Who’s the Boss? Red Cross
The winners have been announced: this year’s Canadian Red Cross raffle awarded five lucky participants with prizes ranging from $25 to $300. Four of the five winners are Western students.
“We ran the raffle to kick off Red Cross Month, which is March,” said third-year medical science student Jayde Duncombe, co-president of UWO Red Cross. All proceeds go to a local Red Cross branch, she added.
The winners are: Jason Kim, Margaret Evans, Tersa Rubarg, Perry Enyedi, and Michael Bishara, who took home the first place prize — a four gigabyte iPod nano.
“He was really excited,” Duncombe said, adding the raffle raised $1,200 for Red Cross.
Concert to the Crighton
Fans of music, look out. A concert/party is happening at The Grad Club tomorrow night, featuring a “smorgasbord of musicians,” according to University Students’ Council VP-student affairs Chris Crighton.
“The idea started out as a party of graduating students, and just grew into this sort of concert party type of thing,” he said.
Several musicians will take the stage throughout the evening, though the night’s main set will be played by “Internal Cinema,” in its debut performance. Crighton is the band’s guitar player.
“It should be pretty cool. We have guitar, synthesizers, violins and tons of vocals,” he said.
The event is free for all students, though Crighton said a basket will be passed around for donations for a charity that has yet to be determined.
The show begins at 8 p.m.
—Mitch Tucker
Free Hepatitis A Shots Being Dished Out In London
Students looking to get their Hepatitis A shots this week and save on some cash can fulfill both wishes.
The Middlesex-London Health Unit will provide free Hepatitis A shots from 4 to 8 p.m. today at Clarke Road Secondary School located at 300 Clarke Rd.
Normally, the vaccine is provided for free only for high risk individuals, and is distributed for a cost of $65 per dose for others. However, the clinic currently has a surplus of the vaccine and is looking to get rid of it before its shelf life expires.
All individuals over the age of two are eligible to receive the vaccine. Donations of non-perishable items for the London Food Bank will also be collected.
—Ravi Amarnath
Falun Dafa Association Warns of Chinese Organ Harvesting
On March 8, detailed information was revealed concerning the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning province, China.
An open letter by the Falun Dafa Association of Canada to Prime Minister Stephen Harper describes the Sujiatun facility as “a secret concentration extermination camp in China reminiscent of Auschwitz built specifically to kill and make profit from the organs of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience.”
On Friday, March 31 at 10 a.m., the SOS Car Tour to Condemn Organ Harvest Camp in China will arrive in London to hold a press conference and deliver a letter to Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco at City Hall.
“[The car tour] has been organized to raise awareness of Falun Dafa political prisoners in China,” says Julia Xu, president of the Western Falun Dafa Club. “There will representatives from the Falun Dafa Association of Canada there to give a speech and answer questions.”
The event is open to the public.
—Brice Hall
Pilotless Planes: Innovative or Dangerous?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pilotless planes could be the “next great step forward” in aviation, or a new safety hazard in already crowded skies, a U.S. House of Representatives’ panel was told Wednesday.
Since 1997, unmanned aircraft have been used in U.S. airspace primarily by the military. But now the government wants to fly more of them to patrol borders, catch criminals, monitor the environment and assist in disaster relief.
“The development and use of unmanned aircraft is the next great step forward in the evolution of aviation,” Nick Sabatini, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s associate administrator for aviation safety, told the House aviation subcommittee.
But Sabatini didn’t disagree with private pilots who said there’s no proof that they can operate safely.
The FAA has two basic safety concerns, he said: what happens if the operator on the ground loses contact with the aircraft and the need for technology to enable aircraft to detect and avoid other aircraft.