News

A public event which will feature a workshop on gangs and violence is set to take place next month.

Proud of Southwark will be held at Walworth Academy, south London on December 3, with an aim of letting the public give their opinions on why people join gangs and how to combat violence.

Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Labour MP Keith Vaz have been named as two of the most powerful Asians in Britain.

Baroness Warsi and Vaz were named as the second and third most powerful Asians in the country, finishing behind steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, who is also Britain's richest man.

The Asian News marked the 10th anniversary of the Oldham riots earlier this year with a series of insightful articles around the disturbances. Happening before 9/11, those disturbances were to transform the way Britain viewed its Muslim communities, and also the way many Muslims viewed themselves.

Next month all will be decided regarding the vulture fund crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Before the 30 years of civil war that occurred in the DRC, it had borrowed money from Bosnian state company EnergoInvest for a contract to build power lines throughout the country. This debt has severely grown over the past three decades through high interest rates.

On 7 December 2011 a charity event for Lupus UK will take place in Catford, Lewisham.

Called "Wednesday Night Live," the event is organised by Mike Lewis, a member of Lewisham's Black Staff Forum and a graduate of OBV's Lewisham Civic Leadership Programme 2010 which seeks to address the underrepresentation of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) individuals in Lewisham's political and civic framework.

Last year I was contacted by a black chef, Gregory Lewis who worked at New College, Oxford University for eight years. The director of the Race Equality Council in Oxford advised him to take a claim to Employment Tribunal. He could not understand why the tribunal hearing, which found in New College’s favour, seemed to ignore his evidence.

The resignation of two members from the community panel set up to oversee the IPCC’s inquiry into the shooting of Mark Duggan is worrying.

Community activists Stafford Scott and John Noblemunn both stepped down from their roles with the IPCC, saying they had lost faith in the organisation’s ability to govern the inquiry into the death of Duggan.

A new exhibition profiling some of the success stories of British Asians went opened at the National Media Museum in Bradford on Tuesday.

The “Making Britain” Photographic Exhibition has been put on by photojournalist Tim Smith and profiles a wide cross-section of well-known and not so well-known individuals of South Asian background in a visual celebration of their cultural, political, artistic and economic contribution to British life.

The Windrush Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes racial equality, has succeeded winning initial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund for its Liberation 1838 events.

The Windrush Foundation seeks to end racial discrimination and promote improved community relations by making people more aware of the contributions of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) people to British society.

Now more than ever we need our Black elected politicians to speak out about race inequality. As always, during an economic downturn the challenges that Black people face become more acute. Challenges include; a worsening relationship between Black communities and the Police, much higher levels of unemployment, and a potential mental health time bomb which is already blighting many Black families.