ESL Semis

SF 1
Tel Aviv A
Haifa A
Ljubljana A
Groningen A

SF 2
Leiden A
Galatasaray C
Tel Aviv B
Leiden C

Motion and positions will be announced at around 4:20.

Open Break Semis

SF 1:
OG Oxford B
OO Tel Aviv A
CG UCD L&H A
CO Oxford A

SF 2:
OG Nottingham B
OO Oxford E
CG Cambridge B
CO Oxford C

on the motion:

This House believes that desecration of religious sites is a legitimate tactic of warfare.

QF ESL Motion

THW allow the Police to physically discipline children below the age of criminal responsibility.

QF Open break

I promise to update this information later; Open break QF were held before the QF ESL, on the motion (vaguely) that

THW allow political parties to designate certain pre-election claims as binding, and whose breach would prompt re-elections.

From what I've heard, none of the debates was great.

Main Break

1 Oxford A (20)
2 Oxford C (18)
3 Oxford E (17)
4 UCD L&H A (16)
5 Nottingham A (16)
6 Durham B (16)
7 Cambridge B (15)
8 Oxford B (15)
9 UCC Phil A (15)
10 Cambridge E (15)
11 Cambridge D (15)
12 Tel Aviv A (15)
13 UCD L&H B (15)
14 Nottingham B (15)
15 St. Andrews A (15)
16 UCD Law A (15)

Well done, Tel Aviv A!

ESL Break

1 Tel Aviv A
2 Leiden A
3 Tel Aviv B
4 Berlin A
5 Ljubljana B
6 Erasmus A
7 SSE Riga A
8 Haifa A
9 IDC Herzliya A
10 Galatasaray A
11 Leiden C
12 Groningen A
13 Bilkent A
14 Tilbury House Cologne B
15 Haifa C
16 Ljubljana A


Israel is back!

Judge break

The judging pool this year was incredibly deep.

The judges breaking are:

Adriaan Andringa
Alex Ward
Alex Worsnip
Anat Gelber
Andrew Fitch
Andrew Tuffin
Anne Valkering
Ashleigh Lamming
Assen Kochev
Bob Nimmo
Bryn Gough
Can Okar
Craig Doherty
Dani Quinn
Daniel Warents
Deidre Milner
Derek Lande
Ewan MacDonald
Fleur Praal
Fred Cowell
Gavin Illsley
Giles Robertson
Gregg O'Neill
Isabelle Loewe
James Dray
James Prior
Jens Fischer
Julia Lawlor
Kirsty Russell
Leela Koenig
Lewis Iwu
Mhairi Murdoch
Nick Long
Oisin Collins
Roger Cotes
Rosie Unwin
Ross McGuire
Sam Block
Sayeqa Islam
Seun Inaynuwira
Simone Van Elk
Spela Krancj
Tarit Mukherjee
Uve Poom
Victor Chernov
Will Jones
Willard Foxton
Yauheni Akulich

Break announcement to follow

The Irish are still singing, but other than that we are all getting ready for the break announcement - less tension than usual with only one closed round.

There has been a lot of discussion specifically about the last two motions (custody hearings and placebos), though, so we are interested in how teams fared.

Motion R7 EUDC 2009

This House would allow doctors to actively lie to their patients in order to create or augment a placebo effect.

Comments?

Sorry apology, but good news just before the last prelim

... I have managed to get access to the network at the Newcastle Union! It's just before round 7 now, so just a few quick updates:

The motions for the previous rounds were:

R4: THB the gay rights movement should oppose gay marriages.
R5: THB western liberal countries have a moral duty to spread democracy across the world using force where necessary.
R6: THB custody hearings should not take a child's biological parentage into account.

The top team right now is Oxford A (JLM and Sheng-Wu) on 17, because they lost to Oxford C (Neill and Max) in R6. One of the Cambridge teams is on 15, but even in the top room the fourth team might not yet be secure.

In fact, the whole competition seems to be incredibly tight, with after R5 ALL ROOMS BUT one still live.

The top ESL teams is probably SSE Riga A, on 11 after R5, and there are strong contestants from Israel (Yoni and Uri did well), Netherlands (Leiden A on 11 after R6, Leiden B on 9, Leiden C on 8) and Germany (Berlin A on 10).

A few other results as we are going into R7:

Galatasaray A 11
Koc A 10
Bilkent A 10
Haifa A 12
Tel Aviv A 11
Orient A 13
Tel Aviv B 13
Haifa B (?) 10

I'll keep on collecting...

Yourgermancorrespondent @ Newcastle Euros 2009 - the first day

The first day of Newcastle Euros has passed already, but the network coverage is a bit sketchy. This post is written from a mobile phone in the nice trent house bar...
I will update you later with more details, but essentially this has happened: newcastle euros is great, it has a very gritty, studenty feeling to it. Organisation is very friendly, but because of registration problems, the first round started with a significant delay. As a result, there will in total only be 7 and not 8 rounds, as it had been planned. As the result of an interesting procedure (more on this later), 6 rounds will be open adjudication.
The motions so far:
R1: thw allow the police to use entrapment.
R2: thw use the education system to instill moral norms in children beyond mere obedience to the law.
R3: thw grant citizenship to illegal immigrants who report on work-place exploitation.
There will be more stories and motion analysis later. But comments are as ever encouraged!