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Showing posts with label Nobel Peace Prize winner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nobel Peace Prize winner. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2012
REUTERS.COM: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi finally accepted her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Saturday after spending a total of 15 years under house arrest and said full political freedom in her country was still a long way off."Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal," Suu Kyi said in her acceptance speech during her first trip to Europe in nearly 25 years.
"Hostilities have not ceased in the far north; to the west, communal violence resulting in arson and murder were taking place just several days before I started out the journey that has brought me here today."
Suu Kyi, the Oxford University-educated daughter of General Aung San, Myanmar's assassinated independence hero, advocated caution about transformation in Myanmar, whose quasi-civilian government continues to hold political prisoners.
"There still remain such prisoners in Burma. It is to be feared that because the best known detainees have been released, the remainder, the unknown ones, will be forgotten," Suu Kyi, 66, told a packed Oslo City Hall.
A day earlier, she arrived from Switzerland to a jubilant reception as dancing and chanting crowds filled Oslo's streets and showered her with flowers. » | Balazs Koranyi | OSLO | Saturday, June 16, 2012
Thursday, December 10, 2009
ZEIT ONLINE: Wenn der US-Präsident heute den Friedensnobelpreis entgegennimmt, wird er sich einmal mehr vorhalten lassen müssen, dass er die Hoffnungen vieler Wähler enttäuscht hat. Der amerikanische Linguist George P. Lakoff erklärt, wie es dazu kommen konnte.
ZEIT ONLINE: Ist Barack Obama der erste Präsident, der einen Friedensnobelpreis für seine Kunst der Rede bekommt?
George P. Lakoff: Nein. Er bekommt den Friedensnobelpreis für seine Kunst der Diplomatie.
ZEIT ONLINE: Wirklich? 30.000 zusätzliche Soldaten für Afghanistan, bis jetzt keine Schließung von Guantanmo, kein Abzug aus Irak, keine Gesundheitsreform, keine ernsthaften Klimaversprechen, Schwule sind weiterhin aus dem Militär ausgeschlossen und ... >>> Von Jonathan Stock | Dienstag, 10. Dezember 2009
TIMES ONLINE: One way that President Obama cannot have expected to make history is as the first reluctant recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
He may, in fact, be thrilled but his task at a white-tie banquet in his honour in Oslo tonight will be to convey in a single short address his gratitude to the Norwegians, his humility in the knowledge that his record of securing peace is thin so far, and his awareness of the troubling reality that the most decisive foreign policy act of his young presidency has been to escalate a long war that his supporters hoped he would bring to a quick end.
Mr Obama landed in Norway this morning night with an unusual entourage for a foreign presidential trip, consisting mainly of family and friends rather than officials. He was accompanied by the First Lady, his half-sister, her husband and his close friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett. They were expected to be joined in Oslo by his other half-sister, Auma Obama, who lives in Kenya.
The presidential party will be on the ground for barely 24 hours, attending today’s banquet and prizegiving ceremony but not a traditional lunch with King Harald, or a concert tomorrow night to be hosted by the film star and occasional rapper Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Barack Obama flies in to collect Nobel Peace Prize as war escalates >>> Giles Whittell in Washington | Thursday, December 10, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: President Obama turned the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony today into a professorial address on why and when the United States was prepared to use force. There was, he admitted in the Oslo City Hall, some controversy over granting the ultimate peace accolade to the commander-in-chief of an army that was engaged in two wars.
The audience, a strange hotchpotch of Hollywood celebrities, pale Scandinavian politicians and rural Norwegians in folk costume, shifted uneasily when he talked about the necessity for bloodshed. Although the Nobel prize was established by the inventor of dynamite its laureates try to avoid dwelling on death.
“Some will kill,” Mr Obama said of the US soldiers under his command. “Some will be killed.”
He was intent on using the Nobel speech to discuss the costs of armed conflict and to examine “the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other”. >>> Roger Boyes in Oslo | Thursday, December 10, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: In full: Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech: The text of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech as provided by the White House >>> | Thursday, December 10, 2009
LE FIGARO: Barack Obama : «La guerre est parfois justifiée» : Le président américain a reçu, jeudi à Oslo, son prix Nobel de la Paix «avec humilité et gratitude» , quelques jours seulement après avoir décidé d'intensifier l'effort de guerre en Afghanistan. >>> Constance Jamet (lefigaro.fr) avec AP | Jeudi 10 Décembre 2009
NZZ ONLINE: Nach der Verleihung des Friedensnobelpreises an den amerikanischen Präsident Barack Obama haben am Donnerstagabend in Oslo mehrere tausend Menschen gegen den Krieg in Afghanistan demonstriert.
Einige Demonstranten forderten auf Transparenten: «Yes we can - stop the war in Afghanistan.» Andere verlangten ein Verbot von Atomwaffen, den Stopp der Blockade des Gazastreifens und ein Ende des israelischen Siedlungsbaus in den Palästinensergebieten.
Wie es am Tag der Nobelpreis-Zeremonie Tradition ist, zeigte sich Obama zusammen mit seiner Frau Michelle kurz auf dem Balkon des Hotels und winkte den Menschen auf dem Platz zu. >>> sda/dpa | Freitag, 11. Dezember 2009
Monday, December 07, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: An Iranian Nobel laureate will accept an award from a Government-financed human rights organisation in a move that is likely to ramp up the the Islamic Republic’s “propaganda” machine against the UK and further strain relations between the two countries.
The Times has learnt that Shirin Ebadi — the first Muslim women to win the Nobel Peace Prize for championing human rights and campaigning for democracy in Iran — will be presented with the award today by an organisation which annually receives £1.6 million, the bulk of its budget, from the Department of International Development (DFID).
International Services, a York-based development agency which helps disadvantaged people in places such as the Middle East and claims to be “non-political”, will present Dr Ebadi with the Award for Global Defence of Human Rights.
This comes after Dr Ebadi, 62, who has spent the past six months away from Iran attacking the regime’s alleged human rights abuses and electoral fraud, recently had her 2003 Nobel peace medal confiscated by the Iranian Government and her bank account frozen on the claim that she owes £250,000 in tax. >>> Richard Kerbaj | Monday, December 07, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
YNET NEWS: Obama’s Nobel Prize win a blatant attempt to Europeanize US policy
According to Alfred Nobel's will – and in contrast with other Nobel Prize committees – the members of the Nobel Prize for Peace committee are not experts, but politicians, members of the Norwegian Parliament.
The chairman of the committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Norway, is the Vice President and the Chairman of the Middle East Committee of the "Socialist International," known for its opposition to US and Israeli policies. He is, also, the Chairman of the "Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights," which advocates a Dovish-Leftist worldview, in cooperation with former President Jimmy Carter, who is close to President Obama and considered a role-model for the new Nobel laureate.
Along with other members of the Committee, Jagland represents a Parliament that has called to recognize Hamas, to dialogue with Iran, to tolerate rogue regimes, to enhance ties with Muslim regimes, to condemn (what he terms) Islamophobia and to condemn systematically the policies of Washington (until Obama's victory) and Jerusalem.
Awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize – in spite of the fact that the deadline for nominations was February 1, 10 days into Obama's Administration – constitutes a transparent attempt by European politicians to bolster Obama's determination in the global arena and improve his standing in the domestic arena. While Obama's stock has risen internationally, it has deteriorated internally, in light of his lack of success in the areas of unemployment, taxes, budget deficit, health insurance reform, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia and al-Qaeda. >>> Yoram Ettinger | Saturday, October 10, 2009
THE AUSTRALIAN: THE Nobel Peace Prize was discredited if Barack Obama could be nominated for the award after just 11 days in office and win it nine months later, former foreign minister Alexander Downer said yesterday.
Mr Downer called the US President's surprise win a farce, saying it was a pity Mr Obama had not refused the award.
He singled out Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as a worthy alternative who had been ignored after years of struggling for human rights.
"The peace prize has to be for actual achievement - not potential - and it has to be achievement in promoting world peace, not raising the prestige of the American state, which is largely what Barack Obama has done so far," Mr Downer told the ABC.
Mr Obama had been in office for just 11 days when nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize closed on February 1. He spent most of those first days settling into the White House.
Although humbly questioning whether he was deserving, he described the prize as a "call to action".
The award's founder, Alfred Nobel, decreed the annual prize was to be bestowed for achievements "during the preceding year". According to his will, the winner "shall have done the most, or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
The Norwegian judges took an alternative approach, handing the prize to Mr Obama for future works. Thorbjorn Jagland, the committee's chairman, defended the award in the face of public outcry, saying: "It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve."
It took two other former US presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, a combined total of 12 years before they were given the award. >>> Brad Norington, Washington correspondent | Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Cuba's Fidel Castro is the latest world leader to opine on the controversial award of the Nobel peace prize to President Barack Obama.
But the endorsement of the veteran communist revolutionary may be the last thing Mr Obama wanted, as his words will only strengthen conservative complaints that the prize was an anti-American gesture.
The former dictator, who handed power to his brother Raul last year after falling seriously ill, made clear that he believed the award was primarily a repudiation of Mr Obama's predecessors.
"Many believe that he still has not earned the right to receive such a distinction," he wrote in a column published in state media. "But we would like to see, more than a prize for the US president, a criticism of the genocidal policies that have been followed by more than a few presidents of that country."
Mr Castro, 83, who has spent half a century railing at international bodies, said he had often disagreed with the choice of Norway's Nobel judges.
But this time, he noted modestly, "I must admit that in this case, in my opinion, it was a positive step". >>> Philip Sherwell in New York and Leonard Doyle in Washington | Saturday, October 10, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: The Nobel committee’s award to President Obama demeans the peace prize, appears politically partisan and should embarrass the White House
When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the satirist Tom Lehrer remarked that he saw no further need to perform as the award had made satire obsolete. By offering the world’s most prestigious political accolade to Barack Obama, a man who has held office for barely nine months, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is in danger of putting the entire comedy industry out of business.
The committee has put hope above results, promise above achievement. The prize undermines the selfless triumphs of earlier winners. Indeed, the award’s obvious political intent looks partisan, a signal of European relief at the end of the Bush presidency.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s action in “strengthening international co-operation between peoples”. That is a worthy aim and America’s re-engagement in multilateral diplomacy has been warmly welcomed by its allies. But it is hard to point to any substantive results yet. Much was promised to the Muslim world in the President’s speech in Cairo; on the ground, the failure still to achieve any tangible progress towards a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians has left all sides disillusioned. In Moscow, the talk of pressing the reset button in relations was welcome, as was Mr Obama’s abandonment of the US missile shield in Europe. But so far none of this has led to the scrapping of any more nuclear warheads.
The nomination of Mr Obama, among more than 200 other contenders, had to be made within weeks of his inauguration. Was this a message of support for the election of America’s first black president? Or was it a self-defeating way of trying to align the peace committee with the excitement that marked his first few weeks in office? Mr Obama yesterday responded with characteristic eloquence and modesty in announcing his acceptance. He would, however, have done better to have let it be known to those sounding out the White House beforehand that he saw the prize as premature, ill judged and embarrassing at a time when he is preoccupied with fighting a war in Afghanistan. >>> | Saturday, October 10, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: At 5.45am yesterday Robert Gibbs was woken by a network television producer calling him at home. “This’d better be good,” the White House press secretary grumbled. It was, the producer assured him. President Obama had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. “Oh, that is good,” Mr Gibbs replied.
At the end of an extraordinary whirlwind day that began for Mr Obama with a call to the Lincoln Bedroom moments later, he may justly be questioning his aide’s initial judgment. At home, admirers met the news with astonishment, bafflement and, in some cases, laughter. Across the globe, reaction ranged from polite congratulation and wild effusion to outrage and scepticism.
Conservative critics greeted the news with glee, an affirmation of their belief that Mr Obama is beloved in Europe just for being a celebrity, adored for what he says, not what he does — or, as his Texan predecessor would say, all hat and no cattle.
Without question, the choice is political. The Nobel Peace Prize is a notoriously difficult award to predict but one thread of consistency since 2000 has been the award committee’s implacable hatred of the Bush Administration.
Three of the past six peace awards have gone to Bush adversaries. In 2002 the prize went to Jimmy Carter as an explicit rejection of the Bush presidency in the build-up to the Iraq war. In 2005 Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN atomic agency chief who had clashed with Washington over the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was honoured. In 2007 Al Gore received the prize for his warnings on climate change, denounced by President Bush as a liberal myth.
Mr Obama’s is a fourth and perfect example of what Nobel scholars call the growing aspirational trend of Nobel committees over the past three decades, by which awards are given not for what has been achieved but in support of the cause being fought for. Obama ‘celebrity reward’ Nobel Prize is greeted with glee by critics >>> Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent, and Tim Reid in Washington | Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
Barack Hussein Obama could hardly believe his luck this morning. In fact, he almost choked on his corn flakes when he heard the news! Less than a year ago, he duped the American public into believing that he could bring the American electorate change; though the voters forgot to ask him what kind of change he was talking about. Silly them!
Ever since, he has spent his time as sitting president moving around. There are so many places in America where he can use the gift he has been given: the gift of the gab. In fact, since taking office, he has done little else other than talk. He talks so much that there is little time to do anything else. And of course, without doing anything, he cannot achieve. Why does he talk so much? Because it is doubtful that he is capable of achieving anything, and anyway he loves the sound of his own voice. It sounds so sonorous to him. To him, that is!
Now this! He has learnt his lesson fast, though. We must grant him that. He has learnt that one doesn’t have to achieve anything real to get the Nobel Peace Prize. All one has to do is talk – talk, talk, talk, and loftily. Talk, talk, talk, and win, win, win, win. Win prizes here and win prizes there.
Oh yes, and Obama will sleep better tonight, since with this medal comes about a million euros. Plenty of sleeveless dresses there, Michelle! – Mark
President Obama has not yet been in office for a year. So far he has shown himself to be a weak president. Weak and ineffectual. What has he accomplished so far? Nothing discernible. Obama is a talker; he’s a bloviator. He talks a great deal and achieves little. Common sense tells any normal person that he does not deserve this prize; not yet, at least. The Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded for achieving peace in the world. Having the intentions of achieving peace isn’t, or shouldn’t be, enough. Hence, by awarding this greenhorn the Nobel Peace Prize, the committee has destroyed its integrity at a stroke. The award has been devalued. Furthermore, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama at this stage lays bare the politics behind such awards. Merit and achievement have little or nothing to do with them. – © Mark
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made President Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. President Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
The committee said it attached special importance to President Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.
"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.
Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change. >>> Associated Press | Friday, October 09, 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: This is completely bizarre. President Barack Obama has just won the nobel peace prize. It is unclear why. For making peace, of a kind, with Hillary Clinton? For giving up the missile shield and cheering up the Iranians? For preparing a surge of troops and weaponry in Afghanistan? >>> Iain Martin | Friday, October 09, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Nobel prize for President Obama is a shocker. He should turn it down. >>> Benedict Brogan | Friday, October 09, 2009
THE GUARDIAN: Barack Obama's Nobel prize: why now? : Giving Barack Obama the Nobel peace prize so early in his presidency could hinder rather than help his diplomatic efforts >>> Peter Beaumont | Friday, October 09, 2009
AFP: KABUL — The Taliban Friday condemned Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, saying rather than bring peace to Afghanistan he had boosted troop numbers and continued the aggressive policies of his predecessor.
"We have seen no change in his strategy for peace. He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
"We condemn the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for Obama," he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"When Obama was elected president, we were hopeful he would keep his promise to bring change. But he brought no change, he has continued the same old strategy as (President George W.) Bush. Taliban condemns Obama's Nobel Peace Prize >>> Waheedullah Massoud (AFP) | Friday, October 09, 2009
TIME: The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise.
Inspirational words have brought him a long way — including to the night in Grant Park less than a year ago when he asked that we "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."
By now there are surely more callouses on his lips than his hands. He, like every new president, has reckoned with both the power and the danger of words, dangers that are especially great for one who wields them as skillfully as he. A promise beautifully made raises hopes especially high: we will revive the economy while we rein in our spending; we will make health care simpler, safer, cheaper, fairer. We will rid the earth of its most lethal weapons. We will turn green and clean. We will all just get along.
So when reality bites, it chomps down hard. The Nobel committee cited "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." His critics fault some of those efforts: those who favor a missile shield for Poland or a troop surge in Afghanistan or a harder line on Iran. But even his fans know that none of the dreams have yet come true, and a prize for even dreaming them can feed the illusion that they have. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: The Last Thing He Needs >>> Nancy Gibbs | Friday, October 09, 2009
LE FIGARO: ANALYSE VIDEO - Selon Philippe Gélie, chef du service international du Figaro, le jury du Nobel n'a peut-être pas fait un cadeau à Obama en lui attribuant ce prix à la surprise générale.
Pour Philippe Gélie, chef du service international du Figaro, Barack Obama n'a pas encore d'énormes succès diplomatiques à son crédit, «c'est sans précédent je crois qu'un chef de l'Etat soit primé aussi tôt dans son mandat».
Il souligne également que ce prix pourra être lourd à porter pour un président dont le monde attend déjà énormément : «Est-ce qu'il a besoin, dix mois après le début de son mandat, d'être aussi prix Nobel de la paix?»
[Source : Le Figaro]
TIMES ONLINE: The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s decision to “strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. Many people will point out that, while the President has indeed promised to “reset” relations with Russia and offer a fresh start to relations with the Muslim world, there is little so far to show for his fine words.
East-West relations are little better than they were six months ago, and any change is probably due largely to the global economic downturn; and America’s vaunted determination to re-engage with the Muslim world has failed to make any concrete progress towards ending the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.
The spectacle of Mr Obama mounting the podium in Oslo to accept a prize that once went to Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Theresa would be all the more absurd if it follows a White House decision to send up to 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. However just such a war may be deemed in Western eyes, Muslims would not be the only group to complain that peace is hardly compatible with an escalation in hostilities. Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize >>> Michael Binyon | Friday, October 09, 2009
Open for comments.
Monday, April 14, 2008
BBC: Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi has described receiving an increasing number of death threats.
They included notes pinned to the door of her office building in Tehran, warning her to "watch your tongue".
Ms Ebadi, an outspoken critic of Iran's leadership, said she had forwarded the threats to the chief of Iranian police.
She said last month: "When you believe in the correctness of your work, there is no reason to be afraid of anything."
In an interview, she told Reuters news agency that Iran's human rights record had regressed in the past two years, saying more dissidents were being jailed and more people were being executed.
Ms Ebadi, 60, won the Nobel prize in 2003 for her work in defending human rights.
She has received death threats before, but in a statement on Monday, she said: "Threats against my life and security and those of my family, which began some time ago, have intensified."
One of the anonymous, handwritten threats said: "Shirin Ebadi, your death is near."
They warned her against making speeches abroad, and defending Iran's minority Bahai community.
The Bahai faith is an offshoot of Islam, regarded as heretical by Iran's Shia establishment. [Source: Top Iranian Dissident Threatened] | April 14, 2008
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