)
Green, Damian. Immigration minister. Interview. BBC Radio Scotland. 14 June 2012.
Green, Damian. Immigration minister. "We are carrying out the review as fast as humanly possible, so that the detention of children for immigration purposes can end and a practical alternative be put in its place." Westminster Hall. Alternatives to Child Detention (17 June 2010)
Gil-Robles, E. Report by Elvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights on his visit to the United Kingdom 4th–12th November 2004, CommDH (2005). Strasbourg: Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights.
Griggs, Tom. G4S recaptures prison operator in £355m deal. Financial Times (19 December 2007)
Hammarberg, Thomas (2008). Memorandum by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Following his visits to the United Kingdom on 5-8 February and 31 March-2 April 2008, CommDH. Strasbourg: Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights. (18 September 2008)
HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). Report on an announced inspection of Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre 28 February – 4 March 2005 by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). Inquiry into the quality of healthcare at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre (20-24 February 2006) by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). Report on an announced inspection of Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre (4-8 February 2008) by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
More HMIP reports on Yarl's Wood here.
Hillier, Meg. Labour Home Office minister. The Lorek report "did not take into account the views of the clinicians who worked with those children and who know them." House of Commons. Oral Answers to Questions. Home Department. (14 December 2009)
Home Office UK Border Agency. Review into the Ending of the Detention of Children for Immigration Purposes. Terms of Reference. (1 June 2010)
Homer Lin, UKBA chief executive. Response to Medical Justice. "State Sponsored Cruelty". Children in immigration detention. September 2010, said UKBA took the needs of "vulnerable individuals seeking asylum in the UK, and in particular the need to safeguard and protect the wellbeing of children", very seriously.
Homer Lin, UKBA chief executive. "seeking to damage the reputation of our contractors". Foreword to O'Loan (March 2010) p1.
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. The Detention of Children in the Immigration System. First Report of Session 2009–10 House of Commons (24 November 2009)
Independent Police Complaints Commission. Independent investigation into complaints following "The Boys Who Killed Stephen Lawrence" BBC Panorama 26 July 2006. (2006)
Lorek et al. The mental and physical health difficulties of children held within a British immigration detention centre: A pilot study. Child Abuse and Neglect: 33: 573-585. (2009)
Medical Justice. Outsourcing abuse. The use and misuse of state-sanctioned force during the detention and removal of asylum seekers. A report by Birnberg Peirce & Partners, Medical Justice and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (July 2008)
Medical Justice. "State Sponsored Cruelty". Children in immigration detention. Jon Burnett, Judith Carter, Jon Evershed, Maya Bell Kohli, Claire Powell, and Gervase de Wilde. 141 cases are featured in this report involving children detained between 2004 and April 2010. These children spent a mean average of 26 days each in immigration detention. One child had spent 166 days in detention, over numerous separate periods, before her third birthday. 48% of the children in this report were born in the UK. 74 children were psychologically harmed. Symptoms included bed-wetting and loss of bowel control, heightened anxiety, and food refusal. 34 children exhibited signs of developmental regression. Six children expressed suicidal ideation either whilst in detention or after release. Three girls attempted to end their own lives. (September 2010)
O'Loan, Nuala. REPORT TO THE UNITED KINGDOM BORDER AGENCY ON "OUTSOURCING ABUSE" by BARONESS NUALA O'LOAN DBE (March 2010)
Plimmer, Gill. Outsourcing set to boom as contracts surge, Financial Times. (17 June 2012)
The Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health, General Practitioners and Psychiatrists and the UK Faculty of Public Health. Intercollegiate Briefing Paper: Significant Harm – the effects of immigration detention on the health of children and families in the UK. (10 December 2009)
Sambrook, Clare. How Official Lying Threatens Our Democracy and What Should Be Done About It, Submission to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications The Future of Investigative Journalism, 21 November 2011.
Committee's report: The future of investigative journalism (16 February 2012)
Sambrook's report also published on
OurKingdom@openDemocracy (21 November 2011)
Sambrook, Clare. Controversial doctor and Barnardo's serve UK's flawed child detention policy. OurKingdom@openDemocracy (15 June, 2012)
Sambrook, Clare. G4S teaches UK Border Agency how to care for children. OurKingdom@openDemocracy (10 July, 2012)
Serco. Contract News Update. Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre contract extension (11 May 2010)
Stevens, Malcolm. Former lead Children's Services Inspector with the Government's Social Services Inspectorate. "a shameful account of institutional incompetence". Yarl's Wood immigration centre treated children in a shameful way. It's clearer than ever that this centre must be closed, says Malcolm Stevens. The Daily Telegraph. (18 June 2010)
Vaz, Keith, "Our visit was somewhat marred by the Home Office officials' terrible anxiety about the Select Committee visit." Westminster Hall (17 June 2010)
Wood, Dave, Director of Criminality and Detention. UKBA. "Treating children with care and compassion is a priority. Families at Yarl's Wood should get the same level of care available on the NHS, and they do." Move children out of migrant centres say medical experts. Owen Boycott. The Guardian. (10 December 2009)
Wood, Dave, Director of Criminality and Detention. UKBA. "it's not terribly easy for a family unit to abscond". Examination of witnesses. Home Affairs Committee, 16 September 2009.
Wood, Dave, Director of Criminality and Detention. UKBA. "the study was undertaken without any reference to the UK Border Agency or its clinicians". Supplementary memorandum submitted by UK Border Agency. Home Affairs Committee, November 2009.
See also OurKingdom's collections:
The scandal of child detention in the UK
G4S: securing whose world?
Ending child detention – the most achievable human rights goal?
Human rights issues are notoriously controversial. Debates rage around numerous issues, not least the validity and universality of human rights themselves. However, the detention of children for immigration purposes stands out as one human rights issue for which there is a remarkable extent of consensus, in both the damage it causes and the need for action to bring it to an end.
Several studies have shown beyond doubt the severe psychological damage and physical danger that child detention leads to, even where that detention is for very short periods of time. Such studies have been reported in the British Journal Child Abuse and Neglect, and Australian psychiatric journals. Numerous accounts have been reported of children self-harming and attempting suicide in detention centres in the UK alone, while other reports identify the mental health problems that can occur in later life as a result of periods of detention.
These are children, we must remember, who have committed no offence and broken no law. The only reason for their detention is that their parents have applied for asylum in our country. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that among undocumented migrants, children and families with children are some of the least likely candidates for absconding. Even David Wood of the UKBA admitted this to the Home Affairs Select Committee back in 2009.
The campaign group 'End Child Detention Now' is one of a huge number of groups working on this issue just in the UK. Many more provide similar opposition across Europe and indeed the world. Here, we have had assurances from the UK coalition government that the practice that Deputy PM Nick Clegg has called 'state-sponsored cruelty' would end.
So, given this widespread opposition to the practice and general agreement from those in power, it is surprising that entirely innocent children can still be detained in the UK, due only to the arbitrary lottery of nationality. While the government has taken some action to reduce the practice, there is no real end in sight.
Government promises count for little, as we have seen first-hand. This is why a concerted effort must be made to apply as much pressure as possible during the Ministerial Level meeting of all UN member states at the UNHCR in Geneva next month. This meeting is taking place to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1961 Refugee Convention, on the 7th and 8th December, and it is a perfect opportunity to convince our governments to make international commitments to ending child detention.
Further action:
The International Detention Coalition is running a letter-writing campaign in coordination with the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, and Amnesty International, and you can find out more about this here. They have a template letter, adaptable to your organisation and national situation, which can be downloaded here.
An end to child detention?: how a High Court judgement brings us closer
Simon Parker
This article originally appeared in openDemocracy, 13 January 2011.
In the High Court on Tuesday, Mr Justice Wyn Williams might have driven the last nail into the coffin of Britain's infamous and long-running child immigration detention policy. The detaining of children for immigration purposes has been denounced as a 'scandal' and a 'moral outrage' by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, yet the current Home Secretary has spared no expense in expertly and robustly defending the policy.
The action was brought at the end of last year by Public Interest Lawyers on behalf of a Malaysian family of three and a Nigerian mother and her baby. Liberty and Bail for Immigration Detainees supported the action (Suppiah and Others vs SSHD and Others). In a judgment that noted Nick Clegg's repeated disavowal of child detention as morally repugnant, the judge found that:
"The Defendant's current policy relating to detaining families with children is not unlawful. There is, nonetheless, a significant body of evidence which demonstrates that employees of UKBA have failed to apply that policy with the rigour it deserves."
Specifically, the UK Border Agency were held to have breached the families' rights to liberty, privacy and family life (their Article 5 and Article 8 rights), though not Article 3, which relates to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
The Home Office does not contest that both families were arrested in the early hours of the morning, were given only a short time to pack, transported in locked and caged vans, and that a very young girl was body searched with her arms outstretched to the obvious distress of her mother.
Reetha Suppiah and her two sons, and Sakinat Bello and her baby, were then locked up at the infamous Yarl's Wood Detention centre. As with many thousands of families to be sent there, soon after being taken into detention the children became sick and suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting. Reetha's eldest son continues to suffer from a fear of authority and recalls seeing 'policemen everywhere' in detention.
In finding that "the detention of children is not something which should ever be lightly countenanced or allowed to continue except in such circumstances which clearly justify it and which do not reasonably permit of alternatives", Justice Williams gave a clear and resounding rebuke to the policy of previous home secretaries, immigration ministers and their senior civil servants. Read more
Man or mouse? Keith Vaz should demand urgent reform of the UK Border Agency
'Much of the delay in concluding asylum and other immigration cases stems from poor quality decision-making when the application is initially considered,' says Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee whose latest report on the UK Border Agency's work is published today.
Two cheers for Vaz and the HASC! It might be three if only they were clearer and more forceful in their criticism of an agency whose deficiencies are systemic and rooted in a culture characterised by denial and deceit.
The automatic disbelief that greets asylum seekers from their first moment of arrival, coupled with a shocking disregard for human rights, compounded by the lack of legal services that might check official incompetence have created a Kafkaesque nightmare for vulnerable people who come to these shores seeking sanctuary.
'More consistent and rigorous scrutiny of applications would lead to fewer delays, fewer appeals, less uncertainty for the applicant, less pressure on the officials themselves, and probably lower costs for the UK taxpayer,' says Vaz, noting mildly that this 'is also likely to require more consistent and considered direction from those setting policy for the Agency than has sometimes been the case'.
The MPs 'lack confidence' in the Border Agency's effectiveness in 'making sure that its contractors provide adequate training and supervision of their employees in respect of the use of force,' and add: 'This is a fundamental responsibility of the Agency and is not simply a matter of clauses in contracts or formal procedural requirements.'
But Vaz and his colleagues must be aware that the failings go far deeper than that. Last March, when Dame Nuala O'Loan, investigating allegations that contractors' staff had roughed up asylum seekers, found 'inadequate management of the use of force by the private sector companies' and made 22 recommendations for change, UKBA chief executive Lin Homer did something quite extraordinary. She attacked the doctors and lawyers who had brought the abuses to light, for 'seeking to damage the reputation of our contractors'.
Homer, who has just left the Border Agency for the Department of Transport, does not escape today's report unscathed. The MPs note her failure over months to complete an audit of the way UKBA implements (or rather fails to implement) the rule requiring that torture survivors, children and people with serious medical and psychiatric conditions should be detained only 'under very exceptional circumstances'.
They remark that Homer has left unresolved their running complaint about the quality and the level of UKBA's response to MPs' letters on constituents' behalf. They note that her £208,000-a-year salary exceeded that of the Prime Minister and the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office and say her successor should receive significantly less.
But today's report does not touch upon the coincidence of Homer's tenure with five years of Home Office misrepresentation and denial of the medical evidence that detention harms children, nor does it challenge or even probe the increasingly cosy relations between civil servants and the commercial contractors who run the detention estate.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's data on mandarins who lunch, Homer enjoyed two dinners with Serco in 2007, and tucked away a 'contract review dinner' in 2008, courtesy of Raytheon, master of the e-borders programme and leader of the big security companies' club, the Trusted Borders Cabal, oops! — Consortium.
Homer lunched with former Home Secretary John Reid in September 2009 when he was a backbencher doubling up as a £50,000-a-year consultant to G4S, the company that runs UKBA's Tinsley House immigration removal centre — where the very next month a distressed 10-year-old detainee tried to strangle herself. (Tinsley House is where the government plans to hold children now that it has purportedly 'ended' child detention.)
Last April, on the cusp of a general election that might have made a government uneasy with the idea of locking up innocent children for no good reason, the Border Agency nonetheless extended Serco's £900,000-a-month contract to run Yarl's Wood detention centre until April 2013. The extension is worth £32 million. Yarl's Wood closed its doors to families in December.
For years UKBA has got away with abusing its power against some of the most vulnerable people imaginable. More boldness and greater clarity from the Home Affairs Select Committee is urgently required if the UK Border Agency is to feel pressure to change.
Guardian reveals shocking mistreatment of asylum claimants by UKBA
The Guardian newspaper in its online edition, carries a report by Diane Taylor and Hugh Muir highlighting the shocking allegations of a former caseworker, at the UKBA office in Cardiff. The former UKBA employee, Louise Perrett, claimed that asylum seekers were mistreated, tricked and humiliated by staff working for the UK Border Agency. Ms Perrett reveals how
- staff kept a stuffed gorilla, a "grant monkey", which was placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any officer who approved an asylum application
- boys from African countries who said they had been forcibly conscripted as child soldiers were made to lie down on the floor and demonstrate how they shot at people in the bush
- one method used to determine the authenticity of an asylum seeker claiming to be from North Korea was to ask whether the person ate chop suey
- interviews were conducted without lawyers, independent witnesses or tape recorders
One manager said of the asylum-seeker clients: "If it was up to me I'd take them all outside and shoot them."
Another told her this was to be expected, adding: "No one in this office is very PC. In fact everyone is the exact opposite."
Home Affairs Select Committee Chair, Keith Vaz said: "I am deeply concerned by a number of ex-UKBA workers who have spoken out about flaws in the points-based system and behaviour such as this. I will be writing to the chief executive, Lin Homer, to discover what steps are being taken to remedy this culture of disbelief and discrimination."


text:
I've said it before. I love food. And, I think a good party must have some good, good food.
So, at my party I wanted a wonderful menu that took very little time to prepare. I didn't want to be in the kitchen the entire night of my party! So, with the help of Martha and a post on Eat Drink Pretty I came up with some filling crostini appetizers. I created 6 simple crostini recipes that I'll share with you in two posts. There are no step-by-step photos because they are really that easy.
Smoked Salmon with Potatoes & Chive Sour Cream
|Not the best photo, but these were super tasty. That is why they are all gone before the picture could be taken!
Sliced French Baguette
Smoked Salmon (Trader Joes had this for a great price!),
Fresh Chives,
Sour Cream,
Garlic Salt,
Fresh Ground Pepper,
New Potatoes (or red potatoes would also work)
1. Boil potatoes until soft (but not to mashing state) then slice into 1 inch slices
2. While potatoes are boiling chop chives finely.
Mix the chives with garlic salt and pepper into sour cream to taste.
3. Place 1 potato slice on bread, put on a dollop of chive sour cream,
and top with a small slice of the smoked salmon.
White Beans Marinated with Lemons & Capers
Sliced French Baguette
2 Lemons- Zest & Juice
1/2 Jar Capers with oil
1 Cans White Beans
1. Combine the zest and juice of two lemons with 1/2 jar of capers (with the oil) and 1 can of white beans in a sauce pan over low heat.
2. Heat the beans until warm and then set aside at room temperature for at least half an hour.
3. After the beans have sat and marinated in the lemon and capers for at least half an hour place a spoonful on bread slices.
Horse Radish & Roast Beef
Sliced French Baguette
Horse Radish (I used the kind in a jar)
Thinly Sliced Roast Beef
Worcestershire Sauce
1. Heat roast beef in a sauce pan with the Worcestershire sauce.
2. Spread a thin layer of horse radish on each piece of sliced bread
3. Top with roast beef slices.


text:
Continuing efforts to push its new social network into the mainstream, Google will live stream this year's Republican National Convention on Google+, the company announced in a blog post today.
Google+ will also serve as the official social platform for the convention. Google+ and YouTube users will get an exclusive backstage pass to connect with Republican leaders off the podium via Google+ Hangouts, as well as streaming key events. The 2012 RNC is schedule for late August in Tampa, Fla.
This is hardly the first time Google has offered up Google+ live streaming coverage of a political event. Back in October, the social network live streamed a Hangout between leader of Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. More recently, President Barack Obama participated in a Google Hangout for the social network back in January.
Adding coverage of political events/discussion to Google+ is a smart move for the company, because it may actually draw in people who normally don't like to explore new social platforms. It's also a good way for the company to gain a slight advantage over Facebook in the political race.
Republican mascot photo via VIPDesignUSA/Shutterstock


text:
MuchMusic Video Awards Winners: Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and More!by Hilton Hater at . Comments
The 2013 MuchMusic Video Awards aired live from Toronto last night, with Canadians awarding major hardware to many of the same artists popular in the States.
Justin Bieber won big. So did Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato.
And the latter even performed "Heart Attack" in front of an enthusiastic audience. Watch her do so now.
Scroll down for a complete list of MuchMusic Video Awards winners.
Video of the Year
Classified feat. David Myles - 'Inner Ninja'
Post-Production of the Year
Billy Talent - 'Surprise Surprise'
Dance Video of the Year
deadmau5 featuring Chris James - 'The Veldt'
Director of the Year
Drake - 'Started From the Bottom'
Pop Video of the Year
Marianas Trench - 'Desperate Measures'
Hip-Hop Video of the Year
Drake - 'Started From The Bottom'
MuchFACT Video of the Year
Classified featuring David Myles – 'Inner Ninja'
International Video of the Year — Artist
Demi Lovato - 'Heart Attack'
International Video of the Year — Group
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz – 'Thrift Shop'
International Video of the Year by a Canadian
Avril Lavigne - 'Here's to Never Growing Up'
Your Fave Artist/Group
Justin Bieber
Your Fave Video
Marianas Trench – 'Stutter'
Your Fave Video
Marianas Trench – 'Stutter'
Your Fave International Artist or Group
Taylor Swift


text:
Many e-lit artists belong to the Modern Language Association, the largest advocacy group for scholars and teachers of literature and languages in higher education. We in electronic literature have a rare opportunity to form with other creative writers an official MLA Forum devoted to Creative Writing, "RCWS Creative Writing." [RCWS = Rhetoric Composition and Writing Studies.] If this proposed Forum can acquire 35 signatures by JUNE 15th, MLA will give access to advocates of creative writing a guaranteed SPEAKING ROLE in MLA governance and at each annual Convention.
Bethany Nowviskie, president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, teaches us by her leadership that bureaucratic change is Archimedes' Lever. If you're one of those people who says, "it's not 'digital humanities,' just "humanities," or who wishes e-literature to find support beyond the digerati — this is one important way to give e-lit a lever in MLA and in higher ed per se.
It's easy! SIGN THE PETITION to support the creation of this Creative Writing Forum, which will draw together artists publishing in digital, print and hybrid forms. Here are the conditions:
1. You must be a MLA member.
2. You'll need an account on MLA Commons, which is free and takes just moments to create.
Do you believe in MAKING AS A CRITICAL PRACTICE? Support this Forum and share the petition widely in your circles. This is another great opportunity for e-lit artists and advocates to join superpowers with others articulating a role for MAKING as critical expertise. Wonder Twin powers activate!
If formed, what are RCWS Creative Writing Forum responsibilities?
1. A 5-member Founding Exec Committee will create a letter of application (2-5 pages) presenting the Forum's goals by 15 September 2014.
2. Those 5 people will create calls for works at subsequent MLAs after the group is approved.
3. The workload will be staggered and balanced among the 5 committee members.
It's been 40 YEARS since MLA revised its structure specialties or advocacy groups. Gone are the confusing distinctions between MLA "divisions" and "groups".
Cheryl Ball says: "[I]t was a FIGHT to get [MLA] to even make this group, let alone push forward the creative writing forum within it. Most MLAers assume [creative writers] just go to AWP [Association of Writers and Writing Programs]. And they might, but I think the real theoretical work of e-literature happens at MLA instead (as far as *big* conferences go)."
To quote another superhero: Make it so.


text: The guys and gals of the HI HI PUFFY AMIYUMI crew at Renegade Animation have put up a blog HERE. There's a lot of talented artists on the show so expect to see some good work. I hope they also get around to posting more of the show's excellent designs and layouts, especially the work of Mike Giaimo and Shakeh Haghnazarian.


text:
pbielicki wrote:Looking for some advice here. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to be a noob, but I'm also not an old stager. What I am wondering is how people get their pipes to smoke to the heel. I've read a number of posts where guys describe a tobacco smoking good through to the heel but I cannot for the life of me get a smoke to go to the bottom of a briar. It's a little easier in a meer or a cob but as everyone here probably knows, that's because those pipes smoke drier than briars.
I've always chalked it up to the same as with a cigar. You can't really smoke a cigar down to nothing as you need a portion to hold. The tars and moisture also build up in that last bit of the cigar and ruin the flavor and the way it burns. With a briar, I always get 3/8-1/2" of wet dottle in the bottom which just won't burn and I just abandon it as I would the stub of a cigar. I don't think I'll go the Sherlock Holmes route and dry out the dottle to smoke later.
Do others experience the same results? Or am I not breaking in my briars properly?
Seems you are a wet smoker .Do not know if they are available in the States ,but in the UK Philtpads or wire gauze balls are put in the bottom of the bowl ,so the tobacco does not get wet ,I believe Kev_La uses them .


text:
Listen to free music by 2 Bit Pie
Blip.fm is internet radio made social. It's easy to search for, play, and discover free music recommended by real people. Join today to create your own free station.
Artists Like 2 Bit Pie
Blip.fm DJs who play 2 Bit Pie
Friends: MerchantCircle | Charity Blossom | Website Load Testing


text:
Published 1:00 am, Wednesday, June 28, 2006
GOSHEN -- A prosecutor told jurors he would prove that Christopher Porco murdered his father with an ax in the early morning of Nov. 14, 2004, as Peter Porco had caught on to the intricate web of lies and deception the son had spun for more than a year to stay at the University of Rochester where he had previously flunked out and to stay afloat financially.
By the time Peter Porco found out that his son had electronically forged his name on a $31,000 loan as well as a loan to buy a Jeep, Christopher Porco's life was unraveling, and he drove to his Delmar home from Rochester with murder on his mind, Chief Assistant District Attorney Michael McDermott told a jury of eight women and four men during opening arguments in an Orange County courtroom.
``By the time the murder took place, Christopher Porco, ladies and gentlemen, is living on borrowed time,'' McDermott said. ``He's living in a fantasy land.''
The father was on to his son's game and was threatening to file forgery charges against him, the prosecutor said.
``Christopher Porco went home the morning of Nov. 14 to silence the voices that wanted to hold him accountable,'' McDermott said.
The prosecutor highlighted points he intended to prove:
-- That the son staged a fake burglary/break-in to cover up the slaying, yet it looked suspiciously like a similar burglary two years earlier when he took his mother's laptop and sold it on eBay. ``That burglary proved to be Christopher Porco's undoing,'' McDermott said.
-- The neurosurgeon who operated on Joan Porco after the ax attack on her would testify that her brain injuries could cause memory loss of that horrible night, and ``that amnesia persists to this day,'' McDermott said.
-- That in the hours after the attack Joan Porco ``adamantly'' nodded yes when asked by a police detective if Christopher was the killer. ``Forcefully, adamantly she indicates to him and the paramedics there that `yes, it was Chris who did it to her,''' the prosecutor said.
-- That the son's EZ Pass card had been shoved down in the console of his Jeep where it could not be used, thus eliminating the possibility that authorities could trace his drive home from Rochester.
-- That the son's college friends would testify that he never slept in a dormitory lounge sofa as Christopher Porco claimed he did during the night of the murder.
Defense attorney Terence Kindlon contended in opening remarks that Joan Porco had been too badly hurt to be able to identify anybody, so her supposed nod that police say implicated her son was a red herring.
Kindlon also said that Bethlehem police Detective Christopher Bowdish, the first on the scene, was so shocked and rattled by what he saw that he misinterpreted Joan Porco, wrongly assuming that she was implicating her son. She was so badly hurt that she couldn't have possibly seen who attacked her, the lawyer said.
``What opportunity would this woman, this good woman, have had to observe her assailant?'' Kindlon said.
He noted that Bowdish was a 17-year police veteran but added, ``This was not 17 years on the homicide squad in the Bronx,'' characterizing the Bethlehem Police Department as an agency that deals almost solely in petty offenses.
``This is a police department that chases skateboarders away from the 7-11...This is not the FBI,'' he said. ``It's critically important that you hold that thought in your mind.''
Joan Porco sat surrounded by friends and family in the front row of the courtroom. Just before the afternoon's proceedings began, without the jury present, her son leaned over the railing that separates the lawyers from the spectators and hugged his mom.
At times, defense lawyer Laurie Shanks put her hand on Christopher Porco's back.
Kindlon said ``the nod'' is the strongest evidence the Bethlehem police has. ``That's as good as it gets in this case.''
His voice rising to an angry shot, Kindlon said to jurors, ``That's not proof,'' and repeated, ``That is not proof.'' He then said, ``That is a bizarre and grotesque fairy tale.''
He added that police found not a molecule of blood in the son's Jeep. ``Instead of evidence let's just cover him with slime,'' Kindlon said of what police were doing.
He raised the issue of Peter Porco's cousin who was said to be a Mob character known as Frankie the Fireman. He suggested that the cousin had gotten an easy sentencing for allegedly snitching and that someone from the mob was exacting retribution by attacking Peter Porco and his wife.
``The fireman's ax on the bed like a horse's head,'' Kindlon said in a not so subtle reference to ``The Godfather.''
He suggested that that father may also have had enemies from his days working in Family Court, ``where they come along in a suit in the middle of the day and ruin your life.``
Porco, 22, out on $250,000 bail, is charged with the murder of his father, Peter, 52, and the attempted murder of his mother, Joan, now 55. The trial was moved to Goshen by an appellate court, citing prejudicial pretrial publicity in Albany County.


text:
These last few themes have been so fantastic! This round of Travel Roulette, hosted by Adventure Crow, has a theme of "Spirit of the Country". I figured whats better then to show the spirit of a country, then a performance by a local Umbrian Flag and Drum Corp performing a fantastic performance at the opening night celebrations for the Travel Bloggers Unite Conference last week in Italy!
Updated * May 4, 2012 – Nick from Adventure Crow: "Absolutely incredible shot, love the colours and the motion, I have to admit it was a very close thing between this one and the winner." Thanks Nick! Check out the other winners on Adventure Crow's site!
Follow my pin trail on uencounter.me !


text:
S&P 500 Ends Five-Day Rally Amid Stalemate Over Greek Debt Talks
U.S. stocks retreated, ending a five-day advance in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, amid a stalemate between European finance ministers and Greek bondholders over how to resolve the nation's debt crisis.
Travelers Cos., the only insurer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, sank 3.8 percent as earnings fell. McDonald's Corp. (MCD) slid 2.2 percent after saying that foreign- currency fluctuations will cut 2012 profit. Verizon Communications Inc. dropped 1.6 percent as it reported a loss. Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) declined 1.7 percent as earnings missed estimates. Apple Inc. (AAPL) surged 7.7 percent at 5:07 p.m. New York time after reporting record quarterly sales and profit.
The S&P 500 fell 0.1 percent to 1,314.65 at 4 p.m. New York time. The benchmark gauge for American equities rose 2.1 percent over the previous five days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 33.07 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,675.75.
"It's all about the negotiations of Greek debt," Mike Ryan, the New York-based chief investment strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas, said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees $715 billion. "There's concern that, if it spills over, it undermines some of the progress being made. I'm still not convinced that they solved all of their problems. The next question is how deep of an impact that will have on earnings."
Global stocks slumped as European finance ministers pushed bondholders to provide greater debt relief for Greece, spurring concern the nation may fail to make a March 20 bond payment. The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for the global economy. President Barack Obama tonight will lay out what he calls a "blueprint" for revitalizing the economy in his third State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress.
Beating Forecasts
The S&P 500 yesterday capped its longest rally since December as data bolstered confidence in the economy and most quarterly reports exceeded forecasts. Of the 74 companies in the S&P 500 that reported results since Jan. 9, 48 posted per-share earnings that beat projections, Bloomberg data show.
Travelers retreated 3.8 percent, the most in the Dow, to $58. The insurer said fourth-quarter profit fell on lower investment income and a smaller reserve benefit, capping the company's least profitable year since 2004.
McDonald's declined 2.2 percent to $98.75. The company, which gets about 60 percent of its revenue outside the U.S., said profit may be trimmed as the European debt crisis sinks the region's currency. Foreign-exchange fluctuations may cut 2012 profit by as much as 18 cents a share and first-quarter earnings by as much as 3 cents, Chief Financial Officer Peter Bensen said today on a conference call.
Phone Companies
A measure of phone companies had the biggest loss in the S&P 500 among 10 groups, slumping 1.3 percent. Verizon (VZ) slid 1.6 percent to $37.79. The second-largest U.S. phone company reported a fourth-quarter loss after booking a pension charge and having higher subsidy costs for rising iPhone sales. On a conference call, Verizon gave a 2012 earnings-forecast range whose bottom trailed analysts' estimates. AT&T Inc. (T) declined 1 percent to $30.09.
Peabody retreated 1.7 percent to $36.86. Sales from Australian mines fell to 6.2 million tons from 6.7 million tons. "Geological issues" reduced output at North Goonyella in Australia, Peabody said. The company is also moving a longwall, a type of coal face at an underground mine, at the Twentymile pit in Colorado, which will interrupt production there.
Zions Bancorporation (ZION) had the biggest loss in the S&P 500, falling 7.6 percent to $17.15. The Salt Lake City-based bank was cut to "hold" from "buy" at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that missed the average analyst estimate.
Handbag Maker
Coach Inc. (COH) jumped 5.8 percent to $67.97. The largest U.S. luxury handbag maker reported a 15 percent increase in quarterly profit that topped analysts' estimates, driven by holiday sales in North America.
Waters Corp. (WAT) soared 8 percent, the most in the S&P 500, to $85.04. The maker of laboratory products and instruments posted quarterly profit and sales that beat analysts' estimates.
Apple surged 7.7 percent to $452.68 as it reported results after regular trading hours. Holiday purchases of the new iPhone helped the company steer clear of the consumer spending slump that has hurt rival technology companies.
Earnings probably grew 3.4 percent for S&P 500 companies in the fourth quarter, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts. The projection has fallen from 6.2 percent at the end of last year. The global economy is forecast to grow 2.3 percent in 2012, according to the median projection in a survey of economists, down from the estimate of 3.4 percent in July.
'Soft Earnings'
"The market is not terribly disappointed by what appear to be soft earnings compared to where we've been," David Joy, the Boston-based chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial Inc., said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees $600 billion. "There's a creeping sense of optimism that things are going to improve. That lessens the fear that along with softness in Europe we'll have a global recession."
Collective Brands Inc. (PSS) rallied 6.4 percent to $15.89. The company may extract the biggest takeover premium of any apparel retailer in the world as the maker of Saucony and Sperry Top- Sider shoes lures private equity buyers.
Collective Brands, which said in August it was reviewing options to boost shareholder value, may attract interest from buyout firms and rivals such as Wolverine World Wide Inc. (WWW) when bids are due next week, according to people familiar with the process. The company, which also owns the Payless ShoeSource chain, could be worth as much as $27 a share based on the value of its separate businesses, Morningstar Inc. said.
Half the Price
While the 87 percent premium would be the largest of any deal in the industry worth at least $100 million, it still allows acquirers to get Collective Brands at half the price of its competitors relative to sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In a breakup, an apparel company could keep the wholesale brands, which boosted sales by 25 percent in the first nine months of 2011, while a private equity firm would run the Payless chain for its cash flow, Auriga USA LLC said.
"On the retail side of the business, this seems like almost a perfect set-up for a private equity company," R.J. Hottovy, director of consumer research at Chicago-based Morningstar, said in a telephone interview. "The wholesale brands alone would be an attractive acquisition target for any of the major branded footwear players."
To contact the reporter on this story: Rita Nazareth in New York at email@example.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Charlie From 'Always Sunny' May Star in 'Horrible Bosses'
When I heard that Jennifer Aniston had signed on to star in Horrible Bosses, I assumed that the film was going to be a real hunk of crap. But when I heard that Charlie Day from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is in talks to sign on, I was forced to reconsider. Throw Jason Bateman into the mix, and this film about three friends who plot to kill their bosses seems a lot more interesting.
Jason Bateman will play a man who believes his hard work will be rewarded but when he gets passed over for a promotion, he hits rock bottom. Charlie Day plays a hapless guy, always in the wrong place at the wrong time. A part still to be cast is a ladies' man who is good at his job, but gets a rude awakening when his boss passes away and gets replaced.
Word on "the street" is that Colin Farrell will be playing said ladies' man. I guess "the street" must read Collider.


text:
Clemson dominates Furman 71-35
CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) -- It hasn't been the easiest few months for Clemson sophomore guard Jordan Roper. Following a solid freshman season, Roper received a major scare over the summer when he suffered what coach Brad Brownell termed a ''mini-stroke'' which forced tests and, according to Brownell, ''questions about how he was going to be.''
And after a solid start to the 2013-14 season, Roper suffered a concussion against UMass in the Charleston Classic finals that sidelined him for a game and hampered his offensive rhythm when he returned.
Roper broke out Saturday night, scoring a season-high 16 points in Clemson's 71-35 rout of Furman. Clemson never looked back following a 17-0 first-half run keyed by Roper.
The Tigers improved to 8-2 on the season, while Furman fell to 4-6.
''There was some concern,'' Brownell said of Roper. ''He had a tough offseason, dealt with a couple things and hasn't been as smooth as everyone would like. At times, he thinks about things that have bothered him, but he's doing fine now, which is good.''
The Paladins shot just 30.2 percent from the field and their 35 points was the lowest by an opponent in coach Brad Brownell's four-year tenure at Clemson.
''We really pride ourselves on defense. It's part of our identity,'' Roper said. ''Coach Brownell's philosophy. We're a hard-nosed defensive team and we really stress defense each game.''
Brownell joked that such a philosophy needs encouragement, saying, ''You don't see many guys in their free time working on defensive slides and jump balls.'' But his team has bought in.
''Our guys understand that's important, it's what we do to be successful,'' he said. ''It gives you identity. I think good teams have that.''
Devin Coleman and K.J. McDaniels each scored 12 points for Clemson. Kendrec Ferrara led Furman with 10 points.
Clemson travels to Auburn on Thursday, while Furman plays host to Liberty on Friday.
Clemson rolled into halftime with a 38-19 lead. The Tigers led 21-17 with 6:51 left, but finished the half on a 17-2 run sparked by Roper. With Clemson up 26-17, Roper nailed back-to-back 3-pointers and added a driving layup, scoring eight consecutive points for a 34-17 edge.
He broke out of a shooting slump that began after he suffered the concussion. He missed a game against Coastal Carolina and combined to hit just two of his next nine shots against South Carolina State and Arkansas.
''I've been trying to put up a bunch of shots, get in the flow of the game since I had the concussion, and those shots helped us,'' Roper said. ''When anybody makes a shot for us, it builds the enthusiasm, it builds the momentum.''
The Tigers won their 30th consecutive game over Furman, dating back to the 1978-79 season. The Paladins are struggling under first-year coach Niko Medved and entered Saturday coming off a 97-93 home loss to Division II Mars Hill.
As usual, defense served as a foundation for Clemson's success. The Tigers came into the game tops nationally in scoring defense, allowing 53.6 points per game, and tops in field goal percentage, yielding 35 percent. But with just over 8 minutes left in the half, the Paladins were shooting 50 percent from the field and trailed only 21-17.
They missed their next eight shots and committed three turnovers. Only Stephen Croone's layup with 1 second left in the half broke the drought.
''We hung with them for a while and then we got stagnant, tried to play a little too much one-on-one, didn't take care of the ball,'' Medved said. ''That fueled their transition. I think we'll learn a lot from this game, I really do. This isn't the first team they've done this to.''
Clemson extended its lead after halftime. A pair of dunks by McDaniels - the first a one-hand alley-oop slam, the second a windmill slam off an open-court steal - pushed the margin to 63-28 with 7:12 to play.
Furman shot just 23.8 percent for the second half and 30.2 percent for the game. Clemson finished the game shooting 50 percent and 50 percent in the second half.
''It's just being more aggressive than we were,'' McDaniels said. ''I feel like we were a little bit too passive in the first half. We had to get it together in the locker room, came back down and take care of business.''
The Tigers also owned a sizable edge in rebounds (37-23) and points in the paint (36-18).
Clemson lost only two seniors from last season's 13-18 team, and Roper says defense has been a major factor in his team's improvement.
''Guys are more experienced and we're in better position defensively,'' he said. ''One of the main things we wanted to emphasize tonight was deflections. The past few games, we haven't been getting that many deflections. You want to get steals and blocks and tipped passes. Just have more activity defensively.''


text:
Mark Bittman's Opinionator column puts the farmer above the chef:
With all due respect to my chef friends (many of whom will agree with this statement), most cooking is dead-easy and pretty quick: it takes 20 minutes to roast a marrow bone, and an ambitious fifth-grader can get it right on the first try. A more complicated dish, like the seared corn with chorizo that was served a bit later, might consume an hour and require a bit of skill.
But raising and butchering the cows and pigs that produced the marrow bones and meat for the chorizo? Growing the corn? These are tasks that take weeks, if not months, of daily activity and maintenance.
Agree or disagree? Read more here and leave your comments below!


text:
Chevrolet is about to bury its once-popular Avalanche – but not without a fitting farewell.
The Avalanche, for those who might have forgotten, was Chevy's attempt to blend the best attributes of a pickup and it ever-popular Silverado pickup. Launched a decade ago, it was a significant seller. But with few changes over the years as the maker moved on to other things, Avalanche fell off the public's radar and rather than invest in a questionable redesign Chevrolet will send the crossover into retirement.
But first, the automaker will offer one last special package, dubbed the 2013 Chevrolet Black Diamond Avalanche, subtle body tweaks including body-colored bed surrounds and special badging, as well as a range of additional features.
The LS, for example, will get power-adjustable pedals, park assist, a rearview camera and remote start, among other things. Pricing will start at $36,975, including delivery charges. That's a $2,500 discount.


text:
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the TidBITS Content Network for Apple consultants.
In Snow Leopard, you can now set an amount of time after your Mac goes to sleep or engages the screen saver before it requires a password to log back on. In Leopard, the option was simply to require the password or not. Choose among several increments, between 5 seconds and 4 hours, from System Preferences > Security.
From Doug McLean


text:
Not sure what to get your daughter for Christmas? How about a new Zeenie doll? New on the scene and sure to please!
We received Lina and Evee to review. My daughter was excited. They give off the "Monster High" doll vibe but you can tell they are different. The go above and beyond by being made of recyleable materials!
First let me tell you a bit about how it all started! Straight from the Zeenie Doll website.
The concept and mission behind Zeenie Dollz started with a sketch. It was a mother and daughter team that brought it to life. Hansini, the creator, designer and inventor of the cute face dolls series, showed her mother, Laxmi, a beautiful sketch of a girl doll toy with flowing blue hair and explained that her persona was that of Mother Earth. With overwhelming support and belief in the concept, Laxmi used her toy industry experience to bring Zennia, the first unique doll in the series, to life. From there, the duo have worked together intimately through every step of the creative process to take a beautiful sketch, with a meaningful cause and a passion for the environment, and merge that into the Zeenie Dollz series you see today.
Each doll highlights an environmental cause that needs attention, bringing together education and green ideals for young girls. Zennia, the special edition doll in the series, leads the pack and embodies Mother Earth, the protector of our planet. As the giver and sustainer of life on earth, Zennia is passionate about combating the evil anti-environment villains that threaten to destroy the world. To assist her in protecting our environment and spreading eco-awareness, Zennia is joined by a team of five eco-warrior fashionistas.
Evee, Protector of the Skies and Defender against Pollution.
Kazumi, Protector of the Polar Regions and Defender against Global Warming
Lina is the protector of the rainforests along with her pet ocelot Abby; together they work hard to protect the rainforests and its species from deforestation.
Sini, Protector of Farmland and Defender of Mistreated and Abused Animals.
Yana is the protector of the oceans and all its marine inhabitants along with her pet dolphin Serena; together they work hard to protect the oceans from pollution and its species from over fishing.
Zennia, also known as Mother Earth, is the protector of our planet. Her mission is to save the Earth and its creatures from the anti-environment villains - and to do it in style! Zennia herself is made of recyclable materials and comes with a fashionable brush to style her hair, a luggage tag, colorful bracelet and the doll stand is included as well.
Each of the Zeenie dolls are 12 inches tall and come pact with five accessories, a hairbrush, an id card, a doll stand, a bracelet for the child to wear and a stuffed animal pal that coincides with the doll's environmental cause.
Zeenie Dollz each also feature 12 different ball joints for maximum positioning options to create the best in play experiences. I love how their feet bed at the ankle! It is so cool! I wish these were around when I played with Barbie dolls.
Zeenie website, in addition to various cause-related and age appropriate games and activities.
A percentage of every sale will be donated to organizations working to preserve the environment and protect all animals and the places they call home.
I also recommend that you check out the Zeenie Dolls app on iTunes.
Catch Zeenie on twitter at http://twitter.com/zeeniedollz and on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ZeenieDollzLlc
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.