He said: “The aim is to put them in clusters in areas where there’s an element of support. We think it’s on this basis that the asylum seekers don’t all filter back to London and the South-east.”The Government hopes to take the financial burden off councils in London and nearChannel ports by paying authorities in other areas to house refugees at a rate of pounds 165 a head to cover accommodation and living costs.The Bill, which Mr Straw described as the “most comprehensive overhaul” of the immigration system for decades, states that asylum seekers would be paid in vouchers not cash. Those who refuse to remain in their allocated accommodation will automatically lose their right to support.Mr Straw said: “If you are just trying to take us for a ride and you mess about and place yourself in a position where you can no longer receive support,that’s your decision.”Among new measures designed to curb illegal immigration is an end to so-called “quickie marriages” by requiring couples to give 15 days’ notice of their intention to wed.A crackdown on unscrupulous immigration advisers will include an annual charge of pounds 6,300 for any firm wishing to practice in this area. The Government also hopes to save around pounds 500m a year by introducing a new fast-track process based on a single and comprehensive right of appeal.

It aims to make an initial decision on a case within two months.A fine of pounds 2,000 per illegal immigrant is to be imposed on the drivers of vehicles who smuggle people into the country.The Bill includes plans for a new financial bond scheme whereby sponsors would be asked to make a payment as a guarantee of the intentions of a visitor to the United Kingdom. The money would be forfeited if visiting conditions were breached. Family visitors are to be given a right of appeal if their applications to visit British relatives are turned down.Mr Straw produced figures showing that in 1998 most asylum seekers came to Britain from areas of conflict, notably the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. The exception was Lithuania, from where 1,300 refugees arrived last year, a pattern which Mr Straw described as “a racket”.He said the Government was also disposing of the controversial “White List” system, which imposes special visiting restrictions on selected nationalities, including Bulgarians and Romanians, and has caused diplomatic tension..

A PRISON doctor was struck off the medical register yesterday after prescribing lethal doses of methadone to two prisoners who had no registered histories of heroin abuse. Dr Archibald Alexander, from Croydon in Surrey, was found guilty of serious professional misconduct at a General Medical Council hearing in London. He has 15 years experience with the prison medical service.
The GMC disciplinary committee found he had been “irresponsible” in prescribing fatal doses of the heroin substitute to Carl Owen and David Davies, two inmates at Brixton Prison in south London in 1994.The committee chairman, Dr Jeremy Lee-Potter, accepted that Mr Owen and Mr Davies tried to fool the 63-year-old doctor into believing they were suffering withdrawal symptoms.”A conscientious assessment of the… patient’s condition is a fundamental aspect of good clinical practice and is essential before initiating treatment,” said Dr Lee-Potter.Dr Alexander treated both men with 50 millilitres of methadone and a twice-daily dose of valium for heroin withdrawal without properly checking their medical history, said Michael Mansfield QC, representing the families.. A RARE SPECIES of curlew is in grave danger of becoming the first European bird to die out since the great auk more than 150 years ago.

Only nine slender-billed curlews – which breed in Russia and central Asia and winter in places such as the Mediterranean – were seen throughout the world last year.
A smaller cousin of the familiar Eurasian curlew, one of Britain’s best- known wetland birds, the slender-billed has for several years been classed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.”I suspect that, without a miracle, it will become extinct in the next decade,” said Dr Will Cresswell, an Oxford University ornithology lecturer.”One characteristic of species with very low populations – and in the case of the slender-billed curlew there could be as few as 50 left – is that they bump along for years and then something happens and they vanish for good.”Dr Cresswell joined an expedition last summer which spent 10 weeks searching the Kustani, Petyropavlovsk and Pavlodar regions of Kazakhstan for nesting grounds Not one was found. In fact, no one has set eyes on a slender- billed curlew’s nest since 1924, when one was discovered in Russia.A big problem for conservationists is the mystery over the bird’s movements and the precise whereabouts of its breeding grounds and winter haunts.The latest edition of Birding World magazine reports sightings of the species last year in only three locations. During April birds turned up at two places in northern Greece, with up to five at Porto Lagos and three on Lake Mitrikou. The only other report was of one in Druridge Bay, Northumberland, in May, which, if accepted by the British Birds Rarities Committee, was the first sighting in the United Kingdom.The last known regular winter haunt was Merdja Zerga, a large tidal lagoon on the north-west African coast between Tangier and Rabat.

But each year the number decreased until there was only one, which left in late February 1995 to begin its long spring migration to Russia’s steppes It did not return in the autumn. The same year, up to 19 were also present at a site in southern Italy up to late March, but they did not return in subsequent winters.Britain’s acknowledged world expert on slender-billed curlews is Adam Gretton, now with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, who has been on three expeditions to Siberia and one to Kazakhstan looking for nesting birds, without success. In 1994, he estimated the population to be between 50 and 270 birds, but their status appears worse now. He said: “Ten years ago there were up to a dozen records a year internationally. But now that it is down to two or three, the situation is very worrying But there is a ray of hope. There could be birds wintering regularly in places where access is difficult.”It is possible there could be regular wintering in Algeria, Iraq and Iran, which, because of the political situation, have become no-go areas for people studying birds.