A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
Have you seen the very extraordinary sight of water bottles around campus? These have been set up by Amnesty International to celebrate Water Week and to make people aware of the situation in the Gaza strip, where they claim Israel is deliberately depriving Palestinians of access to the minimum required amount of water by international law.
The bottles, relevant to the issue that Amnesty were hoping to make students aware of, were set up because they were different from the usual poster campaigns used to alert students to particular issues. Frances Sampayo, Press and Publicity officer for Amnesty International, believes that this was the best way to draw attention to the society’s campaign. They have also put labels on the bottles to draw people’s attention to the fact that this is water week.
The campaign also follows Amnesty International’s report on the extensive abuses of the Palestinian water supply by Isreali Occupying Forces, through policies which they have described as discriminatory. The main source of water supply in the Gaza Strip is the Mountain Aquifer, 80 per cent of water from this source is used by Israelis, restricting the Palestinians to just 20 per cent. While Israel have many other sources of water supply, Palestine is wholly dependent on this for water. As a result, in some rural communities, it is alleged that Palestinians are left to live on just 20 litres per day, which is the minimum recommended amount for domestic use in emergencies.
The bottles are just one part of a long series of events that Amnesty is hosting this week in aid of Water Week. Other events they hosted, included a film screening on Monday of ‘To Shoot An Elephant’, a harrowing eye-witness account of the war in Gaza. On Thursday they will be at Vanbrugh stalls making an image petition to take to the Isreali embassy in London in response to their abuses against Palestine. Sampayo added that, “rather than your standard petition we felt like this would have more of an impact and would show people we're not just about signing your name on a petition but showing the people who want change to happen.”
In addition, University of York Amnesty International, will also be hosting two speaker events this week, including one on the War on Want campaign in which Yasmin Khan will be explaining the problems plaguing Palestine, and what can be done to stop it. This will be held on Wednesday in D/056, from 17:30. On Friday, Fiona Edwards and Khaled AlMudallal, who have recently returned from breaking the siege in Gaza in a humanitarian aid convoy, will be reporting back on the situation in an event that promises to be thought-provoking and useful in understanding the work the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is doing to help Palestine. This is taking place in L/N/002 at 18:00.
Why is it that on a topic so broad as 'Water Week', all the attention is being exclusively focused on Gaza, a piece of land only 140 sq miles big (barely bigger than York itself)? What about the hundreds of millions of people all over Africa and Asia who don't have access to water? This project is just students who want to exercise a political sentiment, it's not about water - the Israeli embassy's hardly going to care that a bunch of self-righteous students signed a piece of paper. They'd be better off raising awareness of the human rights abuses Hamas are carrying out over their own people.
Oh, and Israel also has a water shortage problem, something this article fails to mention completely.
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report