WUDC 2012: Day 4 – New Year’s Eve
As usual at Worlds, the last day of the year is also the last day of preliminary rounds. Another three rounds capped off those rounds and finally determined who will advance to the final rounds (“break“) and who won’t. 
To discourage bad and destructive behaviour in these rounds, no adjudication is given after the rounds end. That means that the latest available information regarding standings is from last night after round 6 – Can Okar and Florian Umscheid have compiled unofficial tabs based on publicly available data: Can’s GoogleDoc and Florian’s Facebook posts thus provided a glimpse of who might break today. Furthermore, Can and WUDC tabmaster Bob Nimmo speculate that 19 points will be sufficient to make the open break (non-ESL/EFL). Well, you may now compare that to the actual break…
Today’s motions at WUDC:
- Round 7: This House supports the free movement of labour worldwide.
- Round 8: This House would exempt academic disputes from defamation law. (Information slide)
- Round 9: This House would ban all private healthcare in favour of a comprehensive public healthcare system.
Tomorrow will mostly be a day to relax and cure hangovers. Brave country representatives will meet at Worlds Council, the governing body for World Universities Debating Championships, all day. Those unburdened by such responsibilities will go on tours in and around Manila arranged by DLSU, explore Manila on their own or simply sleep the day away.
Your correspondent and the team of Achte Minute wish you a happy New Year and hope you are as excited about break night as we are!
Follow Achte Minute on Twitter for current news on the DLSU Worlds – hashtag #WUDC. Support our coverage of the Worlds: Help our correspondent Florian Prischl, send us e-mails to team[at]achteminute.de or direct messages on Twitter. Wanna watch WUDC debates online? Then tune in to iDebate – they livestream debates from all rounds.
Since 1981, debaters from all over the world have been competing at the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds) at alternating locations across the planet. It was not before 1996 that the British Parliamentary Stylebecame the mandatory format for this annual tournament. From 27 December 2011 to 4 January 2012, the international debating community assembles in Manila for the second time: 1999’s host was Ateneo University in the Philippinian capital – the first time for WUDC to come to Asia at all. Language of debate is English and there are three categories: “Main” for native speakers, “ESL” (English as a Second Language) and “EFL” (English as a Foreign Language). Current World Champions are Monash A from Australien (“main break”), Haifa A from Israel (ESL) andTokyo B from Japan (EFL).
fnp / apf
