AL-JAZEERAThere is one death every minute

due to small arms.Numerous delegates of the First

Committee pointed to this statistic as the reason why they should dis-cuss the illicit trade of small arms and light weapons.

While organized crime networks that develop to conduct the trade are dangerous in and of them-selves, some of the deaths result from the weapons long after they enter a county.

“Long after these conflicts have ended, these weapons remain,” the delegate from Azerbaijan said.

By not confronting the illicit trade of such items now, some fear it will spread and become a bigger is-sue.

Because most of the delegates who spoke agreed that the solu-tion was marking the weapons in a way that makes them traceable, working groups formed to address different aspects of the problem, how to address it, how to pay for it and how to build support for the program.

The African bloc took on creat-ing a marking and tracing program and building support for it.

Guns are currently traced using serial numbers, but those are eas-ily tampered with.

Some new methods, including laser etching and chemical mark-ing, are costly, and developing

EL UNIVERSALThe overwhelming number of

problems facing the United Na-tions policy on humanitarian relief has caused members of the Eco-nomic and Social Committee to split into three groups.

The largest effort to reform these policies centered on an attempt to forge an omnibus resolution ad-dressing the concerns of every member state. The delegates from Nigeria and Spain said they want-ed to reach an “inclusive conclu-sion” and a “global view.”

They invited other delegates to make additions and comments to the working paper.

Many of the delegates joining this effort expressed a desire to make a clearer distinction between different kinds of refugees.

Delegates repeatedly noted that natural disaster, armed conflict and economic hardship create

very different kinds of refugees. While this group attempted to

create a broad and inclusive con-sensus, two other groups began working papers with more targeted reforms.

One, led by the delegate from Qatar, focused its efforts on de-veloping a thorough review of the “cluster approach,” which empha-sizes coordination between UN agencies, individual countries and non-governmental organizations like the Red Cross.

The “cluster approach” has been the guiding concept of the UN humanitarian relief process since 2004.

A review was necessary be-cause of the shortcomings of relief and aid efforts in the wake of the Haitian earthquake of 2010, these delegates argued.

During a wide-ranging caucus discussion, the delegate from

Canada summed up his frustra-tions with these efforts, saying, “Basically every state has failed Haiti.”

International organizations par-ticipating in the “cluster approach” routinely fail to coordinate their efforts with local non-government organizations, said the delegate from Ethiopia, who spoke in favor of such a study.

These coordination efforts are typically conducted in English, of-ten marginalizing local groups that lack English-speakers, the del-egate from Qatar added.

A lack security can also prevent effective delivery of aid, the del-egate from Pakistan said.

But for one group of delegates, they didn’t want concerns over security to override national sover-eignty, and they decided to center their working paper on national

THE TIMESHunger, human rights and disarma-

ment are some of the issues Ireland has an interest in, its consul general to the Midwest said.

Aidan Cronin, consul general of Ire-land, delivered the keynote address at the opening ceremonies of the 53rd Midwest Model United Nations confer-ence Wednesday evening.

While Cronin said he could not ad-dress every important issue his nation had an interest in, he did speak about some of the same issues delegates might face during the conference.

Cronin opened his speech by ad-dressing the perceived lack of recog-nition some countries have received in the UN.

“We’re used to thinking of the UN as the universal organization,” Cro-nin said. “After all, according to the UN charter, membership is open to all peace-loving states. However, we should bear in mind… in its early years, the members of the UN con-trolled entry to an almost exclusive club.”

Ireland itself didn’t gain membership until 1955 — a decade after the UN formed — because the Soviet Union blocked its entry.

The UN Security Council needs to be reformed and increase transpar-ency in its actions, Cronin said.

“Reform of the UN Security Council is one obvious area where progress is long overdue,” he said. “And it’s one particular area where we would en-courage you to focus at least some of your energies this week. In particular,

we need to alter the composition of the council so that it better reflects the re-ality of the 21st century.”

In addressing reforms to the UN,

Cronin said Ireland has been at the forefront of change.

“Ireland has played, and is continu-ing to play, an active role in champi-

oning UN reform,” Cronin said. “One area we have particularly concen-trated on in recent years is improving the role of the UN in the developed area and working to ensure that there is greater coherence and cooperation amongst all the various UN agencies and bodies active in this area.”

He focused his speech on such is-sues as hunger, climate change, hu-man rights and disarmament. One bil-lion people suffer from hunger globally, Cronin said.

“The fight against hunger is at the heart of the UN Millennium health goals,” he said. “The object is to halve the number of hungry in the world by 2015.”

One of the most discussed topics in the last two decades at the UN has been climate change. It is a subject Ireland considers to be of top impor-tance, according to Cronin.

“It has been called, and rightly so, the binding issue of our generation,” Cronin said. “Climate change is not something happening in far off lands in a distant future. It’s happening now, it’s happening here, and it’s happen-ing fast.”

Amidst the ongoing revolution in Syria, the issue of human rights has once again been brought up before the UN. Nations continue to disagree about what to do regarding the conflict.

“As a small island nation which has experienced the impact of colonialism, civil war and conflict, we learned the hard way that human rights can never and should never be taken for grant-ed,” he said.

MMUN World News & ReportVOLUME VII ISSUE 1 MMUN.ORG Thursday, February 21, 2013

In the NewsOutlet cites fake group in opposition to nominee

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Con-servative news outlet cited a fake group in their opposition to the president’s nominee for the next secretary of defense.

The report that former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel received financing from a group called “Friends of Hamas” was picked up by the “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network and by Washington Times’ columnist Frank J. Gaffney Jr, according to the New York Times.

However, there is no evidence that “Friends of Hamas” exists, the Times’ report continued.

Disappearances linked to Mexican police, army

MEXICO CITY – Nearly 250 disappearance cases have been tied back to the Mexican police or army, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

The report looks at Mexico’s an-ti-drug offensive, calling it “disas-trous,” according to a report from the Associated Press. It points to “enforced disappearances” where security forces detain and then deny their detention to families or tell them to look for them at police stations or army bases.

A database maintained by Pro-puesta Civica, or Civic Proposal, has information on about 20,000 people who have gone missing in Mexico over the last six years, according the AP article.Researchers discover

rare mammothMOSCOW – The carcass of

a rare southern mammoth was discovered in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains, according to news reports.

Experts suspect the area could contain a whole cemetery full of prehistoric animals.

Newspaper for saleBOSTON – The Boston Globe

is for sale. The New York Times Co. has

put the newspaper and its related assets up for sale, four years after its last attempt to sell it.

The Times bought the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion from the family of Stephen Taylor, a former Globe executive.

Executives point to the differ-ences between the two brands as the reason behind the sale, saying they want to focus on the New York Times, according to the Associated Press.

Body discovered in water tank at LA hotel

LOS ANGELES – Some guests at a downtown Los Angeles hotel were left queasy Tuesday after they discovered that the body of a Canadian woman had been found in one of the rooftop water cisterns, according to an Associ-ated Press report.

The body of Elisa Lam, 21, were found by a maintenance worker after guests complained about low water pressure, the article said.

Los Angeles County Depart-ment of Public Health officials issued a do-not-drink order Tuesday while its lab analyzed the water.

Despite size, Ireland plays big roleDiplomat discusses Irish leadership on human rights

AP/HEATHER STROJEKIreland’s Consul General to the Midwest Aidan Cronin gives the keynote address at the 53rd annual Midwest Model United Nations conference Wednesday in St. Louis.

AP/HEATHER STROJEKThe delegate from Australia speaks with his fellow delegates during a caucus Wednesday night at the annual Midwest Model United Nations conference in St. Louis.

Tracing guns key to ending illicit tradeFunding program also on agenda

ECOSOC split on humanitarian policyReview of UN process needed in wake of Haiti, delegates say

See Trade, Page 2 See ECOSOC, Page 2

countries can’t afford them, the delegate from Rwanda said. These countries need financial help from the United Nations, she said.

Because developing countries don’t yet have the funds, the African bloc focused on what they could do in the meantime to build a foundation, including sharing information, building a government framework and pass-

ing legislation.Meanwhile, the Western bloc’s plan

focused mainly on providing financial support to these countries in carrying out the monitoring and tracing of small arms.

One of the ideas tossed out was to take a small percentage of member nations’ gross domestic product to fund this program.

Because the working papers focus on different parts of the process, the regional blocs plan to merge their ideas this morning.

sovereignty in the wake of humani-tarian disaster.

These delegates seek firmer policies on when the UN can ap-prove the use of military forces in humanitarian relief operations.

The delegate from Ukraine ex-pressed particular concern about the use of military forces in deliv-ering humanitarian aid.

“They are trained killers,” he said. “Aid is best delivered by oth-ers.”

Some delegates advocated an additional requirement: final ap-proval by the leadership of the country in which a disaster has oc-curred.

“The national leader must have the final yes or no,” the delegate from the Ukraine said.

Despite this desire to curtail foreign military intervention, the delegates from France and the US expressed a willingness to in-tervene unilaterally in cases of hu-manitarian disaster regardless of UN policy.

“France would, of course, prefer intervening under United Nations auspices, but in case of emergen-cy, we would intervene if we con-sidered it necessary,” the French delegate said.

As a result of these discussions several groups developed work-ing papers addressing various as-pects of these critiques.

The most advanced of these

2A l Thursday, February 21, 2013 l MMUN World News & Report

CCPCJ working together

AP/HEATHER STROJEKDelegates caucus in the the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice committee Wednes-day in St. Louis.

ECOSOCContinued from page 1

Nations weigh order, sufferingLibya, Syria precedent informs intervention debate

THE TIMESAs thousands of Syrian refugees

crossed the border to Turkey and Jordan, the United Nations Secu-rity Council South met to discuss the UN’s responsibility to protect all victims of war.

The Security Council South dis-cussed what powers and respon-sibilities it had regarding the pro-tection of civilians during armed conflict.

While the Syrian conflict wasn’t directly addressed during formal debate, in private conversations delegates pointed to the on going conflict as the reason for discuss-ing the topic over the other items on the agenda.

The discussion also circled around the question of stability ver-sus human suffering. Several dele-gates pointed to the action taken by NATO forces when they intervened during the Libyan revolution.

The delegate from the United Kingdom urged a cautious ap-proach when balancing the two issues.

“The UK would like to see, first of all, clear guidelines as to how [the] responsibility to protect is supposed to be used,” the UK delegate said. “We understand that it does vary from situation to

situation, but there still needs to be clear indicators and clear signals that instability is rising.”

Syria has remained embroiled in fierce fighting between rebel forces and the government. As the loss of lives continue to increase, the Security Council continues to debate whether has the authority to take sides in conflicts within a sovereign nation.

Russia has previously stated it will vote against military action tak-en against the Syrian government. The delegate from Russia said his country is concerned about the boundaries of the UN’s power to interfere.

“The Russian Federation would love to see a situation where we have clearly defined situations where it is OK for the world to en-tertain the idea of taking action in a conflict that we’ve seen,” the Rus-sian delegate said.

The shadow of Libya was still fresh on the minds of the Security Council as they debated on what constituted a stable or unstable re-gion. The United States’ delegate argued that the UN has estab-lished rules concerning the use of military action.

“There’s a lot of talk about how we need to set clear rules and

clear guidelines for what to do,” the delegate from the U.S. said. “In the United States’ opinion, those guidelines and rules and red lines were already established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations charter.”

The delegate from the U.S. said the council’s inaction comes from nations not understanding the gravity of the situation.

“I think everybody is afraid to take action,” the delegate from the U.S. said. “It’s a big step to actu-ally use the power of the Security Council and take some type of mil-itary action or some type of peace-keeping operation.”

The other Security Council mem-bers remain divided on the issue.

China restated its position it will not challenge the sovereignty of an established government. Meanwhile, the delegate from Ger-many favored using regional insti-tutions to help in settling conflicts. The delegate from India urged a cautious response from the UN in order to avoid setting a precedent.

“It’s a very tough problem,” the delegate from India said. “We’ve had imperial rule in the past, and that’s not a pleasant thing for pop-ulations.”

TradeContinued from page 1

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AP/HEATHER STROJEKGuatemala speaks during Security Council Wednesday night in St. Louis.

Security Council

proposals is a working paper re-forming the “cluster approach” to UN humanitarian relief, which awaits approval before advancing to the floor for debate.

Many delegates were particularly critical of the lack of communica-tions between the international or-ganizations involved in the cluster approach and local authorities and non-governmental organizations, following the Haitian earthquake of 2010.

Frustration was also expressed regarding the inability of the United Nations to allocate appropriate re-sources in a timely and efficient manner.

The working paper, drafted by Japan, Qatar and Ethiopia, ad-dressed these concerns by calling

for the development of common methodologies for data collection and reporting, needs assessment and the monitoring and tracking of resources.

It also called for greater efforts to include local governments, but it did not explicitly call for the inclusion of local non-government organiza-tions.

Planning for potential future di-sasters was the final element.

Its inclusion reflects the attempts of Japan to steer discussions in ECOSOC towards questions of cli-mate change as a likely contributing factor in future humanitarian crises.

Drafts of several other working papers were under review by the chair of ECOSOC as of publication Thursday morning.

“The national leader must have the final yes or no.”

— Delegate from Ukraine