This summer English Heritage is working with the BME Network on a project designed to explore the personal and local heritage of different generations within the diverse communities of Middlesbrough.

Italy's campaign against the Roma has ominous echoes of its fascist past, and the silence of our leaders is deafening

At the heart of Europe , police have begun fingerprinting children on the basis of their race - with barely a murmur of protest from European governments. Last week, Silvio Berlusconi's new rightwing Italian administration announced plans to carry out a national registration of all the country's estimated 150,000 Gypsies - Roma and Sinti people - whether Italian-born or migrants. Interior minister and leading light of the xenophobic Northern League, Roberto Maroni, insisted that taking fingerprints of all Roma, including children, was needed to "prevent begging" and, if necessary, remove the children from their parents.