Swedish Student’s Plane Protest Goes Viral

Here Youth Time Magazine publishes two of the most interesting and informative youth related news items of the past week. Our weekly news roundup is published every Monday and Friday and contains just some of the most important developments in the world of global youth. Follow, like and submit comments on Facebook and other Youth Time media.

 

Student’s protest goes viral

A Swedish student managed to postpone the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker by staging a one woman protest on board a plane set to leave Gothenburg airport. Erin Ersson, aged 21, bought a ticket specifically for the Gothenburg to Istanbul flight when she found out that a young Afghan man was being escorted back to Kabul, via Turkey.

When she boarded she whipped out her phone and began live streaming her protest against the man’s deportation, refusing to sit down and demanding that the man be removed from the plane.  Speaking in English she told the passengers: “I don’t want a man’s life to be taken away just because you don’t want to miss your flight…I am not going to sit down until the person is off the plane.” Strangely, the man who she thought was on the plane wasn’t actually on board. But there was another Afghan asylum seeker being deported, a man in his 50s. Ersson’s video has been viewed more than four million timesonline. A social studies student, she has been volunteering with refugee rights groups who are battling against the Swedish government’s decision to send failed asylum seekers back to their countries of origin.

Green challenge

A total of 149 engineering schools competed for top prize in the Shell Eco-marathon Europe in London. The prestigious contest rewards the most technologically innovative eco-friendly vehicle and saw teams from Europe, North Africa and even Siberia send in their ideas.  The contest was won by students from NUI Galway in Ireland who built a highly efficient mini-car that can drive 350km powered by just one unit (kWh) of electricity. It means that the 200km journey from Galway to the Irish capital of Dublin would cost just 35 cents in fuel costs.

Named the Galway energy-efficient car (Geec), the vehicle proved the most efficient out of the 149 contenders during a 15km race. Crucially the award is based on how energy efficient the car is, not how fast is completes the 15km. The Shell Eco-marathon takes place every year across the world. The 2018 edition for the Americas saw more than 1,200 students from Canada to Peru battle it out for eco-supremacy in California in May.  In March the Asia edition took place in Singapore. Later this year the three top contenders from Europe, Asia and the Americas will compete for the World energy-efficiency prize. 

Photo: Shutterstock

Support us!

All your donations will be used to pay the magazine’s journalists and to support the ongoing costs of maintaining the site.

 

paypal smart payment button for simple membership

Share this post

Interested in co-operating with us?

We are open to co-operation from writers and businesses alike. You can reach us on our email at [email protected]/[email protected] and we will get back to you as quick as we can.

Where to next?