Our next session on Monday the 4th will be a Security Council session on the current situation of political and ethnic violence in Kenya. As this is a crisis which is unfolding, you should refer to news sources for research (I suggest BBC News), and know the latest development on the issue Monday, as we will be doing this in “real-time”.

Hopefully we can get as many people as last time – feel free to pick a country in the comment section below if you wish.

It’s time to get started again after the holidays and a frustrating exam period. Our first MUN meeting will be on 28 January, where we will be discussing the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba. It will be held in the Library Seminar Room in Hugh Owen, at 6PM as usual. Since I’m currently busy revising I’m gonna leave the research to you, I’m sure you can find something on your own.

The following week’s session (on 4 Feb) will be the last meeting before LIMUN, and it is ESSENTIAL that everyone who is coming to LIMUN shows up on at least one of these two sessions, in order to go through details about the trip. We have rented the Union minibus and will be driving to London, and need to confirm how many people are staying at our hotel – I assume everyone is coming along in the minibus. We’ll go through costs, accommodation, etc in these meetings, but there are other things we need to sort out as well, in order to comply with the bureaucratic nightmare that is the student union.

If you have any questions, feel free to send us an email as always.

As our next meeting will clash with crisis games, our numbers shall likely be a little down. As such, we’ll not be holding a full meeting this coming Monday (3rd December). Instead, we’ll be holding an informal discussion on ‘the future of the UN’. It should be fun, and will allow us to problematize more fully some of the criticisms implicit in our debates.

As ever, it shall begin at 6:10, though we’ll likely be holding this in the Art Centre as opposed to the Library Seminar Room. We’d like to gain an idea of numbers before the meeting so as to ensure that it’s worthwhile to continue with it. If you are coming, please email me (tjm6@aber.ac.uk) or reply to this post and let me know you’ll be there.
Peace and love.

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sgsm11250.doc.htm

I’m pleased to announce that we have been allocated countries and committees for LIMUN 2008. Excellent as these countries are, I will not tell you which countries until the meeting next Monday – that way I hope to get the numbers up for that session, especially since several of you have yet to pay the £20 delegate fee for LIMUN. Let me remind you that I have personally paid the fee for you, and I am setting a deadline for payments for 7 December, which is when I go home for Christmas.

Monday’s topic is: Reform of the Permanent Membership the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Read on for further information about the topic, and a slight misprint about a certain former nation state.

This is a very important topic for developing countries who feel that the UNSC is dominated by developed countries and does not reflect the realities of 21st century world politics. There are several competing visions for UNSC reform which can be described as;

1. 6 new full permanent members
2. 6 new permanent members without a veto
3. 10 new non-permanent members.

 These are described in greater detail at the bottom of the post. As it is essay time we are not expecting a great deal of research from delegates this document details all UN members states positions on the reform of the UNSC dating from 2006, and have provided the details of the three competing reform packages, so all you have to do is read this, turn up and debate.

We are going to be increasing the realism with this debate to help people can get used to it for conferences. So we will be using the current make up of the Security Council as the only voting countries allowed (if you really want to be someone UNSC rules allow you to attend but only to speak, not to vote)

The current make up of the UNSC is:

Permanent 5
The Republic of China
The French Republic
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (!)
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The United States of America

Non-permanent 10
Belgium – Western Europe and Other
Republic of the Congo – Africa
Ghana – Africa
Indonesia – Asia
Italy – Western Europe and Other
Panama – Latin America and Caribbean
Peru – Latin America and Caribbean
Qatar – Asia, Arab
Slovakia – Eastern Europe
South Africa – Africa

The Different reform packages for the UNSC are;

1. The African Union – New full permanent members. New permanent members: Two for African States Two for Asian States; One for Latin American and Caribbean States; One for Western European and other States; New non-permanent members Two for African States; One for Asian States; One for Eastern European States; One for Latin American and Caribbean States 
2. The Group of 4 of Japan, Brazil, India and Germany – New permanent members without a veto. New permanent members: Two from African States; Two from Asian States; One from Latin American and Caribbean States; One from Western European and Other States; The new permanent members would not have a veto for 15 years after which the status of vetoes would be re-examined. New non-permanent members: One from African States; One from Asian States; One from Eastern European States; One from Latin American and Caribbean States;
3. The Uniting for Consensus Group - Canada, Italy, Colombia and Pakistan – No new permanent members. This group argues for the creation of 10 new non-permanent seats bring the UNSC membership up to 25. The non- permanent seats would be votes on by the regional blocs of the UN and would divided as such: 6 for Africa; 5 for Asia; 4 for Latin America and Caribbean; 3 for Western Europe and Other; 2 for Eastern European.

We hope to see you all there on Monday.

Just a quick email to let you know that the next topic for discussion in MUN is non-proliferation. We’ll be discussing this as the Security Council, so if you wish to grab a veto-weilding nation ( i.e. Russia, US, France, UK & China), book your delegation on our website (abermun.wordpress.com).

Read on for more information and some sources for research.

Here are some links that may come in handy in your research:
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2007/ebsp2007n016.html <- Speech by Mohammed El-Baradei at the University

of Florence, Italy (READ IT!)
http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/treaty/
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Treaties/npt.html
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-proliferation

In other news, we are thinking of arranging another weekend mini-conference, in light of the successful one we had a few weeks ago. We have decided on a topic and have a few things we need to work out before we give you all the details on Monday. This mini-conference is due to take place on 3 or 4 November.

Also, if you haven’t paid the modest membership fee (£3) and given us your BoS card details, please bring these along to the meeting on Monday. The Student Union is very strict on BuS card numbers, and if it is then so are we.

I’d like to thank all of you who attended our weekend training workshop and conference – the day was a big success and we had a lot of fun. We gained a bit of experience in arranging conferences, and we will be hosting more, larger conferences as the year goes on.

However, next Monday it’s time for our next meeting. The topic for discussion is Holocaust Denial (if the nations of Israel and Iran find consensus, I shall reward them with a cookie each!). This topic has in fact been addressed by the General Assembly only recently, so it will be interesting to see if we will reach the same conclusion as the real UN! As usual, we’ll be meeting at 6PM in the Library Seminar Room of the Hugh Owen Library.

Read on for more information and some sources for research.

I’ve prepared for you a list of sources which you may find helpful in your research:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_Denial
• http://www.hdot.org/
• http://antidefamationleague.us/new_nexus.htm
• http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10569.doc.htm <- This is a briefing on the session in which the resolution on holocaust was adopted. I would prefer it if you would try not to look at the real resolution, so as to try to write your own, rather than rewriting the real one…
• NY Times article on the Iranian Holocaust Denial Conference
• Wikipedia article on the Iranian Holocaust Denial Conference

Also, something which I haven’t mentioned so far: If you’re looking for something specific to a country you would like to represent, try googling for the topic in quotation marks and the name of the country after it, and maybe some useful keywords. E.g. google: “holocaust denial” Iran, or “holocaust denial” sweden foreign minister statement. Also, many nations have foreign ministeries who maintain websites where they publish a lot of statements, press releases, speeches and documents on various issues, so you can find out what they stand on topics we are discussing. Other than that, employ common sense, if you have any.

All welcome!

Here are some sources that might be useful in your research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-invasion_Iraq%2C_2003%E2%80%93present

http://www.irc-online.org/content/chomsky/2005chomsky-iraq.php

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/791014.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2002/conflict_with_iraq/default.stm

Hope to see as many people as possible! Remember that even if you didn’t make it to the training workshop, you can still come along to the meetings.

Here are a few links you may find useful in your research:

Internet censorship (Wikipedia)
Freedom of speech (Wikipedia)
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy (Wikipedia)
21st Century Threats to Press Freedom (US State Dept)

We look forward to seeing you there.