Petition Tag - london

January 28, 2006

The charity Greenwich Hospital plans to demolish the 150 year-old market in Greenwich town centre along with 30 surrounding shops, to make way for re-development into a large block of flats or retail outlet.

Not only will this strip Greenwich (a World Heritage Site) of one of it's most loved attractions, it will damage tourism, and lead to the loss of 130 market stalls and 30 surrounding businesses.

The charity has already begun the process of clearing the way for development by means of dramatic rent rises for leaseholders. It has also applied pressure on leaseholders to sign contracts outside the Landlords and Tenants Act, and stipulated early break clauses.

The Market is hugely popular with locals and tourists; its demolition would rip the heart out of the centre of Greenwich. The plans should be dropped and the current Market, a treasure in today's increasingly prevalent 'clone towns', be supported.

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Over recent years there has been a rise in the formation of local authority run Parks Police / Constabulary Services operating within the London Region. Parks Police Services are governed by their respective local authority; therefore, none are run to a set regional or national standard.

Typically, there are variations in Training, Uniform, Issue of Personal Protective Equipment, Vehicles, Livery and Rank Structures. Each individual service is accountable to their respective Local Authority and currently falls outside the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Parks Police Officers (Parks Constables) are attested in a Magistrates Court as Constables under Article 18, Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Greater London Parks & Open Spaces) Act 1967.

This legislation is dated and unclear, which leaves many legal arguments constantly being debated which causes a greater level of confusion amongst the services themselves and Home Office Force Colleagues.

Issues surrounding Uniform, Training, Vehicles, Livery, Protective Equipment and Rank Structures and management needs to be standardised across the London Region, enabling such services to receive the appropriate recognition for the function they perform within our communities. The formation of a 'Local Authority Parks Police Commission' with representatives from each respective Local Authority and representatives from the Metropolitan / City Police, along with a cross section of the community would add to the accountability of such services.

Legislation surrounding Parks Police / Constabulary Services should be revised to fall inline with other more recent Police and Anti Social Behaviour Legislation enabling the potential of these services to be maximised and utilised within London borough's in tackling Crime & Anti Social behaviour.

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The band "YES" Has been making great music for over 30 years and is still filling auditoriums and music theaters, they are also still creating great music. I think it is well past time to enter them into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame.

Thank You,
Jerry D. Perkins Jr.
57 Kent St.
Naugatuck, CT 06770
(203) 729-9174

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Please put your name here to show your respect to the people who lost their lives in the horrific attacks on the London Underground and bus services and pass it on to everybody.

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May 27, 2005

Abney Park Garden Cemetery is a 32-acre historic park and nature reserve in Hackney, north London - one of Britain's poorest inner-city boroughs. Over the years it has become dense woodland, and is a unique place of retreat from the pressures of urban life. It is a national as well as a local treasure.

It is the heart of a Conservation Area, and the Council has policies to protect it from noise and disturbance. It is on the point of violating those policies by approving a school which will create noise and disturbance within a few feet of one of the most sensitive areas - the quiet corner where, in the 18th century, Dr. Isaac Watts retired to write his famous hymns.

A local community association, which is sponsoring this petition, welcomes a school in principle, but wants its scale and design to respect the setting and comply with planning policies.

Your signature will go to Hackney's head planning officer.

Our website (see above) will give you a fuller picture of what is at stake.

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Tribute: Shankar Rajee
M.R. Narayan Swamy

Shankar Rajee, who died of a heart attack in Colombo on January 10, 2005, was one of the earliest entrants into Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka, one who closely witnessed the growth of the movement from its nascent days to the frightening proportions it has now assumed.

In the last years of his life, Shankar (real name Nesadurai Thirunesan) had bowed out of the Indian media scene and led a largely low key, though not quiet, life, hopping between Chennai, where his mother lived, and Colombo, where he was a consultant with the state-run Cashew Corporation. He was also the leader of whatever was left of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation (EROS), the oldest of all the Tamil militant groups which came up in the 1970s in response to growing Sinhala chauvinism.

Shankar, who was educated in Jaffna and London, was among the earliest Tamils who took military training from the Palestinian guerrillas in the Middle East, probably in the hope that their own community would some day produce a Yasser Arafat.

In the years I covered the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, I came into close contact with Shankar and he helped me gain valuable insight into the Tamil society. Our first meeting took place at the EROS office in a middle- class Chennai neighbourhood where I had gone to interview its other best-known leader, V. Balakumar. As the latter spoke to me, I saw Shankar seated by his side, studying a map of Jaffna and making a note or two. EROS had a collective leadership in which Balakumar and Shankar were the first among equals. They had contrasting personalities. Balakumar was the quiet one, almost inaudible, at home in Tamil, while Shankar spoke Tamil and English with equal ease, was outgoing and felt comfortable dealing with Indian bureaucracy and diplomats. Shankar was designated the head of the EROS military unit and maintained liaison with revolutionary groups from around the world.

Like so many Sri Lankan Tamils of that era, Shankar was a Marxist during his student days. In London, he and like-minded students formed a student group and then, in 1975, set up EROS. It was a path-breaking development in Tamil history. Some EROS members enjoyed a warm relationship with the local PLO representative who helped them to fly to Lebanon and Syria to get military training from Arafat's Fatah guerrilla group. Shankar valued this training although nothing much came out of it.

It was EROS that introduced LTTE, then a virtually unknown group, to the Palestinians but this produced friction between him and LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. The row was over money, which Shankar paid up. But their relations never improved, and years later LTTE's Anton Balasingham, probably reflecting Prabhakaran's view, accused Shankar of being an Indian spy—a charge the latter vehemently denied.

Much before that, Shankar recalled meeting Prabhakaran sometime in 1975-76 in the Tamil Nadu town of Tiruchy. Shankar had flown into India from London carrying air gun pellets, batteries and film rolls. He had been told to deliver them to a man but was not given his identity. It turned out to be Prabhakaran, a young and largely unknown entity who turned up at the small hotel across the Tiruchy bus stand where Shankar was putting up. When I reasearched for the LTTE chief's biography (Inside an Elusive Mind, Konark, 2003) Shankar told me: "It was Prabhakaran who came to take the delivery. Honestly, I was not impressed with him. He did not seem happy with what I had brought. He obviously was expecting some other things. Just what, I do not know."

Years later, before the souring of ties, Shankar had a more fruitful meeting, in an LTTE hideout in Sri Lanka's north, with Prabhakaran, who by then had begun to acquire a stature in the militant ranks. Shankar had a vivid memory, and in 2001 could recall what really happened: "Prabhakaran was eager to know what training the Palestinians imparted. His eyes sparkled at the mention of M-16s, AK-47s and anti-articraft guns. But he was keener to hear about pistols and revolvers."

But Prabhakaran was not a man of theory; he invited Shankar to display his shooting skills. The target was an empty Milk Maid can. From 20 feet away, Shankar took aim and grazed the can, toippling it. "Prabhakaran walked up to the fallen can, picked it up and put it back on the wall. He then returned to where the Fath-trained (Shankar) was standing and fired the gun, hitting it smack in the middle." Shankar was naturally impressed.

Despite the Palestinian training, Shankar and his friends in EROS did not carry out any military action in Sri Lanka. There were also differencs within EROS, leading to a split and the birth of the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). When Tamil militancy galloped from 1983, EROS was among the first groups to secure Indian military training.

Shankar was also among the first to understand that New Delhi would never allow an independent Tamil Eelam to come up.

During the years leading up to the 1987 India-Sri Lanka peace agreement that sought to end Tamil separatism, Shankar, as the EROS military wing leader, masterminded some deadly bomb attacks in the island-nation that claimed many innocent lives. He also developed close ties with the Indian establishment but this was not enough to save him from a jail term in Chennai that may have contributed to his early death.

Shankar and Balakumar met the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, just before the latter flew to Colombo in July 1987 to sign the India-Sri Lanka accord. Prabhakaran, however, continued to mistrust him. Shankar and Balakumar met the LTTE chief at New Delhi's Ashok Hotel at that time; but on a second occasion, Prabhakaran told Balakumar that he did not want to see Shankar.

Shankar had a keen understanding of the Sri Lankan Tamil society and of LTTE. When the Tigers took on the Indian Army, he prophesied to friends that Prabhakaran would never, ever give up his Eelam goal. He was proved right. In March 1990 the Indian troops came home and the now-powerful LTTE ordered EROS to disband or merge with the Tigers. Some disgusted EROS members drifted away from politics, others (Balakumar included) joined LTTE while small band led by Shankar kept the outfit's flag flying for whatever it was worth.

Shankar was arrested in Chennai in 1997 on charges of smugggling foreign currency and was jailed. None of his contacts in the Indian establishment came to his rescue. He spent over a year in prison, where, his mother recalled later, he developed a good rapport with the other, mostly Indian, prisoners and became their leader. But despite the bitterness the detention caused, Shankar considered himself a friend of India. The imprisonment, however, affected his health, and he was never the same old self again.

Shankar never underestimated the LTTE or Prabhakaran, At the same time, he could not think of giving up his independent existence. Once the Sri Lankan military took control of Jaffna from LTTE in December 1995, Shankar visited the town to see a relative. The LTTE—which controlled a small part of Jaffna peninsula but had many eyes and ears in the region—came to know about the visit. The Tigers wanted to know if Shankar was merely calling on the relative or trying to resurrect EROS. Shankar got the message and promptly left Jaffna.

More than once he told me that Prabhakaran's personality would never allow him to compromise with Colombo, Norway or no Norway. It is a viewpoint that many have come to share now. But in February 2002, when the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government signed a ceasefire, only a few like Shankar asserted, with confidence that comes with experience, that it would not lead to Prabhakaran embracing Colombo, never ever.

From: Nesan Thirunesan, Son of the late Shankar Rajee, Leader of EROS.
e-mail: ttnesan@yahoo.com

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This is a petition to the Rock group Pearl Jam to come play a show(s) in the City of London Ontario Canada.

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There has been very little opportunity for those opposed to the Olympic Games taking place in London to express their views. This petition has been set up, as part of the NoLondon2012
campaign, to allow people a voice.

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Due to resent events in the London and GTA area London residence are requesting that London City Council take a hard look at banning specific dog breeds that THEY consider to be a dangerous breed. The main target of the ban is the Pit Bull.

I strongly believe the individuals who actually follow bans are responsible citizens that properly socialize and train ANY dog they have. The individuals who will ignore the ban are the same ones that we already have the problem with - those that do NOT properly socialize or train their dog.The ban would be a short sighted , band-aid approach to the larger issue at hand : IRRESPONSIBLE or INEXPERIENCED HUMANS HANDLING ANY DOG of any breed.

In the upcoming month of November I, Tim Wood, will be speaking in the front of London City Council opposing a Breed specific ban by-law. Please help to prove my point by signing the petition.

I also plan to forward a copy of the petition to Attorney General Micheal Bryant in the event Ontario pushes for a province wide ban.

PLEASE forward to any of your friends also.

Thanks.

Tim ( and Knuckles )

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The 54-tonnes per hour general waste incinerator and 1-tonne per hour radioactive waste incinerator (at Lakeside Estate, Colnbrook, Slough)proposed by Grundon's will pollute an area with a 17 mile radius, affecting the lives of nearly five million people living in Berkshire, Bucks, Surrey and a large section of west London. The major implications are:
A significant increase in cancers, especially childhood leukaemia and many other problems.

Possible increase in birth defects.

Pollution of air, water and soil, emissions of greenhouse gasses.

Radioactive pollution with unknown results.

Increases in asthma and heart disease.

With the air quality levels already below the standards if the EU and WHO, the poorest health records in the South East and the proposed site being within a densely populated area, this is a highly unsuitable location for a highly unsuitable project. The tragedy is, safer methods of waste disposal exist.

We are urging the Council to scrap the proposed incinerator plans and look at safer alternatives.

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Residents of Harvey Road are against the renewal of the License (Music & Dancing) for ZULU'S 640 High rd Leytonstone London e11.

Reasons are:

Unsocial behaviour by people leaving between the hours of 11:00pm to 3:00am
Noise levels by people shouting after leaving the club/pub. Litter left by customer of above premises. Violence on numinous occasions when police have been called. No parking facilities for customers who block up Residents parking. Lude behaviour by customer from club in side streets.

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In 1993, London, Ontario drafted a bylaw which restricts the keeping of non-venomous snakes more than 2 feet in length and non-venomous lizards more than 1 foot in length. Also, the maximum number of animals per dwelling is two.

We find this current bylaw to be strict and restrictive. Toronto, Ontario has a bylaw which restricts snakes more than 3 meters(9.84 ft) in length and lizards more than 2 meters(6.56 ft) in length. Kitchener, Ontario allows snakes up to 2 meters(6.56 ft) in length and lizards up to 2 feet in length to be kept.

Cornsnakes, kingsnakes and milksnakes grow to an adult length between 2 feet and 7 feet long and they remain docile and have never caused a human death. There are Boas and Pythons smaller than 6 feet long that are docile and are not dangerous. Many lizards grow to more than 1 foot in length. Some geckos and bearded dragons attain an adult length less than 2 feet long.

The responsible reptile owners out way the irresponsible owners and we feel that an increase in the permitted length of snakes and lizards is suitable and does not pose a danger to owners or the public.

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There are rumours about the London broncos moving up north. I am writing this petition to stop the Broncos moving up north.

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