Chechyna has just opened the first concentration camp for homosexuals since WW2. Reports say that 100 gay men have so far been detained and three killed in Chechnya last week. All human life is sacred and should be protected but particularly minority groups, who are more open to abuse and need more protection in law. We've been down this road before where governments round up groups of people and we should never go down that road again. The world needs to work together to close the concentration camps for gay men in Chechnya and put protections into law for LGBT+ citizens throughout Russia and the world.

Highways (England) are proposing to re-route this part of the A428 through the beautiful Cambridgeshire countryside. As justification they say traffic will be speeded up by a few minutes at peak times. But building new roads just makes room for even more traffic. The only result is a continuous and permanent loss of England’s green and pleasant land. Please sign this petition and pass it on to your friends. And, more importantly, submit your objection to Highways public consultation. A sample objection is given below The consultation period ends on April 23rd. So this is urgent. Email your objection to [email protected] giving your full name and postal address. Sample Objection A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet proposal The proposed by-pass road is un-necessary. Improvements to the Black Cat roundabout (proposed in the Plan) and to the Caxton Gibbet roundabout (not included in the Plan) will speed up the travel time to a degree which makes a new road un-necessary. The argument for the new road is basically an economic one that eventually it will increase the UK gross domestic project (GDP). However the GDP per capita has remained fundamentally unchanged over the last 15 years despite the building of new roads and the widening of many others. Thus there is likely to be no economic gain. The loss of Cambridgeshire countryside will be permanent. It is just one further example of the constant erosion of our countryside heritage which is occurring throughout England. The value of this loss has not been weighed against any real economic gain or indeed against the perceived gains as seen by the proposers of this Plan Should Highways reject these arguments the Orange route is to be preferred.

***5000 signatures forces the Council to discuss the issue at a Council Meeting. Please only sign this petition if you live, work or use LD services in Somerset*** The transfer of Somerset’s Learning Disability Service from Somerset County Council to Discovery was promised as a means of ensuring sustainable care for people with a learning disability, with ‘no savings targets’. It is now clear, however, that to make the £4m saving predicted Discovery plan to make staff redundant, reduce the terms and conditions of those left, and possibly close day centres. By starving funding for adult social care Somerset County Council have handed Discovery the task of implementing cuts that will hit the care provided to vulnerable people. Cuts will lower morale, risk high staff turnover, and leave staff vacancies unfilled. Service users and their families were promised a sustainable service focused on the continuity of care delivered by experienced, knowledgeable and familiar staff. The cuts proposed will be highly detrimental to the delivery of personalised quality care. We are therefore calling on Somerset County Council to give LD Services the funding that it needs to ensure continued high quality care for vulnerable adults in Somerset. If the current cuts are progressed this will not be achieved.

Atherton skatepark was recently demolished randomly and out of the blue with no notice or warning what so ever. It was important to each and every single person who uses or did use the skatepark or even anybody who wants to take up extreme sports. The skatepark was much loved by locals and people that are not so local, it kept so many young people out of trouble and off the streets doing something they love! The council have just took that away! PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION AND LETS GET ANOTHER FACILITY BUILT!

Temple Newsam Park is a free public park to be enjoyed by everyone. Should these plans go ahead, the facility will enhance the park and bring more visitor from Leeds and further afield to the House and Farm. There may be a requirement to improve car parks but the overall impact of traffic in the area should not increase significantly. Groups are staggered when starting the tree top adventure course, therefore they will be staggered when arriving and leaving. The adventure course will bring both tourist revenue and employment to the area. As can be seen in the picture on this petition, a very small proportion of the estate will be used for this venture. It is also being situation in what is already a noisy section of the park so noise pollution should have zero to no impact on the peacefulness enjoyed in other areas of the estate.

Because it will reduce accidents and could save life's my son was knocked down on this road thinking it was clear and it wasn't we were very lucky the driver was amazing and was driving under the speed limit otherwise we may not have our son now. However on a daily basis we have seen many other drivers speeding through the village. My son is the third child I know about who has been knocked down in this road and there has been many other accidents such as crashes on this road to. A crossing will encourage drivers to drive slower and reduce accidents and will stop people of all ages old and young from trying to estimate if the road is clear enough or they have long enough to get over before getting hurt. I know it will be expensive for the council but my child's life does not have a price to high for keeping him safe and I am sure yours doesn't either.

The Walk-In Clinic at The Third Floor Medical Centre at Lanark Road, London W9 1NZ is, and has been providing an excellent service to a large number of people in Maida Vale, West London. In the two years it has been running, thousands of patients have been treated, (up to 100 each week). Closing this clinic would therefore impact negatively on patients. Local GP practices in Maida Vale are already badly overstretched and waiting times for an appointment are often measured in weeks. I am writing to ask you to drop your plans to close the Lanark Road Third Floor Walk-in Centre. This view is shared by hundreds of local residents, from 19 to 93 years of age. I implore you to listen to them. Alternative Walk In Clinics can be two bus journeys away, so are inaccessible for many patients. This centre is easy to reach for patients, who may otherwise find it necessary to visit the A&E Department at St Mary’s Hospital. As well as being required to wait a number of hours, they would be using overstretched emergency services, (and therefore more expensive to manage). I urge you in the strongest possible terms to drop these damaging plans, for the sake of patients as well as local NHS service provision.

Climate change and the damage being done to our planet and the natural world should be the number one priority for all of us. We need to work together worldwide to prevent further harm and reverse the damage already done. Many environmental targets have been put at risk by the current position of the US government. It is imperative that the UK government remains committed to these aims and to continuing to work with our friends in Europe and like minded nations and organisations worldwide. Studies and polling also show this is an important factor to millions of eligible UK voters. Protect our planet for all our children.

It is very difficult for pedestrians to cross this road near the complicated junction with Southbridge Road and Tanfield Road where traffic moves quickly both down the hill and from Southbridge Road.

The new government policies that came into force yesterday have been assessed as pushing an extra 200,000 children into poverty. One of the changes effectively punishes the 3rd child and treats them differently to their older siblings. It also places unbearable pressure on the mother to put in an official form whether she has been raped or not. Given that most rapes go unreported, or do not reach court due to the high attrition rates for sexual offences, how exactly are women in this position supposed to be able to prove their rape? How many women will choose not apply rather than relive the trauma of the assault? This new approach also penalises parents who already have a 3rd child, and who may need state support in the future due to their circumstances changing. Only their first 2 children are eligible for financial support, again effectively discriminating against the 3rd child. This is blatantly unfair, and against the rights of the child and the mother. It's crucial that this change is challenged and if necessary taken through the courts and all the way to the ECHR- for the sake of children and families. This needs to be challenged by all political parties to send a strong signal to the Government that it cannot get away with treating its citizens in this cruel and inhuman way.

Child poverty is leading cause of poor life chances and without the vital support of tax credits and universal credit child element many children will suffer hunger, social exclusion, deprivation. These policies unfairly attack women and children and cut the link between need and social security.

Foreign investors are buying up chunks of new housing developments across Britain, making it even harder for young people to purchase their first home, an investigation by The Times has found. Overseas buyers are spreading beyond London, purchasing flats in the midlands, the north and the capital’s satellite towns as the fall in the value of the pound makes property cheaper. The Times has established that more than 93 per cent of flats in one of Manchester’s biggest housing developments have been bought by foreign residents or companies registered overseas. Only 17 of the 282 flats were bought by British residents and only two are being lived in by UK owners. The rest are empty or being rented out. Foreign buyers are also snapping up properties in Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Cambridge, Slough and Brighton as they look beyond London for better returns and lower taxes. Estate agents say that the surge of foreign money is pricing out young buyers. Daniel Valentine, author of a report on the housing crisis for the Bow Group, a Conservative think tank, described the scale of overseas investment as a scandal. He said: “British people face a grim future unless the government starts to limit the scale of foreign ownership. Overseas investors are inflating prices across the entire market, meaning most people on average wages will never be able to buy a home. There is effectively an infinite supply of international money that can pour into the country. There are 63 million potential buyers in China alone.” The development in Manchester, where prices started at £148,000 for a one-bedroom flat, has buyers from 18 countries, including Azerbaijan, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. More than 65 came from Hong Kong and Singapore, both of which restrict Britons from buying property there. More than 130 of the properties were bought by two secretive companies based in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. The government announced plans this week to reveal the true owners of these companies. The situation in Manchester is mirroring what has been happening in the capital for years. In 2014 foreign investors bought three quarters of new-build properties in central London, according to the estate agent Knight Frank. That trend appears to have accelerated since. In one development in London’s Docklands examined by The Times, all but a dozen of the 56 owners had Chinese names with almost all the rest from the Middle East or Asia. Overseas investors are no longer from wealthy elites but come from the growing middle classes of expanding Asian economies. Lucien Kirk, of the estate agent Savills, said: “These middle-class buyers are more likely to need high-yield properties [that pay good rents relative to their value], which is why they are increasingly looking outside London.” Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, has commissioned a review into foreign ownership in the capital, which is expected to demand that new homes are marketed locally for at least six months before they go on sale to foreigners. One estate agent’s website in Hong Kong advertises more than 80 British new-builds, in areas including Basingstoke, Coventry and Slough. Most have not yet been built. The international estate agent Juwai.com estimates that Chinese investment in foreign property could quadruple within ten years. Steve Turner, of the Home Builders Federation, said: “A lot of developments rely on foreign investors to get started, particularly [in] high-rise developments. The upfront investment gives confidence to lenders. You can’t get that [money] from British buyers because UK mortgage rules limit offers to six months and some of these projects need finance up to three years in advance.” (Article from the Times Newspaper)