News

Friday evening’s temperature may well have been around 20 degrees, but primary and senior school boys all wore shirt and ties for the annual prestigious awards event. Girls and young ladies too dressed up for the occasion. Smart dress, good manners and high achievers were in abundance for the 9th Dr John Roberts CBE QC award ceremony run by Margaret Noel and her ‘Descendents’ campaign.

A cursory glance at their website gives you a feel about what they are trying to achieve. Their motto for young people is:

The recent revelation that the former Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, Sir Norman Bettison allegedly attempted to influence the way a key witness, Mohammed Amran, gave evidence to the Macpherson Inquiry when it visited Bradford is deeply disturbing.

Mohammed Amran says he is working with his legal team to demand a full independent inquiry and investigation into the role of the former Chief Constable Norman Bettison.

Operation Black Vote have been encouraging Black men and women to become school governors for years. So when local community all rounder Desmond Jadoo informed us that he’d not only taken up our challenge, but he’d been successful we were delighted.

His certificate read:

‘This is to certify that Desmond Jaddoo has been appointed to the Governing body of Glenmead Primary School for a period of 4 years starting from March 20th 2013.’

Chloe Smith, Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, today launched a new campaign aimed at getting as many people as possible on the electoral register. The campaign is particularly targeted at groups of people who have been identified as being under-represented on the electoral register, including BME communities, young people aged 16-24 and people in social housing.

A new report published by Warwick University and Coventry Women’s Voice suggests that BME women are being badly hit by the Coalitions Governments austerity measures.

The most dramatic impact for BME women has been employment. There ground-breaking research shows that unemployment among BME women in Coventry has risen by 74% between 2009 and 2013. Unemployment among white British Women increased by 30% during the same period.

The young man born in Zambia brought up in rural Dorset, who has spent most of his adult life in Wales, now becomes the first Black Minister for Wales in the Welsh Assembly.

Vaughan Gething has taken on a new position as deputy minister for tackling poverty and has been sworn into his role today.

Vaughan is used to being the first Black man in many areas: He was the first Black president of the Welsh NUS and the first Black president of the Welsh TUC. In 2011 he became the first Welsh Assembly member of African decent. And now the first Welsh Minister.

Make no mistake President Barack Obama is the most powerful man in the world. And when he wants to call in international favours, which could have easily jeopardised the life of a Bolivian President Evo Morales, it appears that he is prepared to sanction it.

The Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to the tell the police in England and Wales to scale back their prolific use of Stop and Search. May who has looked long and hard at the work done by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in this area has concluded that, ‘intelligence–led’ approach to policing is far more affective and is much less divisive than the ‘dragnet’ approach, which randomly and disproportionately Stops and Searches young Black men in many urban areas.

Written by Poppy Brady from The Voice

CAMPAIGNING TO make sure people are registered to vote is a marathon not a sprint and no-one knows this more than Birmingham’s own voting crusader Desmond Jaddoo.

Since a national voting registration campaign, organised by Operation Black Vote, was launched in Birmingham last November, political activist Jaddoo has vowed to get the city’s African and Caribbean communities registered and engaged in the voting process.

Racists in Newport South Wales desecrated four Muslim gravestones in Christchurch Cemetery.

Vandals daubed ‘Lee Rigby murder’, along with swastikas on the gravestones. They also wrote the initials of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the National Front (NF) and the British National Party (BNP).

On a separate incident racist graffiti including swastikas has been sprayed on the walls of a Redditch mosque.