Welcome to BMUN EcoFin 56!
Hey delegates!
Welcome to the blog for this year’s Economic and Financial Committee! This is your Head Chair, Ariana Afshar, and I am so excited for this year’s conference to begin! With the help of my Vice Chairs Theresa Cable, Aditya Kayshap and Nicolas Walder, we will be delving into the murky waters of the international economic issues that pose serious challenges to the world community. We are looking forward to reading your position papers, as well as hearing your arguments and ideas in committee.
To give you a little information about myself, I am currently a senior at UCB, double majoring in economics and political science. I am very interested in international economics and politics, and am actually involved in several research projects this year with Berkeley faculty regarding international economic policies. When I’m not hiding in the Berkeley libraries, I like to play with my kitten, Nyx, and watch Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. I also have a not so secret infatuation with the show Smallville. =) I really enjoy reading, and am a big time Harry Potter fan, as well as a fan of Phillip Pullman and Louise Rennison’s books. Well, I hope that information makes me less intimidating as a chair, and makes you more likely to post on this blog and come talk to me at the conference! =D
Ariana Afshar
January 17th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Goddag halla! Hehe >.> I used to have a slight obsession with Smallville as do you, that is, until the episodes suddenly disappeared. D=
Anyway, we look forward to being at BMUN for the conference. =3
February 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Hey, have you ever read the book the motorcycle diaries by Ernesto Guevara? I know its not necessarily as thrilling as Harry Potter, but it was an amazing book. haha, and have you ever read any of the books written by Douglas Adams? If you haven’t you have to before you die. I don’t thinkthere was a single moment when I wasn’t laughing, reading some of the things he wrote.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Hey Zaq,
So I definitely watched the movie Motorcycle Diaries and loved it…and I’ve definitely read most of the Douglas Adam’s books. I still think the best line is when he talks about always taking a towel with you because then everyone will assume that you’re a very clean and respectable person who just lost the rest of their belongings.
Ariana
P.S. Thank you for posting on the blog!
February 8th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
No problems, it was my pleasure. And it may be a tad sacreligious of me, but my favorite line, or really page from that serious was the whole blurb about the babble fish. from that point on its easy to see where the books where going, at least stylistically, haha.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
What topic are folks leaning towards? I know we’ll have plenty of time to debate it, but a little work ahead of time never hurts.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Well, I would say that my partner Serena and I (Shawna) would more likely lean towards the topic of International Trade Liberalization since we believe that it would be a great help to improve the economy of many nations, especially targeting the developing nations.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
We agree with Germany in that the topic of International Trade Liberalization is key to the development of world economies, also our economy depends on international markets and their success. If the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries continues to expand, then in the future it will only be harder for poorer countries to recover. It is essential that developed countries eagerly participate in aiding other nations, and that they keep an open mind to the worldly benefit of advancements in LDCs.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
We completely agree with what New Zealand had stated above indicating that the gap between the economy of developed and developing nations cannot be widen any further. In many of the less developed nations, there are just way too many people currently living in the state of poverty and Germany believes that we must target them first. We noticed a micro-financing organization called KIVA, which supports the starting or continuation of a business, assisting in the rising of a nation’s economy. The gap between developed and underdeveloped nations needs to decrease and there should be some sort of international cooperation to achieve that.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:32 am
howdy there Ariana, it’s good to hear from you, and very nice to see people posting on the blog (a feature pretty new to me as our MUN club here at Summit is only a couple of years old…). Philip Pullman is a pretty great author, and I’d have to say that His Dark Materials trilogy was definitely my favorite series of all time, despite having me in tears by the end.
So I can’t wait to meet you and the other chairpersons, and to see all the delegates in committee!
good luck,
-Stephen Szczurko
March 12th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I posted this somewhere else, but if everyone else is having as hard a time as I am navigating this blog (no disrespect to its creator), then you may not have seen it:
Hey all, Argentina here. We’re leaning towards environmentally sustainable development. For us, it comes down to the competence of our committee. When the conference includes a WTO committee, it seems like a waste to discuss trade policy. Better to take the knowledge we’ve gained through trade policy research and apply it to the topic of sustainable development. As a GA committee, we are in a great position to fuse together the work of several smaller committees. Environmentally sustainable development is a topic that allows us to use that status. Combining trade, the environment, education, and other subjects, we can develop a serious development plan.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
We are leaning towards the Trade Liberalization topic because in an expanding global economy, the disparity between the developed and developing nations is unacceptable. Trade Liberalization is a larger topic and, therefore, requires a larger amount of time to resolve.