Yael Bell and Dan Lahav have won the first BBU Open that took place from the 11th to the 13th July 2014 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The team from Tel Aviv won from Closing Opposition in a debate with the motion: You are a scientist. You have discovered absolute conclusive proof that God does not exist. This house would destroy the information. [caption id="attachment_23996" align="alignleft" width="320"] Yael Bell and Dan Lahav(c) BBU DS[/caption] In Opening Government, Belgrade with Helena Ivanov and Stefan Siridžansky competed against Lund with Michael Saliba and Peer Klüßendorf in Opening Opposition and a Mixed team with Georgiana Mihut and ...

The fourth tournament of the famous “ZEIT-DEBATTEN” series will be held in Aachen form May, 10th till May, 12th. The RTWH Aachen Debating Society will host the last German language BP tournament before the German National Championships. This tournament is part of the “Debate Changing Europe” series, giving it an international touch. For the first time in German debating history non-native German language speakers are explicitly encouraged to participate. The tournament will be held in Worlds/BP-Style. Over the course of three days there will be 6 preliminary rounds, semifinals, a Grand Final, and a “German as Foreign Language” final (depending on ...

68 teams, seven prelims and a quarters round make up for semis in Vienna. The following eight teams made it to semis of the German language debating championship (Meisterschaft im deutschsprachigen Debattieren or MDD): Berlin Stadt im Norden (Annette Kirste, Julian Ohm) Mainz Anton (Andrea Gau, Daniil Pakhomenko) Stuttgart CNC (Michael Saliba, Igor Gilitschenski) Berlin Flauschpfote (Hauke Blume, Niels Schröter) MS Hamburg Loki (Kira Lancker, Barbara Schunicht) Berlin HS (Johannes Häger, Georg Sommerfeld) Berlin Babes Bolay (Dessislava Kirova, Juliane Mendelsohn) München Alpha (Valerio Morelli, Marco Witzmann) (This is not a ranking. ) Learn more about MDD in the German version of this article and follow us on Facebook and Twitter ...

 

Please read the German version of this.

All candidates have applied for the office of deputy chief adjudicator for the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds) to be held in Berlin. Now the chief adjudicators Doug Cochran and Sharmila Parmanand require the help of the international debating circuit: Give your feedback on the candidates, among them Isabelle Loewe (Bonn) and Ben Woolgar (Oxford)! The full list is available on the blog of WUDC Berlin 2013. Doug and Sharmila point out that they will not accept anonymous feedback and promise that all e-mails will be treated strictly confidentially. They also ask all of you to put special focus ...

The Berlin invitational will be a tournament on January 20, 2012. It will be in German, so please switch to the German version of this article to learn more about the details.

A premiere in Stuttgart: On December 10 and 11, the convenor Andreas Lazar invites the debating circuit to the society's first international tournament. Top-class debaters like Michael Saliba (WUDC 2011 semi-finalist), Maja Cimerman (EUDC ESL champion 2010) and Daniël Springer (EUDC 2011 semi-finlast) will serve as CAs. Andreas believes that "it is time to give back to the international debating community we've enjoyed so much over the past years" and promises an "ideal Worlds prep two weeks before Manila". The tournament offers five rounds, semis and a final. Speech duration is seven minutes, team cap is 36. Reg fee is €35 Euros ...

Wet, wet, wet - you must love England, for its weather, its guilty pleasures (deep fried chicken wings, huge burgers, chips and vinegar) and its talkative debaters. That was equally true for this year's Manchester IV in late February. With Ruth Faller (CA Galway Euros) and Sam Block (CA De La Salle Worlds) as motion setters for 80 teams, the Manchester Debating Union did a great job entertaining the debaters with regard to culinary and social needs. Particularly popular were the debate videos they had produced, playing with famous TV shows as "Dragon's Den" or "Glee", Andreas Lazar from Debattierclub ...

We're sorry, this piece is not available in English. Please read the German version of this article to learn more about what deb socs from Stuttgart and Vienna have to say on Botswana Worlds 2011 and what Berliner Zeitung reports on the Berlin Debating Union, the future host of Worlds 2013. ...

Sorry, this article is not yet available in English. Please read the German version to learn more on how Andreas Lazar and his team mate from Debattierclub Stuttgart made it to ESL finals at WUDC 2011.

On his blog, Manos Moschopoulos compiled unofficial tabs for ESL and EFL respectively for the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds). He did so based on data provided by Leela Koenig, judge at Botswana Worlds, and the competition's language committee. So far, official ESL and EFL tabs have not yet been published by the adjudication team of CA Logandran Balavijendran. According to Manos’ compilation, a correction of the Top Five EFL Speakers has to be noted: “Simon Belak (Ljubljana C) and Andreas Lazar (Stuttgart A) are joint top EFL speakers (initially, they were announced as 2nd and 1st respectively),” Manos ...

The full tab of the World Universities Debating Championships 2011 has been made available online already! The CA team put it on the homepage of Botswana Worlds. Naturally, Achte Minute does have a focus on the results of  VDCH teams and speakers. Hence, to lighten the burden for you, our loyal readers, we compiled their results. ...

Debaters worldwide already are cheering about their teams at World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds): The Debattierclub Stuttgart (DCS) jubilates about a smooth start into 2011, the Israeli Debating League compliment their Israeli debaters on their results and the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT interviewed Chinese debaters. ...

The term "Worlds" is used in its plural form because numerous winners have been awarded at Gaborone, Botswana last night. Foremost, the three best teams have to be mentioned who prevailed over the course of nine prelims. It is three best teams as there are three categories: "Open Break", "English as a Second Language" (ESL) and "English as a Foreign Language" (EFL). And the winners are ... Monash A from Australia, Haifa A from Israel and Tokyo B from Japan. There were about 300 teams from all over the globe competing for the title, 32 of which made it to ...

There’s a whole bunch of new world champions: Team Monash A from Australia won the grand final of the open break of the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds). That is Victor Finkel und Fiona Prowse. In the category English as a Second Language (ESL), Michael Shapira and Meir Yarom of team Haifa A from Israel defeated all other finalists. Then there is a third world champion team: Kazushige Yoshimaru and Yuki Tominaga of Tokyo B from Japan. All three winning teams triumphed from the position of opening government. The winners of the main break are experienced debaters: Victor was ...

Team Stuttgart A made it to ESL semis at World Universities Debating Championships in Botsuana. Congratulations to Michael Saliba and Andreas Lazar. Please read more on this in the German version of this article! apf / glx ...

One quarter of the teams of the ESL break are from Germany! That would make one German team in each room, one could think. But in final rounds, the tab is folded. That means that for instance room one assembles teams ranking on 1, 7, 8 and 16. Thanks to this folding, room three of the ESL qurter finals will see two German teams: Stuttgart A (Andreas Lazar and Michael Saliba) and Berlin B (Patrick Ehmann and Bastian Laubner). Other German teams in the quarters are Berlin B (Florian Umscheid and Dessislava Kirova) and Gutenberg A (Marcus Ewald and Marietta ...

That sure is a good start into the new year for VDCH country: Four German teams broke to ESL quarter finals of the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds) in Gaborone. Here are the lucky ones: Stuttgart A, Michael Saliba, Andreas Lazar, 15 points Berlin B, Dessislava Kirova, Florian Umscheid, 14 points Gutenberg A (Mainz), Marcus Ewald, Marietta Gädeke, 14 points Berlin A, Bastian Laubner, Patrick Ehmann, 13 points Jens Henning Fischer and Isabelle Loewe broke as judges. The complete break was compiled by Stephen M. Llano on his Blog. The draws for the main break are available on Colm Flynn's  World Debating Website. Congratulations to ...

Breaking news from Botswana: Results of our VDCH teams after round 6 leaked from Gabs and we have it all here for our loyal readers. Colm Flynn provided photographs of the tab on his World Debating Website. So how are our German and Austrian teams doing in Gaborone? ...

Six preliminary rounds are over, night has fallen over Botswana. Tomorrow will bring three more pre-rounds at Worlds 2011. These are going to be closed rounds – no feedback and no info on the ranking will leak from the judges. Socials tonight feature a “culture night”. No more complaints about waiting and queuing are to be heard in Gaborone, but speculations on the ranking of teams and institutions. The teams of Debattierclub Stuttgart feel fine with their performance, Andreas C. Lazar reported this morning: “Gaborone, 32 degrees Celsius. Both Michael [Saliba] and I (Stuttgart A) as well as Jana [Gilke] and ...

Michael Saliba won the Freshers' Cup 2010 of the Oxford Union. In late November, the former president of Debattierclub Stuttgart (DCS) competed with other freshmen at the famous debating union. The Ph.D. candidate from Stuttgart won on the motion "This house would rig elections to keep extremist parties out of parliament if it could get away with it" from opening government. The Oxford Union stages this Freshers' Cup annually for students of all kinds who start or continue debating at Oxford. About 60 freshmen collected points  in five debates over the first trimester. The eight best speakers break to the final held ...

John Ashbourne and Anser Aftab from the London School of Economics (LSE A) won the Oxford IV on the past weekend. ESL, the category for those who speak “English as a Second Language”, was won by Daniel Springer and Jeroen Heun from Erasmus Rotterdam, ranked 1 and 2 on the ESL tab of this year’s Euros in Amsterdam. The tab of the Oxford IV can be found online. Teams breaking to semis (main break): Cambridge A Cambridge B Yale C Manchester SR Durham A Manchester AJ Yale A Stanford B Monash Sydney TCD Hist B ULU C Princeton AL UBC A LSE A St Andrews ESL Break to semis: Groningen B MGMIO A (Helmut Kohl and East Germany; team broke third ...

“How far have you travelled?“is the starting sentence into any kind of conversation this weekend. It is the kick-off into the new season of ZEIT DEBATTEN series at Greifswald. Flirts, smalltalk - they all start with the "How long did it take you to get here" question. Indeed, the Hanseatic town by the Bodden, a bay at the Baltic Sea, is located in quite a remote area. However, about 65 debaters found their ways to Greifswald. Many of them split their journey - it took them a two-day's travel via Berlin or Hamburg to get to Meck-Pomm. To read more on ...

Nils Haneklaus and Kai Nosbüsch are the new champions of Debattierclub Stuttgart (DCS)! They won the final at Internationales Zentrum in Vaihingen and defeated Isabel Spieth and Sven Hein. The motion read "This house would penalise blasphemy", as is reported on the DCS website. The DCS follows a sophisticated system to nominate the semi-finalists of their internal championship every semester. Debaters have to take part in the weekly debates regularly, either as speaker or as judge, and collect points. At the end of the semester, the club champion is to be found in a semi final and final held in the ...

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The new ZEIT DEBATTEN series begins! This weekend, speakers and judges from Vienna, Munich, Mainz, Frankfurt and other cities in VDCH-land flock at Greifswald by the Baltic Sea. Language of the tournament, as in the whole series, is German, the ZEIT DEBATTE Greifswald will be held in British Parliamentary Style (BPS). Chief adjudicators are Isabelle Loewe (ESL European Champion 2006), Michael Saliba from Stuttgart, David Lamouroux from Göttingen and Sarah Jaglitz from Greifswald. The ZEIT DEBATTEN series is convened by VDCH in cooperation with the weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT and Deutsche Telekom, supported through VDCH’s media partner ZDF, a German public ...

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