BMUN LXX PRESS

  BUSINESS: New Sustainable Startup Struggles to budget while maintaining core values By: Mahima Shyno            BERKELEY (AP) —  Almost eight million tons of pandemic-associated waste have been generated over the past two years and sustainable businesses are essential to reducing our impact on the environment. Grassphalt, a new and upcoming sustainable start up, is requesting over half a million dollar investment  from the Berkeley Venture Capital (BVC)  in order to fund the implementation of their prototype business in Hungary that would actively work to curb the rise in single use plastic.  The company aims to “Turn Trash into Treasure '' by taking plastic and turning it into eco-friendly asphalt that would then be used to build infrastructure in developing countries. The company plans to use the funding to create recycling centers across Hungary, collect plastic, and then turn that plastic into  asphal...

California Startup Aims to Solve America’s Food Waste Problem Containify is working to convert food waste from restaurants into fuel in the form of biomethane Berkhashni Nirula According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food is the single largest material to enter landfills in the United States. Containify, a startup based in Silicon Valley, wants to collect food waste from restaurants, process it into biofuel, and return it to be used as an energy supply for small businesses. Restaurants are responsible for 22 to 33 billion pounds of waste each year, according to the National Resource Defense Council. Using an app to connect to small restaurants, Containify will reuse our food waste and create usable biofuel. “We want to create a better way to take care of food waste by turning it into a biogas which is more sustainable and does not contribute to air pollution while also supporting small businesses and restaurants,” says a delegate (Person 6) from Berkeley Venture Capital. The ...

  Reuters The Technological Future of Healthcare?   March 05, 2022 By Eliot Yoo For many years, artificial intelligence has been increasing at an exponential rate. However, the majority of its most significant breakthroughs and developments have occurred in the previous decade, making the development of enforced regulation a vital part of our life. The future of artificial intelligence for its regulation and integration into modern-day society is briefly covered by a few countries. Video on a short description of the future of machine learning in Healthcare What’s the issue? The CTSD committee has no opposing viewpoints, but rather a distinction of the specifics. The idea to tackle here was whether or not the process of creating and employing new industrial practices should be overseen by the government. Will the process of creating these new laws hinder the production of ground-breaking inventions? The World Health Organization understands the 6 guiding principlesof technol...

  Title: Alibaba and Tencent “hope that China will repeal the PIPL”  Ecommerce sites find data privacy essential to protecting the economy and respecting their consumer interests  Alibaba and Tencent are in strong opposition to the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) imposed in November of 2021. These China-based e-commerce sites feel that the increase in data security and regulation will hinder their ability to “value their customers”. In the situation that the Chinese government proves unwilling to either repeal the PIPL or compromise on a middle ground, both companies threatened to withdraw 15.5 billion dollars in funding (each) from the government’s “Common Prosperity” Drive. Tencent reassures that they are not seeking conflict but did assert that if their concerns are not addressed the pullout of funding will serve as an “end all be all.”  In the first Joint External Policy Regarding Chinese Law co-proposed by Tencent and Alibaba, these e-commerce...

World Leaders Propose Global Education and Financial Programs to Expand Women’s Education One year after the 2021 UNCSW conference where leaders committed $40 billion to improving gender equality, world leaders reconvene to face the lasting impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on women’s freedoms. By Elena Higuchi Published March 5, 2022 __________________________________________________________________________ The Covid-19 pandemic had extreme short-term and long-term impacts across the world which disproportionately affected women and children. During the 2021 UNCSW conference, world leaders reconvended for the first time since the 1995 Beijing Conference for Women, and committed $40 billion to advancing gender equality. This weekend, global leaders met again at the 2022 BMUN UNCSW Conference to focus on “restoring and and improving girl’s education during post-covid-recovery”, according to Head Chair Rajita Pujare. Hilary Clinton at the 1995 Beijing Conference for Women Doug Mills/Assoc...

Environmental Enterprise: Business Ventures Seek Sustainable Solutions This weekend, the Berkeley Venture Capital committee convened once again, bringing together business people from across the nation.   Each person came to this convention armed with their own start-up idea, all sharing the common goal of promoting sustainable development during a crisis—specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic.  Within the first few hours together, these delegates started to pool their initial ideas together. The result: four separate business pitches vying for the venture capitalists’ investment money.  One company, named Trnsform, is committed to transforming plastic waste into more usable and environmentally sustainable forms.  “For developing countries specifically, waste pickers go to different dumpsters [...] and then we employ a team to go bring the waste to our factories,” one of Trnsform’s leaders explained. “In order for us to make money, we take the plastic waste and we turn ...

Reuters Tigary Conflict March 05, 2022 More news from Reuters below Missile strikes rain down as Ethiopian Prime Minister surrounds citizens Mekele, capital of Tigray shows the aftermath of an airstrike ordered by Abiy Ahmed in the northern region of Ethiopia, Oct. 20, 2021. By Eliot Yoo  Ethiopia contains a long history of violence and the separation of the majority of Ethiopia into 5 major groups, the Oromo, Amhara, Tigrayan, Afar, Somali, and a few more.  Following Abiy’s claims that Tigray attacked corresponding government military camps, chaos ensued. To this day, numbers are not exactly reported but estimates say several hundred thousand of civilians and troops were killed. Due to accusations of the massacre, human rights abuse, and claims of rape, this deadly situation has evolved from a civil war into a humanitarian crisis.  Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian prime minister, seized supply trucks to trap and strangle  the supplies of millions. The United Nations disagr...

YEMEN PARTITION DIVIDES NATO AS HUMANITARIAN CRISIS WORSENS NATO split over partitioning Yemen as the U.S. leads the charge against division and allocates millions of dollars to alleviate the humanitarian crisis Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), sourced from Encyclopedia Brittanica As the Yemeni Civil War rages on, Separatists within the country go head to head with Houthis, gaining traction to promote partition. Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization remain sharply divided about a partition while the United States relentlessly advocates for negotiations of an armistice agreement, which have so far failed. As the humanitarian crisis becomes increasingly more untenable, U.S. delegates champion an influx of humanitarian aid despite having already dedicated millions of dollars to the issue with little change.  In previous directives, U.S. delegates have attempted to limit weapons possessed by the Saudi Arabian government to reduce the potency of fact...

  POLITICO Abortion rights and Discrimination Against Women Republican state senators push for reform on Sex education: Is abstinence the best protection in all cases?  The debate on Abstinence as a legit method of unplanned pregnancies grows a divide between Republican and Democratic belief in the state senate.  March day 5th, 2022⼁11:45am Washington, D.C.- Nine Republicans and thirteen Democrats dissues ratification of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. The Republican solution group emphasize the idea of abstinence to prevent unwanted pregnancies often solved with abortions of the clump of cells or the bearly forming fetus.  The solution group is made up of the infamous national Republicans- Happening to be all white, cis-gendered men -Mike Lee, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and Rand Paul. “Children, who are utterly unprepared financially and emotionally should be greatly encouraged to abstain...

  Qatar to help low-income countries fulfill vaccine availability   Survey was held and 91% of the healthcare workers in South African hospitals CCAIRS’s filters shown to reduce catching covid-19 by 20% Qatar taking on new decisions and updating the Global Response Plan which hasn’t been updated in nine months. In Qatar, COVID19 infections are declining, with an average of 264 new infections recorded each day. This is a 6% increase from the maximum value—the highest daily average—reported on January 16th. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has reported 357,920 coronavirus-related illnesses and 670 deaths. By Wendy Muratas for AL JAZERRA PUBLISHED: 5:25 PST, March 5, 2022 Covid cases are increasing in Qatar. Interviewing a delegate from Qatar, they wanted to use NGO Coalition (non governmental organization) for Clean Air to spread air filters so that there would be support for implementation of air filters in populated dense areas. Furthermore incorporating with CCAIR...

  Delegates in CSTD set aside their differences for equitable AI healthcare The UN CSTD met this Saturday to discuss the future of AI in healthcare, arguing over access to technology, job opportunities, and more, coming to a shaky consensus at the end of the second session.  By: a delegate from the Independent With technology becoming ever-present in people’s lives, the question arises of how we can use technology, such as AI, to solve previously unsolvable problems. This Saturday, the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) debated the topic of the Implications of Artificial Intelligence within the Healthcare System, beginning to form solidified blocs with similar areas of focus after hours of contentious debate.  Delegates’ focus of committee was the implementation of equity in a variety of aspects, whether it was ensuring developing nations had access to AI technology, making sure healthcare workers did not lose job opportunities to A...