SPECPOL

Advanced Parliamentary Procedure Hi delegates, it’s Tal! Hope you are all doing well and working hard on your position papers. This week, I want to talk about some advanced parliamentary procedure topics that novice delegates may not be super familiar with. I’ll be going over formal caucus, amendments, voting rights, and dividing the question. For those of you who do not have experience with dividing the question, I would highly recommend for you to read the rest of this post and even doing your own research on it, because it’s a fairly challenging concept. Here it all is: Formal Caucus Presenting Your Resolution After you all finish your resolutions, you can motion to move into formal caucus by using the following sentence structure: “The delegate of X would like to motion for a formal caucus with X-minute speaking time per resolution” (the X’s represent your country and the amount of time). We would vote on whether or not to move into formal caucus, and if t...

Hi Delegates, There seems to have been some confusion with the online platform for submitting documents and, in many cases, only a single position paper has been submitted for a delegation. Each delegation must submit two position papers on each topic and they should be compiled into a single document that is uploaded. There is not an option to upload the documents separately. As always, please reach out to me if you have any further questions about this. Calvin Price

Hello! Hope you guys are working hard on the position papers! Can’t wait to read over some of them. Today, we are going to further look into the case study of the aboriginals population in Australia. The article listed above lays out beautifully the “social gap” between the indigenous and Australian population. And the results are striking. Let’s take a look at these statistics with the lense of health, poverty, and education in to consideration (*look at the topic synopsis if confused). Poverty: We can consider poverty rates first, and what do we see? Compared to the 5.8% unemployment rate of the Australian population, that of the indigenous population quadruples at 20.8%. Education: Students attending school 90% of the time for the Australian population is 79.3%, while for the indigenous population it is 49%. Additionally, compared to the Australian population where 80% of the students have finished year 12, only 61% of students of indigenous backgrounds have done the same....

The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis After years of fighting, the countries of North and South Yemen unified to become a single country in 1990. However, even after years of unification, conflict between the different regions still exists today and has led to the current civil war in Yemen. The main power struggle in the country is between the Yemeni government and the Houthi army (an Iranian backed rebel group). Due to political unrest during the Arab Spring, former President Saleh resigned from his position and allowed Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to take power. However, Hadi eventually fled to Saudi Arabia, where he held presidential power from afar. The fighting is still happening today, and through all this turmoil, the innocent citizens of Yemen have suffered for years on end, facing economic, social, and public health crises. Recently, there has been a new public health threat in Yemen--the spread of diphtheria. This is a bacterial disease that causes mucous membran...

Indigenous Minorities--Industry, Environment, and Public Health In 1980, a group of Amazonian indigenous peoples called the Nahua was exposed to the outside world, and since then, their society has been plagued with infectious diseases, environmental issues, and governmental neglect. When the tribe first made contact with outsiders, about 50% of the population died from diseases, because their immune systems were not well equipped to deal unknown viruses and bacteria. While the Nahua did overcome this huge drop in population, they now deal with a different health issues--mercury poisoning. Officials first discovered this phenomenon in November 2014, when a young baby was tested for heavy metals and came back positive for mercury. Since then, many groups and individuals have asked the Peruvian government for help, yet hardly any action has been taken. AIDESEP, an indigenous federation, argued that the government is trying to hide this issue so that it does not have to funnel mon...

Hey Delegates! A strong position papers is an important aspect of being a good delegate. Not only is it paramount for research awards, but it also sways consideration for conference awards. Having strong research skills to uncover important information, extract key insights, and develop robust solutions is a crucial skill for MUN and life beyond. This post is meant to clarify what standards we hold for position papers and any further questions you may have. A position paper should reflect the research you have conducted on each topic and be strongly colored from the viewpoint of your country. This should demonstrate clearly your knowledge of the topic and understanding of your nation’s position. This is not meant to be an unbiased document, but at the same time don’t lie or cite nonexistent articles. Overall, you should submit a paper of 5-10 pages per topic that exhibits a comprehensive understanding of the situation, an organized and argumentative structure, original thinkin...