News

The producer of ITV hit show Midsomer Murders has been suspended after making comments in an interview to the Radio Times that ethnic minorities had no place in the drama.

He has been quoted as saying the programme set in a group of villages around a fictional town called Midsomer represented the "last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way" and that ethnic minority characters 'wouldn't work'.

OBV’s Director hit all the right notes at the Lib Dem spring conference yesterday. In a maiden speech on the main platform of a Lib Dem conference Woolley addressed delegates in the issue of the Alternative Vote (AV)

Blogging on the Guardian site Andrew Sparrow noted:

As Correspondent John Linchfield writes in today’s Independent , French television star Nicolas Hulot has jumped into the race for the French Presidency in 2012.

Hulot, who is a popular environmentalist and is well known as an adventurer on French television since the 1980s, is yet another threat to President Sarkozy’s chance of winning a second term. While Linchfield doesn’t believe Hulot can win, he writes that:

Your chance to win a copy Clarence Jones' book

“I have a dream.” When those words were spoken on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, the crowd stood, electrified, as Martin Luther King, Jr. brought the plight of African Americans to the public consciousness and firmly established himself as one of the greatest orators of all time.

In a show of unity and calling for peace, the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) and British Sikh Council (BSC) led a multi-faith delegation to the Pakistan High Commission in London last week.

The delegation was a show of solidarity in an effort to overcome multi-faceted problems relating to terrorism and divisions existing between various groups in Pakistan.

You don’t always have to look on the TV or in the newspaper for inspirational individuals. Sometimes they are right there in front of your nose.

This was never more the case than when I met a young man, 19-year-old Mohand Nour, who came into the OBV offices offering his service as a volunteer one day a week. "I’ll do anything" he said, "I just like what you stand for".

The ‘Sharing the Journey Weekend’ at Forest Hill library this Saturday promises to explore and celebrate local and national black history.

Many argue black history ought to be commemorated far more and through the help of the Gradual Inspired Learning (GIL) centre, it is being given centre stage at the Lewisham community event this week.

Glenis Leitch is the co-founder of GIL and she has been integral in making the event possible.

The Government has announced plans to cut visa applications from non EU migrant workers by 270,000.

The policy will largely affect takeaway food shops and care support workers in care homes. The cut is the result of new restrictions that migrants can only apply for skilled jobs if the position requires qualifications at graduate or equivalent level.

The effect will be to leave many black and ethnic minority takeaways and nursing care homes short of staff. The expectation is that British workers will take up these positions

Yesterday a group of individuals and organisations including OBV and the Muslim Council of Britain held a news conference to talk about why we are supporting the Yes to the Alternative Vote.

Sikhs in Birmingham have united with Sikhs from London against the English Defence League and its Sikh member.

Members of the British Sikh community are disappointed to learn that Guramit Singh, one of the self-styled leaders of the English Defence League (EDL), who also is from a Sikh background, will not face charges after he was arrested last year on suspicion of causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm and distress.