On thursday and friday the outrounds and the final of the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC) took place in Manchester. Via Twitter and Facebook the results were announced already on Friday evening. Here is an overview of the motions and finalists. English as a Foreign Language: ESL Quarter-Finals: THBT men should consistently 'call out' and correct chauvinistic claims made by friends and coworkers ESL Semi-Finals: THBT environmentalists should start a campaign of sabotage and property damage aimed at major polluting companies ESL Final: THB the state should not fund works of art/ performance that average citizens would not recognize as having artistic merit OG: Berlin ...

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 ...

Would you like to spend a few days in the warm tropics, a cool sea breeze playing in your hair, the sun high in an immaculately blue sky, as a turquoise sea crashes onto a secluded beach? So would we. Nevertheless, you may also be interested in the 2012 Centrale Paris IV taking place on December 14 and 15. It will be staged at the “picturesque campus” of the École Centrale de Paris – only half an hour by public transport from the centre of Paris. Très centrale! Language of debate is English, the format will be British Parliamentary Style (BPS). ...

Prepping at Cambridge, studying The Economist, scrutinizing mechanisms - this and much more is what Jonas Werner (winner of German language debating championship 2009) and Niels Schröter (both from the Belrin Debating Union, or BDU) revealed when our Belgrade correspondent Willy Witthaut interviewed them after they made it to the ESL final at the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC or Euros). ...

Berlin! Berlin! Berlin! Again we're cheering for Berlin: Team A of the Berlin Debating Union (BDU) made it to the semis: Jonas Werner and Niels Schröter - yay! In quarters, they were closing opp in a debate on "This house supports life sentences without the possibility of parole for serial re-offenders." Now, they're debating the motion "This house believes that the militaries in newly democratized Arab countries should act as the guardian angels of society" from closing gov. ...

The Berlin Debating Union (BDU) has elected a new executive board: Niels Schröter is the new president. He is supported by Bruno Davids (treasurer) and Julian Ohm, Christina Dexel and Marijana Todorović. They follow Dessislava Kirova (president) and Juliane Mendelsohn (treasurer), Kai Dittmann, John-Thomas Eltringham and Juliane Zeuschner. apf

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 ...

Debattierclub  Mainz won ZEIT DEBATTE Magdeburg. To know more please read the German version.

Since we guess that our appreciated readers follow us on Twitter your head will most probably be replete with impressions from Galway Euros. But what are the facts and figures about the European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC or Euros)? Or maybe you have been there yourself and want to sort things out now? Your Achte Minute team provides you with all you might want to know - and even beyond. By the way, you still might wanna follow the Hashtag #EUDC on Twitter - you'll find funny stories and how everybody copes with the ...

Achtung, the Germans! The teams from the German speaking regions make up one of the largest groups here at Galway Euros, the European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC and Euros) held in Ireland this year. 17 teams from Germany and Austria are competing for the title at the western coast of the Emerald Isle. To make sure you keep your fingers crossed for the right teams, we are presenting you with the names: ...

This article ist only available in german language. Don't hesitate to read the original version. ...

East, West and North have debated all day long in Halle, Frankfurt and Osnabrück to select the best debaters at German regional championships. Format of this year's regionals is OPD, or Offene Parlamentarische Debatte (open parliamentary debate). Achte Minute has all the results for you. ...

We are very sorry, this article is not yet available in English. Please read the German version to learn more about käsespätzle, org comm wearing dirndl and how Florian Prischl got sun burnt during a debate tournament. ...

Egyptian queen in the German capital - The motion of the second masters’ debate of Berlin Debating Union (BDU) was especially directed to a Berlin audience: "Who is owning Nefertiti? This house would give the bust of Nofretete back to Egypt!" Georg Sommerfeld and Johannes Häger (Opening Government) talked about the rude and somehow illegal methods that were used to bring the bust to Germany in 1913. They also explained that Nefertiti is an important symbol for the Egyptian history and identity and so would belong to Cairo. Juliane Mendelsohn and Niels Schröter (Opening Opposition) disagreed. Nefertiti's bust has been exhumed ...

It’s fairly simple: Either you have a “boss” partner like Richard Robinson or you are from Leiden. In the latter case you can even win it as Ali Al Khatib and Rob Honig did from 2nd proposition against teams from Cambridge (1st proposition, Doug Cochran and Maria English), University College Dublin Law (1st opposition Christine Simpson and Mark Haughton) and Manchester (2nd opposition, Richard Robinson and Niels Schröter) on the motion “This house believes that Irish sovereignty can never be truly realized.” Due to their outstanding performance during the tournament as a whole I asked the two Dutch a question that ...

In the grand final on Saturday evening, Victor Finkel and Fiona Prowse of Monash A won the Cambridge IV 2010 as opening opposition in the final debate on the motion “This house believes in the virtue of a disproportional military response”. Monash A prevailed over Durham A (Pam Cohn and Guy Miscampbell), Manchester A (Sam Block and James Dixon) and Sydney Union A (Tim Mooney and Naomi Hart). Monash University is based in Melbourne, Australia. Shortly before, Rob Honig and Ali Al Khatib as Leiden B had won the ESL final (i.e. the category for speakers of “English as ...

In early August, Berlin Debating Union (BDU) staged a fun tournament, the first Alternate Timeline Memorandum Cup, as is reported on BDU’s homepage. Twelve teams – some consisting of only one speaker who filled both positions of the team – debated bizarre and comical motions such as “This house would try to teach great apes the finite nature of their existence” or “This house would merge consciousnesses”. It was up to the individual speakers to decide upon the language of debate, be it English or German. In the preliminary rounds, the speakers functioned as their own jurors. That gave Hauke ...