May I firstly applaud you on your splendid free newspaper that circulates within the North West area. It is a real tool for forming strong links between peoples of all races.

However I have been wondering about something for the past few weeks and maybe you could clear up a few points here and there, points which I am reminded of and ponder about with each edition.

You advertise yourselves as the voice of the Asian community yet fail to recognise the thousands of Far East Asians living and working here in our area.

Citizens from all the Far East Asian countries, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, to name a few, are represented here in East Lancashire and for them to have a small section of the paper would really help to raise their image.

A lot of these minorities get a pretty hard time of it from the "locals" yet have, I think you'll agree, so much to offer our shared community. Recipes or news from their lands would really help these people feel more at home when arriving here for the first time and provide encouragement for those who have lived amongst us for many years. Also this will help in other communities that feel embarrased or threatened when seeing their increasing numbers to realise that these are gentle, well mannered and kind people by nature who pose no threat to anothers culture or belief system.

As the voice of the Asian communty I ask that this may be considered for future editions.

Andrew Scotchmer

Via e-mail