Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Dear delegates,

I wanted to take this opportunity to once again thank you for a great committee. Your passion and deep commitment to diplomacy and practicality, combined with a thorough knowledge of the topic, was inspiring and I know that my vice-chairs and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire weekend.

I know that I promised to return your position papers on Sunday, which clearly has not happened. Unfortunately, this is one of those weeks where the perfect storm of not enough study time and many commitments coincides. Therefore, I will not be able to return your papers until Wednesday evening. I will also post the resolutions at that time.

Thank you again for a wonderful weekend and your understanding,

Lorenz Noe

Dear delegates,

En lieu of committee starting tomorrow, I wanted to clarify a few things regarding the flow of committee. While the vast majority of proceedings will be conducted in an informal discussion, we will start off the discussion of every topic with speeches by every delegation to inform everyone of the background and basic opinion of every delegation. These do not have to be fancy speeches, but should effectively convey your position. After that first round of speeches, the rest of committee will be a discussion facilitated by the chairs. We will still have informal caucus and formal caucus for the purpose of discussing the resolution. Remember that, since ASEAN lacks outright voting procedures, decisions in ASEAN are made by overwhelming majorities and if one country opposes the resolution outright, it fails. Thus, while not all countries must be sponsors of the resolution, they must like it enough to not vote no.

Hi Delegates –

You all must be very excited for the conference this weekend because I know all of your chairs are stoked! As you all are getting your dance costumes together and packing your bags, don’t forget to put in your last efforts for preparing for debate. In your final preparation I wanted to draw your attention to an article that follows up with the BBC article about more free trading between ASEAN countries. This article was published just yesterday and deals with similar themes.

Here are some questions to think about when reading this article…

What are some specific economic integration issues that are hindering the free trade integration by 2015?

More importantly for committee — how do these problems overlap with the the issues affecting the integration of East Timor?

With respect to resolution writing — what are creative solutions to get around these barriers?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/28/business/AP-AS-ASEAN-Economic-Community.html?scp=2&sq=ASEAN&st=cse

Dear Delegates,

With the conference just 9 days away, it is time to really buckle down and focus on the upcoming debate.
Just to clarify, we will cover the topic Environmental Protection first and will probably finish it up by lunch-time on Saturday, at which point we will start discussing the Integration and Development of East Timor.

We have received position papers from all participating nations except Brunei at this point so we are set to have a very fruitful debate next weekend.

Also, to celebrate the conclusion of a great day of debate and discussion, the Secretariat will be hosting a delegate dance on Saturday night. Here’s the blurb:

BMUN is happy to announce that this year’s theme for the Saturday Night Delegate Dance.

Activities will be “*Let’s CAN Hunger*” where decorations and costumes will represent favorite foods from around the world. In support of this year’s conference cause, World Food Program, the theme aims to show solidarity in the fight against world hunger. Any food related-wear is appropriate and some possible things to dress up as include fruits, salt and pepper, M&M’s, the color representing your favorite food group, food mascots, your favorite Wheatie’s champion, or even farmers from around the world –although, creativity is definitely encouraged!

This year’s activities will include the delegate dance, entitled “*You Are What You Eat*,” and a casino with Blackjack and Roulette. There will be raffle prizes, a free photo booth and a refreshment stand. Of course, there will also be a dance floor and a DJ. To address hunger in our own local community, *BMUN will also be having a canned food drive Saturday night. Delegates who bring in canned and other non-perishable foods will be given an extra $50 worth of BMUN casino money for every item they donate. *

The activities will take place on *Saturday, March 6**th**.*  The doors to Pauley Ballroom will open at *8:00 p.m. and all activities will end at 11:00 p.m.”*

Dear delegates,

We are now less than four weeks away from BMUN 58 and I hope you are as excited as I am about the prospect of a great substantive committee.
I want to thank those of you that turned in your position papers to be considered for a research award.
The next deadline to turn in your position papers to be considered for a committee award of any kind is February 22nd.
In the coming weeks leading up to the conference, keep track of developments of your country’s foreign policy or any other event pertaining to your country’s interest and how this can influence how they interact with the other members of ASEAN, which, just to remind you, since it was never explicitly stated in the committee description, encompasses the countries of ASEAN +3 with which you are surely familiar with at this point in your research.
I also wanted to draw your attention to these  news items which deal with ASEAN’s role in world politics and our topics:

You are surely aware of this development but just in case you need a quick refresher:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8436772.stm

How does the US figure into how the nations of ASEAN conduct themselves?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/washington/19diplo.html

An older article but one that asks pertinent questions:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,590168,00.html

My name is Shreyans Kothari (you can call me Shrey), and I’m currently a sophomore here at Cal. Having grown up in Bangkok (Thailand), my interest in international relations began at an early age. This is my 8^th year involved with MUN (2^nd year with BMUN), and it’s been an awesome ride. I also have a passion for traveling, soccer, and technology. With regards to the committee, I had a particular interest in joining ASEAN since the issues being discussed hit close to home.

I can’t wait to see you all at the conference in March!

Shreyans Kothari

Hello, delegates! My name is Bianca Tomkoria and I’ll bee one of your chairs for the BMUN 58 ASEAN committee conference. I hope you’re all excited to be joining us in Berkeley in the spring. Just to tell you a little bit about myself before we meet in March, I am currently a sophomore at the university majoring in Economics. I have grown up between California, Japan, India, and Singapore which has sparked an interested in world politics. I absolutely love to travel and have been many countries exploring different cultures. I am also a Cal basketball fan so Go Bears! I hope that you’re finding our committee topics interesting. I have a couple articles for you here that might be of interest. The first is an article from the most prominent, reputable Singaporean newpaper about recent gas development off the coast of East Timor. The second article is from the New York Times Global Edition and is about the development of the tourism industry in East Timor. Please read the two articles and comment with any thoughts or questions and hopefully we can get a lively discussion going. Good luck with your research and position papers.

Article #1: Petronas-E. Timor gas deal?
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_479290.html

Article #2: East Timor May Use Its Struggle As Tourist Lure
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/global/02iht-timor.html

Greetings delegates,

My name is Lorenz Noe, a Political Science and Economics major, and I will be your head-chair for this simulation of the Association of South-East Asian nations. My vice-chairs will be Bianca Tomkoria and Shreyans Kothari and leading up to conference, we will use this space as a way to prepare you, the delegates, for this exciting simulation as well as give you the opportunity to ask questions, should you have them.

Our topics will be 1) The issue of environmentalism in SE Asia and what ASEAN can do to help it, 2) The issue of integration and development of East Timor, a politically and economically unstable region which gained independence at the start of the 21st century.

As your research will tell you, ASEAN only has 10 member countries, making this an extremely small committee. Thus, instead of following regular procedure, we will conduct committee in a round-robin sort of way. This means that we will basically be talking for the entire time. This means that everyone of you will have to speak and formulate policy. However, the fact that there are only 10 of you also makes memorizing what each country’s position is much easier.

What purpose will all of this talking serve? At the end of deliberations on each topic, you must come up with a policy that ASEAN could recommend to its constituencies. These policies will be voted on in much the same way that resolutions are passed, yet with much smaller numbers of sponsors, signatories, for obvious reasons.

As previously mentioned, my vice-chairs and I will be using this space to keep you informed so check back here regularly for new content. Our committee e-mail is bmun58asean@gmail.com. This is where you will send your positions papers and can send us questions if a comment on a blog seems too public.

Speaking of position papers, here are some important deadlines:

Feb. 8, 2010 – Deadline to turn in position papers and be eligible for a Research Award.

Feb. 22, 2010 – Final deadline to turn in position papers and still be eligible for a Committee Award. Any papers turned in after this date will disqualify you from receiving a Committee Award.

Remember that the better your position paper, the easier it will be for you to find your way around in committee, since you can jump right into making policies instead of learning what your interests and who your allies are during committee.

Enjoy your winter break,

Lorenz Noe