Catalina Chernavvsky Sequeira and Emma Leeds Armstrong for People's Daily

Do You Know Your Country 2.0?

By Catalina Chernavvsky Sequeira and Emma Leeds Armstrong in Baltimore (People’s Daily)

Name: Colombia

Capital: Caracas... I think (Correct answer: Bogota)

Location: South America

Type of Government: Yes, there is a government (Correct answer: Constitutional Republic)

Leader: None (Correct answer: Juan Manuel Santos)

Name: Bolivia

Capital: I have no idea (Correct answer: Sucre)

Location: South America somewhere

Type of Government: Republic

Leader: Mendez I want to say (Correct answer: Evo Morales)

Name: Finland

Capital: Helsinki

Location: Europe

Type of Government: Free Market Economy (Correct answer: Parliamentary Republic)

Leader: President? George? I can’t make the noise, so I can’t pronounce it. (Correct answer: Sauli Niinisto)

Name: Sweden

Capital: Silence (Stockholm)

Location: Europe?

Type of Government:  I’m done…. I do not want to do this (Correct answer: Hereditary Monarchy)

Leader: Yeah, I’m done (Correct answer: Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden)

Name: Venezuela

Capital: Caracas

Location: South America

Type of Government:  Hugo Chavez dictatorship (Correct answer: Constitutional Republic)

Leader: Maduro

Name: China

Capital: Beijing

Location: Asia

Type of Government: Single-party State

Leader:  Xi Jinping

(See, China knows everything!)

Mathavi Sankar for People's Daily

On the “Brink” – Advisory Panel Decides on Guidelines for Intervention

By Mathavi Sankar in Baltimore (People’s Daily)

The Advisory Panel is a special committee of experts that counsels the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on specific issues. Currently, these experts are discussing the timely issue of guidelines for UNSC intervention.

The United Nations enforces “laws of war” that stipulate when it is justifiable for nations to engage in war, and what acts are acceptable in wartime. “Intervention” is the term for the use of force by a nation in the internal or external affairs of another; in most cases, this is considered unlawful, but in certain cases intervention can be justified.

However, the international standard for acceptable intervention is uncertain. Under the provisions of the Security Council Charter, the UNSC is empowered to authorize the use of force to maintain ‘international peace and security’, but there is still controversy about the extent to which the Council can use force in humanitarian emergencies. International law has yet to fully reflect the emerging idea that intervention is a legitimate exception to the laws of sovereignty and that use of force might be necessary when human rights are at stake.

In addition to the ambiguity surrounding the intervention process (military, economic, or humanitarian), when intervention should occur is also unclear. Currently, the experts on the Advisory Panel are defining the “brink,” or the point at which the UNSC should intervene. Some experts believe that intervention before an atrocity occurs is the best way to prevent human rights violations. However, others raise the practical question of how the UNSC can decide that an act will lead to human rights violations. These delegates argue that humanitarian principles differ from country-to-country and that deciding based on an international standard is infringing upon national sovereignty. Expert Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, states “Every country has the right to govern its people in its own way. It is dangerous to define the “brink” based on imperialistic Western views.” Thus, experts must carefully identify and define the thin line between necessary intervention and infringement upon national sovereignty.

Assigned word count: 350

Actual word count: 355

Brenda Ruiz for People's Daily

All or Nothing

By Brenda Ruiz in Baltimore (People's Daily)

 The room housing the hundred or so delegates of the Food and Agricultural Organization reeked of stubbornness. The committee moved to an unmoderated caucus and suddenly the room was broken into three main groups. Bits and pieces of a working paper drifted between the delegates of  Venezuela, New Zealand, and Sudan. They spoke of the need to develop agricultural tools and to educate people on how to use them. Employees would be hired to educate people through the process of handing out/ reading books aloud, hosting workshops in towns, and playing radio podcasts. Their paper called for strict micro managing to generate the millions in funding, essential to the production of cost-efficient innovations.

            Delegates of Bolivia, Pakistan, and Indonesia chose to place most of their focus on deciding ways to implement incentives or subsidies for farmers. The Delegate of Pakistan spoke several times of the idea to use technology to make plants more resistant to pests and harsh weather conditions, as well as more fruitful and easier to plant. The delegate is in the process of asking the delegate of the United States about funding in skittles for their project, should it come to pass. If the delegate of the U.S. refuses such an outstanding proposal, the trio would try to get their funding from public-private partnerships.

            The United States is completely against using GMO's unless there is a country where it's deemed absolutely necessary. The US wants to get the reconstruction process started as quickly as possible by using IMF loans and relying on how people feel through the process. But how realistic is this? Many delegates questioned how smoothly the idea would transition from paper.

            China, Canada, and Syria are more for implementing agriculture technology and education for those countries in need. Malaysia, Netherlands, North Korea support them fully and ask that more research be done as well.

            All of these countries have contributed stellar ideas in session today, the only problem is themselves. If no one of these groups of delegations mentioned before can bring their pride down from it's pedestal, and work together with others, no one needing food will get fed.

Word Count assigned: 300

Actual Count: 356

Jessica Li for The Onion

United Nations to Enter Illegal Drug and Arms Trade

by Jessica Li for The Onion

After the September 11 attacks on the United States World Trade Center last year, the Committee on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) has much to talk about. The topic of choice in the most recent session was the illegal trafficking of drugs and arms in connection with global terrorism. As the delegate from South Africa expressed, this illicit trade is a major source of funds for terrorist groups. Therefore, the United Nations should take advantage of this flourishing market and enter the international drug trade in order to obtain sufficient funding for its anti-terrorism initiatives. It is well-known that this black market creates hundreds of billions of dollars in profit each year, so if the UN can just get a foothold in the industry, it could become one of the world’s leading cartels within just a decade. The UN would never find itself lacking funds ever again. Unfortunately, the delegation from Vietnam opposes any drug trade at all, reminding the committee that the glorious leaders Marx and Lenin would have deeply frowned upon such activity. This only encouraged the delegates from dirty capitalist countries to support the idea. Meanwhile, the delegates from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have found common ground and joined forces to write a draft resolution about combating religiously motivated terrorism. This is expected to be particularly amusing, given the history of religious terrorist groups in these countries. Sadly, the delegation from North Korea vigorously disagrees, expressing that “religion is irrelevant” and “there will always be terrorists,” so the only reasonable solution is to allow North Korea to constantly monitor everything in every country in order to foresee and prevent attacks. This, however, would be incredibly difficult to implement without at least the assistance and extensive experience of the United States’ NSA, which could not be reached for comment. In contrast, drugs and arms are widely produced and readily available all over the world, and the black market is, in theory, accessible to anyone. We can only hope that the CCPCJ makes the logical decision to increase global safety.

Assigned word count: 350. Actual word count: 343.

Arundhati Paul for The Onion

Apple Sees a surge in sales thanks to SOCHUM

by Arundhati Paul for The Onion

SOCHUM gathered today to find methods for global access to reproductive health services. The committee, hard at work to save the lives of countless women worldwide, spent the first fifteen minutes motioning for moderated caucuses. The delegates had so much to say that one delegate motioned for a moderated caucus for 12 minutes with 4 seconds of speaking time to discuss the availability of these services in rural areas. Their desire to speak became especially obvious when the list of motions became three times as long as the speaker’s list.

The primary goal was to unearth the cause of diseases such as HIV and AIDS in order to find an appropriate solution. A delegate of Libya, given a message from Allah to the rest of the community, vehemently exclaimed “People are having sex at younger and younger ages. IT’S ALWAYS THE REBELS HAVING SEX!” The obvious solution to this was to execute the rebels by stoning them.

One anonymous delegate showed her concern for the issue by playing Evil Apples on her iPhone. When asked how that would help with allowing global access to reproductive health services, she replied, “Well my last card was ‘pregnant strippers’ so yeah if we can’t come to a good conclusion today, then we’re gonna have a bunch of pregnant strippers…and no one wants that. I wouldn’t have had that revelation if it weren’t for my phone.” Other delegates nearby agreed that Evil Apples was the most important way to provide access to these health services globally. Immediately after, Apple proudly announced a surge in sales internationally.

A delegate of the Holy See, with her Roman Catholic Bible in hand, quoted Proverbs in an attempt to purify the committee and stated that “adoption was the best option and abortion is intrinsically evil.”

A delegate of Venezuela, proudly shared her best plan ever, the PENIS plan, standing for Prenatal care, Educational development, Natural birth control, Indigenous population focus, and Societal stigma mitigation. There was a murmur of excitement and nods of agreement although when asked about it later, the delegates could only recall the plan’s name.

Jamie Glueck for The New York Times

Malnutrition and Poverty:

UNICEF searches for a resolution

New York Times, Jamie Glueck

            The issue of malnutrition and poverty is a struggle shared between many countries in UNICEF. Some working resolutions tossed back and forth include creating hospitals, job databases, utilizing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and more. Norway and Guyana agree that there should be stronger application of NGOs. Sweden on the other hand, said local organizations would not cut it. 

Whether it was affiliated with the government or not, the idea of communal centers was frequently talked about. These centers would provide clean water and food. Kenya added that  nutritional supplements could also be made available at the centers to aid malnutrition. Although, countries concurred that this would be a temporal solution. Thinking long-term, the consensus was that the only way to fix the struggle of malnutrition and poverty is by bettering the economy. Denmark raised the idea of working on creating jobs, so that people can feed themselves rather than relying on organizations. Other countries made resolutions to create job databases, and job centers to help people escape poverty.

The creation of local hospitals was emphasized by Haiti, Belgium, and India. These could provide relief as well as jobs. They agreed that the health of pregnant women and children should be paramount, and that their needs should be catered to first.

            Canada and Kenya had a mutual resolution. “The Kenyanada Compromise” wants to begin by spreading awareness of the vitality of NGOs to this process. They plan to get people from developed countries to donate to NGOs in hopes of motivating them to allocate more money to UNICEF. This would create a pool of money to draw from for grants to build hospitals and distribution centers in order to handout the provided food to those who need it. “The Kenyanada Compromise” focuses on the danger of fatal childbirths by ensuring sterility and comfort of women in labor. Canada personally wants to “pay special attention to providing clean drinking water and placing hospitals in strategic areas to maximize their availability to people in under developed countries.”

            The mutual agreement was that malnutrition and poverty is a problem in all countries, even the most developed. UNICEF vowed to work with federal organizations as wall as NGO’s to try to remedy this issue.

Anastasiya Stolyarova for The New York Times

Microfinancing to Improve Africa

By ANASTASIYA STOLYAROVA

The New York Times

Microfinancing has become a popular method of providing stable incomes for low-income individuals and improving the economic private sector in Africa. Microfinancing is similar to social welfare programs, such as unemployment, in the United States. African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya each possess over twenty microfinance institutions. In the African NGO Forum, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) agree that specific social areas need to be targeted in order to have successful microfinancing outcomes. Also, the education of citizens and annual collaboration between NGOs are ideas shared between African NGO Forum members.

Targeting specific social areas is seen as necessary in order for microfinancing to be successful. NGOs agree that creating general loans will not improve the economic situation. Standard education needs to be provided for the expansion of financial knowledge. In addition to vocational education, that will prepare struggling individuals with knowledge of crafts and careers, African Forum members concur that financial training will increase financial empowerment. Training would be provided through various courses or seminars, and through resources that will assist individuals with financial endeavors. With increased knowledge of finance, African people would be able to confidently participate in economic stimulation.

There are various religious sects and ethnic groups within Africa, which need personalized loans and microfinancing policies. As one non-governmental organization stated: “Microfinancing polices need to be as diverse as the places there are going into.” In addition to distinct religious and ethnic groups, the African NGO Forum wants to specifically target women and children in Africa. There is a major gender gap in the division of labor. NGOs agree that women and children need to be empowered so that they can be innovative and direct future business.

As a final point, African NGO Forum members gather that annual or biannual collaboration will ensure the success of microfinancing in Africa. Members would be able to discuss the successes and failures of policies during annual meetings. The delegate of Third World Network Africa expressed the importance of NGO collaboration: “Getting together in a forum will be able to develop a stronger Africa. Africa has so much potential it just has not reached yet.”