The security forces in Northern Ireland are braced for a possible extension of disturbances in the run-up to tomorrow’s big march at Drumcree, where the army has strengthened defences in anticipation of serious trouble.
Razor wire was strung across fields yesterday to deter incursions by the loyalist rioters who appear nightly at Drumcree to attack the security forces with stones and other missiles.The authorities are worried by the fact that the Portadown Orange Order leader, Harold Gracey, declined yesterday to denounce the violence attacks, saying the blame lay with Tony Blair and the Parades Commission.Figures released yesterday by the RUC revealed that 37 police officers and two soldiers had been injured in the violence, with 145 attacks on the security forces Shots were fired by rioters on 12 occasions. There have been 140 petrol-bomb incidents; 171 vehicles have been damaged with 50 hijackings; 43 homes and 27 other buildings have been damaged; 54 people have been arrested.The Parades Commissionturned down a suggestion from the Portadown Orangemen yesterday, who said they would move towards mediation in the dispute if they were allowed to march tomorrow. The Catholic residents’ spokesman Brendan McKenna described the approach as “a tired old idea from tired old men”.. A drive to improve the care of the nation’s most vulnerable children was launched by the Prime Minister yesterday with plans to place an extra 1,000 children a year with adoptive families. A drive to improve the care of the nation’s most vulnerable children was launched by the Prime Minister yesterday with plans to place an extra 1,000 children a year with adoptive families.
Tony Blair unveiled a string of measures, including a national adoption register and a new task force that will crack down on failing local authorities, to prevent children languishing in care.The register, covering England and Wales, will help match the estimated 2,500 children currently awaiting adoption with the 1,300 families who have been approved to adopt.

It will be backed by a new six-month time limit for local authorities to decide whether children who come into care are to be placed for adoption.However, critics called for extra resources to attract new adoptive families and said the Government had missed an opportunity to strip local authorities of their control of adoption and hand it to independent agencies.Mr Blair said in February that he would personally lead a review of adoption policy, in response to news that in the worst councils only 1 per cent of children in care were being adopted while the best achieved a rate of 14 per cent.Yesterday, he published a report drawn up by the Government’s performance and innovation unit, which suggests ways to speed the adoption process and recommends changes in the law. The proposals are to go out for consultation but Mr Blair said immediate action would be taken to establish the national register, national standards for local authorities and the task force.He said: “For some of the most vulnerable children who, for whatever reason, cannot live with their birth parents, adoption provides the chance for a fresh start and the opportunity to enjoy the kind of loving family life that most of us take for granted.”John Hutton, the Social Services minister, said yesterday that 2,200 children were adopted last year from local authority care. “It would be reasonable to think of a target increase of 35 to 50 per cent (770 to 1,100) in [that] number by the end of next year. We are looking for a very significant change in the numbers going through the system.”One in three adopted children remains in care for more than three years before being given a new home; two out of three wait more than a year. Mr Hutton said the task force would focus on the worst local authorities and, if they did not improve, would have the power to remove their adoption work and place it with rival agencies.He added that the range of people approved for adoption needed to be expanded to include single parents and older parents. “We believe we can improve the system without opening the floodgates to unsuitable people. We need more people from all walks of life to come forward.”.

Hard men in leathers wept alongside women and children yesterday at the funeral of the man they called the King of the Road, the motorcycle racing champion Joey Dunlop. Hard men in leathers wept alongside women and children yesterday at the funeral of the man they called the King of the Road, the motorcycle racing champion Joey Dunlop.
Bikers from all over the world joined the mourners in Dunlop’s home town of Ballymoney in Northern Ireland.About 50,000 people attended the funeral of the five times Formula One world champion, who was killed when he crashed into a tree during a race in Estonia on Sunday. Among the guests were Kate Hoey, the Sports minister, and her Republic of Ireland counterpart, Jim McDaid.A tearful Ms Hoey said: “None of us can really believe it has happened but the warmth and affection he was held in you can feel all around.”All week, fans had queued for hours to lay floral tributes outside Joey’s Bar in Ballymoney. Police had to set up a special one-way road system as bikers’ convoys streamed in from Belfast, Dublin, and the Isle of Man, where Dunlop, 48, was regarded as a legend after clocking up 26 TT wins.After a private service at the family home, thousands of fans lined the roadside as the cortÿge made its way to Garryduff Presbyterian Church, where Dunlop was baptised and where he celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary in 1998. His widow, Linda, and their children, Julie, Donna, Gary, Richard and Joanne, walked behind the hearse.The Rev John Kirkpatrick, chaplain to the Motorcycle Union of Ireland, spoke of the “people’s champion”.

He said: “In sport he made the difficult look easy, nearly poetic and the dangerous look safe. Even with his focus on the chequered flag, he was never inconsiderate, in victory self-effacing and in defeat generous of others.”. A group of 10 GI babies – children born in Britain to American servicemen during the Second World War – are trying to trace their fathers. A group of 10 GI babies – children born in Britain to American servicemen during the Second World War – are trying to trace their fathers.
They were all abandoned by their mothers and grew up in a children’s home in Minehead, Somerset, with the shameful knowledge that they had been born out of wedlock. All were born to black soldiers.But although the stigma of being illegitimate has eased over the years, they were still tormented by not knowing their fathers’ identities.Ann Evans, 55, who was adopted by a Welsh mining family after being abandoned by her mother, organised the reunion and said she wanted to help the others trace their families. She did manage to find her parents only to discover her father had died young and her mother, whom she refused to name, had no wish to meet her.”There are a number of people even now who don’t know who their fathers are. A number of their mothers are living locally but they won’t tell their children the details of their fathers,” she said.”All these children are now in their fifties and it would not cause them or their mothers any harm for them to know who their fathers are.

They have a right to know.”Mrs Evans was one of 27 babies who were left in the children’s home. The unmarried mothers were shunned by the town as soon as news of their pregnancies leaked out, and when they gave birth to mixed race children they were forced to give them up for adoption as there was no support from their families, the Government or the United States Army.The babies were sent to Holnicote House in Minehead until they were old enough to be adopted. Mary Hebditch, a former nursery nurse, said: “They were lovely children. I had dozens of them to say with us on the farm at different times.”At the age of five, Mrs Evans and the others were put up for adoption. She was brought up with her adoptive parents’ four white sons and said she had a tormented childhood because the local children refused to accept her colour or her English accent.By the mid-Eighties she had decided to track down her parents and used a social worker to find her mother, who has since died.”I wrote to her but she made it quite clear she was not pleased to hear from me.