News

Yesterday the whole of South Africa was celebrating the birthday of its most prominent figure and former president, Nelson Mandela. Mandela or ‘Madiba’ as he is affectionately known as did so much to spread worldwide attention on the plight of black South Africans, giving up an arduous 27 years of his liberty in a bid to rid South Africa of apartheid. Yet despite what they did to him, he valiantly continued and in 1994, became president and the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election.

The eminent theologian Dr Robert Beckford is known for not pulling his punches,and in a frank conversation with Church leaders and activist he was true to his word. During a seminar which sets out to transform Black led churches to be at the forefront of demanding greater social and racial justice, Beckford argues:

Former Labour MP Marsha Singh sadly passed away yesterday, but in his wake he leaves on a legacy that has had many of his colleagues championing his work. Today, OBV remembers the high points of a distinguished career.

Born in the Punjab region of India, Singh migrated to Britain where he was worked as a part of the Directorate of Education for Bradford City Council and Bradford Community Health Trust. Eventually Singh was elected in a landslide victory to become Labour’s MP of Bradford West in 1997.

Pressure from the Black community and others have forced the Olympic authorities to rethink their position and afford The Voice newspaper accreditation to cover the London Olympic games.

In a statement the BOA said:

We are pleased to confirm that the IOC have awarded an accreditation to the BOA, which will be allocated to The Voice.

The Voice senior Editor George Ruddock said:

When Jyoti Bhojani joined OBV as a volunteer, none of us would have guessed that in three short years she would go from enthusiastic volunteer to a ‘stand out’ candidate to become Parliamentary assistant  to Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

With less than two weeks to go before the Olympic games the oldest and most-read Black newspaper in the country, The Voice newspaper, has been refused Olympic accreditation to be at the games.

This is an insult on a number of levels; not least because the games here in London was won on its teeming diversity, secondly and equally important is that on the track at least, it will be Black athletes who will dominate success.

OBV’s director Simon Woolley said:

The trial of John Terry for alleged racial abuse may be over, but it still leaves questions that need to be answered about the acceptability of racism in football and wider society, as well as how footballers are to conduct themselves in future. The revelations unearthed during the week-long trial do as much to order a new change in attitudes within English football as the not guilty verdict for Terry does.

Thousands of successful women have joined the drive to kick-start growth by stepping forward to mentor other women wanting to succeed in business, the Home Secretary has announced.

Inspirational mentoring champions include Specsavers founder Dame Mary Perkins and Dawn Russell, who survived cancer and now runs her own foundation aimed at boosting self-worth in young women. Other high-profile ambassadors promoting mentoring include Hallett Retail founder Wendy Hallett and digital business entrepreneur Penny Power.

Like many of you I’d never met Dr Tommie Smith before. I knew that iconic image but not the man behind it. For three days I had the privilege of learning more about that historic event, but even more importantly about the man. A memory that will last a very long time.

I picked up Tommie and his manager wife Delois from Heathrow airport. It was raining. ‘Oh man this beautiful weather’, the six foot, five inches tall man said as we walked out the airport. ‘We’ve just come from California, via Atlanta and in both places they were hot’.

In recent months the Employment Tribunal, and Appeals Tribunal has issued two welcome decisions in respect of employees speaking their first language in the workplace. Fiona Hamor, a Partner in the Employment team at Pannone Solicitors who advises on all aspects of employment law, including unfair dismissals, discrimination, redundancies and trade union issues writes about the importance of these decisions.