News

News has just reached OBV, that  Malaysian-born Cllr Helen Chuah was inaugurated recently as the first ever Mayor of Colchester to have been born outside of the UK as well as the first Chinese Liberal Democrat Mayor in the UK.

At a packed ceremony attended by local press as well as Malaysian and Chinese TV stations, tributes were paid by her fellow councillors of Colchester Borough Council for Helen's dedication and hard work over the last 13 years.

I cannot remember ever seeing such a kaleidoscope of African / Caribbean and Asians, being well and truly amongst the 'great and good', to be bestowed a State honor.

I know that some find it difficult to receive or get too excited about honors that are in the name of the 'Empire', but who would deny these individuals the privilege of having their efforts recognised on a national level? Maybe it's the Empire striking back with courage, goodwill and love.

This year has seen a frightening upsurge in the number of teenage boys shot or knifed in South London. I've been closely involved in tackling violent youth crime since I was first elected to Lambeth Council in 2006.

A new art exhibition called ‘Turbanology: Sikhs Unwrapped’ launched in the Nishkam Civic Centre in Birmingham last week, and its already making a positive statement generating praise from Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron.

Following the success of his independent documentary ‘Turbanology: After 7/7, journalist and exhibition director Jay Singh-Sohal explores the public perception and significance of the turban post 9/11.

The exhibition provides an educational, fun, and hands on experience. Singh-Sohal commented saying:

Shadow Public Health Minister Diane Abbott MP has called on the people of Hackney to back her campaign to make the London 2012 Olympics smoke free.

Ms Abbott, Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, has put pressure on the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) to commit to a tobacco ban across the whole Olympic park during the 2012 games by tabling a question in the House of Commons and writing to Lord Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Speaking in The Voice newspaper Ms Abbott said:

The Guardian's Hugh Muir wrote an interesting article yesterday about the Government's new 'Prevent' agenda - aimed at tackling mainly Islamic extremism - arguing it is all well and good keeping extremism out of Universities, and indeed prisons but shouldn't the Government also be looking at why some impressionable young men find extremism attractive in the first place?

At the second India-Africa Forum Summit in the capital of Ethiopia Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a multi-billion dollar aid package indicating closer ties between to the two continents.

The announcement was met with applause from leaders and representatives of the 15 African countries at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. Prime Minister Singh announced the $5 billion to ‘help achieve the development goals of Africa’. Commenting on the changes happening on the African continent he said:

Aston University is to host an historic the three-day symposium that will focus on the cultural and political aspects, home and abroad of Hindi, India’s most common language.

The conference to be held from the 24-26th June has been organised by Gitanjali Multilingual Literary Circle (GMLC) in association with Aston University along with other UK and European organisations.

Britain’s biggest Muslim organisation the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has called for ‘robust action’ to counter Islamophobic attacks amid the growing violence and under-reporting of hate crimes again British Muslims.

The MCB aims to challenge the ethnic profiling of members of its community citing that minorities are 42 times more likely to be targeted under the Terrorism Act.

Black men living in Britain are under acute social and economic pressure. The evidence of that is replete and is for all intents and purposes self evident. That’s why I am particularly pleased to attend this much needed conference.

I hope that as well as facilitating a dialogue among black men about how best to respond to the crisis we face as a community, the conference could also offer the opportunity to produce an overarching narrative of how we arrived at this point and the lessons we need to learn to move forward.