14-17 FEBRUARY
THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
THE OBSERVER OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF HasalMUN 2014
TRAGEDY THAT NEVER ENDS
ISSUE 1
SYRIA .
UNDOCUMENTED, UNAFRAID, UNAPOLOGETIC: THE LIVES OF IMMIGRANTS DISARMING THE HORN
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THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
Brought to you by: Tamer Özgen Editor-in-Chief
Nilgün Güleç Editor-in-Chief
Alperen Gezer Can Altunkaynak Deniz Parmaksız Ece Bozkurt Ece Güray Ekin Karaveli Isıl Gürmen Tunç Öztemir Umut Alp Aktas Vasfiye Ece Karagören
EDITORIAL
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ove is always a dominant motif in our lives. Most of us have it in our hearts and smiles, we wish for it’s remaining there. Perhaps, the responsibility of living every day requires so much energy and exertion, life itself wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice in their behalf if necessary, yet how few times do we really show the people we love that we care them. And today, the Sweetest Day in the year came into being again, and here we are, found ourselves once again greetings to all. In the next four day, we will spend our days incredibly, and these days in university we will open our minds and learn what we can do to
change the world. Perhaps, you’ll never think how it will affect your aspect to world, and you’ll realize something you never thought before and we will lift the cloud of limitation. At last, we’d like to say that, Press Team will do everything to make this conference ,HasalMUN 2014, better and memorable for you. Good luck!
THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
NATO
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TRADEGY THAT NEVER ENDS
TUNÇ ÖZTEMİR
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s well as being the second most influential multinational organisation after United Nations, NATO has also been very active since its establishment, about the problems in the world. That is why; I think that NATO is the most challenging and intriguing committee in this conference. This year NATO will hold a discussion about Syrian Conflict. It might seem easy since everyone knows about one or two things about Syria, but it is always harder to act in accordance with your countries’ policy if the people around you also know the topic quite well. Although the crisis in Syria is extremely hard to solve and a lot of attempts to bring peace to the area have failed, I expect this committee to come up with a resolution which will finally take steps and give hope to the people. For this reason NATO becomes the committee that has the chance to change history and to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths in the future. Nevertheless, there is one more thing that you should know: It is almost impossible to reach a common consensus, even within NATO members. This just leaves some important questions that need to be considered: - Great Britain, Germany and a lot of European countries stated that they will not take part in any military intervention, what will United States do this time? Can US afford another Iraq or Libya? - What will be Turkey’s role regarding the issue, will NATO provide the necessary equipment for its member Turkey? What will happen to the refugees? - Will diplomatic means, ceasefire plans and possible peace agreements be enough to solve the problem? What can NATO do to eradicate chemical weapons?
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PBC
ECE GÜRAY
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THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
EDUCATION ON THE VERGE
he Project Based Committee of HASALMUN 2014 will be covering the “Educational Policies of Turkey” which is highly debated amongst the Turkish people but throughout years there is still no solution for this problem. In Turkey, teachers’ lack of experience, as well as the lack of flexibility in curriculums affect the success level reached by the students and cause a large amount of under-achieving students and these students are mostly from low socio-economic backgrounds. Also the matter of unassigned educational personnel is another issue to be discussed in The Project Based Committee. There are currently over 350.000 education personnel who have been failed to assign by the Ministry of Education and the numbers are increasing with every passing year. Moreover, Turkey has various priorities to address, such as: improving equity between regions and urban and rural areas along with the issue of gender equity which leads us into the issue of disparity in education. Despite the unsuccessful students,
transitional exams for high schools and universities are extremely selective. Graduation rates in both high schools and universities are still below desired yet, a significant increase has been observed since 2005 with the reforms that were introduces at both levels. The educational system of Turkey is also challenged by the insufficiency of school buildings which leads to over populated classrooms. This is again a result of lacking the necessary funding by the governance and is affecting the quality of the education received by the students in a negative way. On the other hand schools from primary level to higher education levels are underfunded by the government. This combined with the capacity of school administrators and teachers to respond to school needs can be limited by unqualified education. These problems and further subjects will be mentioned in the sessions and we, The Press Team of HASALMUN 2014 wish all the delegates a pleasant and a fruitful debate!
UNSC
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THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
THE HORN OF AMBIGUITY
DENİZ PARMAKSIZ
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lthough eras pass and policies change, they tend to leave traces behind. The Horn of Africa displays the living ruins of colonialism and awaits the day it will be salvaged and restored. Circumscribed by the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the Horn is one of the most complex and conflicted regions of the world. The inhabitants of the district are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia which amount to 100 million people in total, scattered to an area of 2 000 000 km2. The unrest in the Horn emanates from the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which led to the Europeans’’ race of dominion possession. Even though the states ostensibly declared their independences in the 1960s, they were used as pawns during the Cold War Era by both Russia and the US, which caused tension in the zone. The incoherence, which arose between Somalia and Ethiopia, had to be left aside only to deal with
internal issues, guerillas and civil commotions. Eritrea gained independence; however, Ethiopia refused to recognize the new borders, which led to the countries’ gathering of troops in Somalia. That turned out to be a wrong maneuver, as displeased Somalis also clashed with the troops and UN interference was required. After a superficial settlement, Eritrea got involved in border conflicts with Djibouti, as well. Currently, it seems impossible to bring peace to the area, as conversation between states is impossible. High militarization combined with the expansionist legacy of the colonist era, is the basis for continuing violent conflicts. The results are Human Rights violence, poverty, social and economic inequalities, discomfort of ethnic divisions and the collapse of state infrastructure. Major issues that need to be tackled are drought and famine which also stem from political instability and
lead to diseases, exodus, piracy, Islamic radicalization along with terrorism which come up in diverse forms such as communist juntas, dictatorships and rivaling militias, child arming even by governments, internally displaced persons and refugee crises. These problems are especially common in Somalia where the matters of the tyrannical Barre Regime and the clan system add to the list of major issues. The UN, alongside with other local and global organizations, is putting in effort to call for order and stabilize the region. Only then, can the problems be solved. The UNSC of HASALMUN, led by Zeeshan Panjwani and Reyyan Jazzar, is going to tackle the issue of the Horn of Africa. We are looking forward to seeing the Security Council to come up with realistic and useful ideas and solutions.
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THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
GA3
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ello SOCHUM!!! Can you smell the love in the air? Cause if you can’t, you’re in the right place to find it. However, still, keep in mind that you’ll be discussing about the significant issues in the next few days in the committee, as well. The first one would be the situation of the illegal immigrants in Americas, which is always been a problem for the last several centuries. It is a complexity that is engendered by the people who want better living standards and, therefore, immigrate to the United States of America by taking risks. This is an issue that has its place in the literature books, as well. I even can suggest you to read the story “From Elena” if you want to impress the committee with a little bit of literature. The second one is Connivance of Children’s Rights: Child Laboring in all aspects. This is not a usual topic for our social environment. Yet, it is a significant one for the world. The world does not consist of our fish tank after all. One in six children (5 to 14 years old) is involved in child labor in developing countries. In this sense, you (the delegates) will need to put yourselves in other children’s shoes and to find solutions to end the impunity against child laboring. Last but not least, you will be talking about the elimination of HIV/AIDS in Africa. In 2011, 71 percent of the HIV/AIDS-related deaths were in Africa, and the instability that is caused by this epidemic devastated and still devastates the countries, especially those in South Africa. Consequently, considering that most of the people in Africa are insufficiently educated and that every male has 8 condoms per year, this is actually quite a problem to solve. Lastly, don’t forget to be bold and confident inside and outside the committee, if you know what I mean. Buon San Valentino a tutti!
CAN ALTUNKAYNAK
THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
HOW WILL T NUCLEAR AFFECT YOU? IŞIL GÜRMEN
GA1
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he world has seen so many wars from the day civilizations had been founded. Before the UN has been created, most of the conflicts ended with wars and that damaged the whole world seriously. As the UN’s main goal is “To preserve international peace and security.” the most essential role of DISEC is to make the UN achieve this aim. Nuclear weapons are known to be the deadliest weapons. They have huge destruction capacity; causing environmental damage and giant bloodbaths along with affecting future generations. They had been used twice so far, both at the end of the World War II and we all had a chance to observe the consequences. To preserve global peace, the nuclear-weapon-free zone should be formed immediately around the world. This might be the most beneficial solution to overcome problem but the main question is how to make it solid? Moreover, the demand of weaponry by terrorism and civil wars causes illicit weaponry trade to appear from nowhere. The weapons acquired by these ways don’t only make it harder to solve the stress situation, but also harm innocent civilians. Further, terrorism also causes international tension. It already brings many troubles and if radioactive and nuclear weapons were to become commonplace in the hands of terrorists, more innocent lives will be in danger. Possible solutions have been discussed a lot but the issue is still continuing to cause major problems. That’s why immediate actions should be taken in order to solve those problems. As you can see, DISEC’s agenda topics are connected to each other in many ways. This fact will make the resolutions consistent. We recommend DISEC to use their time efficiently in order to come up with the most innovative and the most creative resolutions that the UN had ever seen.
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THE OBSERVER - Official Newspaper of HasalMUN 2014
VASFİYE ECE KARAGÖREN
CONFLICTS LASTING DECADES
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his year HasalMUN’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee will be serving under directions of President Chair Orçun Doğmazer, Co-Chair Yağmur Şapçı and Under Secretary-General Görkem Keser. Having long lasting conflicts in political, historical and religious era at the same time, it seems that SPECPOL will be one of the most contentious committees in HasalMUN 2014. Rest of the article will be including brief informations about the agenda items and then some tips to provide you with better debates. To start with, conflict of Kashmir dispute is the oldest item in UN’s agenda that the member states still couldn’t come to a conclusion. Since both Pakistan and India have their reigning reasons to claim rights upon Kashmir region, it creates a never-ending dilemma for the future of dispute. While the Pakistani side directs towards the great majority of Muslims in the region, the Indian side uses the historical background of Kashmir, as a reason to claim right.
UMUT ALP AKTAŞ
MIDDLE EAST REACHES THE BOILING POINT
FAC
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ver in the passed years, The UN had been trusted; and even though its decisions and said-tobe upcoming plans sounded satisfying on the news, later on they failed one by one because theory didn’t just simply fit in the practice. Experts have blamed it on the fragmented rules and regulations which were previously set, the contention between countries such as France and The UK or even different UN bodies, or even having a efficent army within the
GA4
To move on, the conflicts between Israel and Palestine generates the second agenda item of SPECPOL. These conflicts are mostly caused by the city of Jerusalem being a strategic headquarter for the political and religious benefits of both countries. This issue also shows us that religion might be a huge factor for countries to decide on their priorities. Unfortunately, the previous resolutions to overcome these issues couldn’t meet the international society’s expectations. Therefore, it is essential for us to have awareness concerning the policies of our countries along with being innovative, competitive and unique with our ideas. Don’t forget: “Success is beyond the limits, now it is time to go and get it.”
hand of The UN yet not being able to fullt conduct it to a set goal... All these vagrant pieces have led The UN not being succesful at all on the condition of the Middle East, especially in the recent events . Having said that, Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) is to discuss and build up a reformation on the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in order to become more effective and productive, especially as they are needed in the Middle East nowadays. The states of the area are now in ceasefire and it is time to bring a permanent peace, along with helping the people of the states and the refugees, which is the second topic the council has to overcome smoothly.