Welcome to UNESCO

Hey delegates! My name is Annalise Fox and I am so excited to be one of your vice chairs for BMUN 66. I am currently a freshman at Berkeley majoring in Global Peace and Conflict with a concentration on the Middle East. Outside of school, I love reading, hiking, movies, and watching ice hockey. I did MUN all throughout high school even attending BMUN last year as a delegate. I absolutely love the different insights and perspectives which MUN can give you on such interesting issues! It has really opened my eyes to numerous troubles the world faces, many of which I was not aware of before attending conferences. I truly hope with these topics our committee can impact you in the same way it has impacted me!

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Last Minute Conference Tips :)

Hey guys! I am super excited for tomorrow and I hope you all are too! :) I just wanted to give you some last minute tips before conference as far as what we are looking for in committee. Speeches/moderated: It is important that you are bringing something new to debate. We are looking for interesting and original content that contributes to committee. Back up what you say with research to really stand out from others. Most of committee we will be in substantive debate, meaning that you will be presenting solutions. Explain and convince others why the solutions which your delegation proposes will solve the problem at hand. With this convincing comes the necessity of delivery. Try to put you ideas in a way understandable to delegates. We will be in a big room so project as much as possible and use your inflection to emphasize the important parts of your speech. Also, remember quality is greater than quantity. We will be trying to keep the speaking even the whole time so only raise ...

Egyptian Bread Riots

One important aspect of sustainable agriculture that often remains overlooked is the negative effect which it can have on the stability of governments. Although these may seem unrelated, governments have been hit hard by food shortages due to climate related natural disasters, which without sustainable agriculture, can proceed to wipe out entire food supplies. The Middle East has been hit particularly hard by these food shortages due to the nature of their governments subsidy system. In the mid to late 1900s, many governments attempted to launch plans of food subsidies in an attempt to maintain power and favor of the people. Suddenly, citizens were receiving more aid than ever before and put much trust in the previously unstable relationship with the government. However, although good in principle, the citizens soon became reliant on these subsidies and expected them from their government. Many nations have attempted to receive aid for the debt that these subsidies have placed them in...

CRISPR and genome edited crops - what it means for agriculture

In the last few years, you may have heard the term “CRISPR” – pronounced ‘crisper’ – pop up a few times. But what exactly is CRISPR, and why is it so important? Well, in order to answer that, let’s first pay a quick visit to 2012. That was the year that Jennifer Doudna – a professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley – and her team characterized the activity of what’s now known as CRISPR-cas9. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology and CRISPR Associated System (cas) was first discovered in bacteria as a defense against foreign viruses and DNA. Eventually, its use progressed into eukaryotic cells for purposes of modification, as the technology was adapted by the Broad Institute for genetic engineering. So how is this accomplished? Basically, CRISPR-cas9 consists of two main parts: the cas9 enzyme, which is capable of cutting DNA at specific locations within the genome – think of pair of molecular scissors – and ...

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