The surprise change happened on Friday morning, when a frantic looking Mr Foster begged press to send a member to be a delegate in Politics, because New Zealand had failed to turn up. Well, in reality, it may have been more along the lines of a polite request, but this way sounds more exciting. Yes. I think my version is better too.

 

Resolution number one on the rehabilitation of Afghanistan took a downward turn when Egypt, who had originally been mentioned in the resolution, withdrew her support. The fantastic New Zealand made an incredibly unprepared speech and confused the entire committee with her two-in-one persona. The most poignant moment came from Afghanistan herself when she said she was “fed up being treated like a child” and just wished that we would just leave them to rehabilitate themselves. However, we were alarmed to see how many delegates wanted to keep up the production of Afghani opium. UK and USA failed to put across that western troops were useful and the resolution passed.

 

During a small break France upped the ante with some cheese and wine. You will be glad to know that the press team does not facilitate underage drinking so the wine was confiscated and was sensibly consumed by someone much more reliable. Namely me.

 

As hunger set in, the debating became more subdued with everyone (with the exception of North Korea obviously) generally agreeing that nuclear weapons were bad but that nuclear power might be ok so pretty tame resolution passed.

 

I was pleased that after we had been nourished the room came back to life again. After hearing from John O’Dougherty from the Rainbow Project we debated Gay Rights. The controversial resolution from Egypt caused much excitement with its claims that “gays are worse than criminals” and that “force may be used to show them the error of their ways”. Libya made a very humorous quote, though sadly we feel it would be unsuitable to print it, and she agreed wholeheartedly with Myanmar that “Gays aren’t people”. The chairs, however, were loving it considerably less, and made him retract the statement. Not surprisingly this resolution failed. And I would have been very worried if this hadn’t happened.

 

Press would like to offer a huge round of applause to everyone in committee and especially to the delegates who helped press with her confusion with words.

 

Elizabeth Crooks