Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to President Obama

[Tim Collins]

Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to President Obama (Update2)

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHJwK9iL4ZAw#


By Meera Bhatia and Marianne Stigset

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Nobel Committee said.

“The Nobel Committee has in particular looked at Obama’s vision and work toward a world without atomic weapons,” Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the five-member Nobel committee said in an interview broadcast on Norway’s TV2 today. “Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics.”

Obama, 48, the first black U.S. president, was elected last year on a platform of extracting the U.S. from the Iraq war while increasing focus on an eight-year conflict in Afghanistan. All U.S. forces are scheduled to be withdrawn from Iraq by 2011, after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to be awarded the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won in 2002.

“Multilateral diplomacy is again central, with emphasis on the role the United Nations and other international institutions should play,” Jagland said. “Dialogue and negotiations are the preferred method to solve even the most difficult international conflicts.”

The prize, along with other honors for literature, physics, medicine and chemistry, was created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will and first awarded in 1901. Finland’s Martti Ahtisaari won the peace prize last year and past laureates include Martin Luther King Jr. and groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Prizes for literature, chemistry, medicine and physics, are picked by the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Meera Bhatia in Oslo at [e-mail].

Last Updated: October 9, 2009 05:36 EDT

[rosa]

In my opinion, this award goes undeserved-let alone to someone who's been in office for less than a year and is credited with accomplishments that aren't his alone

not by a long shot

[Tim Collins]

thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world-reaction-to-a-nobel-surprise/


October 9, 2009, 8:04 am

World Reaction to a Nobel Surprise
By Sharon Otterman
After less than nine months in office, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a decision so stunning that even the audience in the Norwegian capital of Oslo gasped.

Reaction around the world was immediate, with many, including at least one former recipient of the award, wondering whether the prize could be premature. Other laureates and leaders hailed the decision. Those distrustful of America’s role in the world, however, said that the prize was akin to honoring the fox for watching over the henhouse. Here is a sampling of early reaction from the world over:

LECH WALESA

“Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast — he hasn’t had the time to do anything yet,” Lech Walesa told reporters in Warsaw, according to Agence France-Presse. Mr. Walesa, 65, received the prize in 1983 for his efforts to promote workers’ rights in Poland while it was under Communist rule.

“For the time being Obama’s just making proposals. But sometimes the Nobel committee awards the prize to encourage responsible action,” he said. “Let’s give Obama a chance.” Mr. Walesa served five years as Poland’s first democratically elected president after the collapse of Communism in 1989.

MOHAMED ELBARADEI

The director-general of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, who received the prize in 2005, said in a statement that he was “absolutely delighted,” adding: “I cannot think of anyone today more deserving of this honor. In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself.”

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Mr. Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who was awarded the prize in 1990, was quoted by the news agency Itar-Tass as saying, “In these hard times people who are capable of taking responsibility, who have a vision [of problems], commitment and political will should be supported.”

SHIMON PERES

“Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such a profound impact,” President Shimon Peres of Israel said in a congratulatory letter to Mr. Obama. “You provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and a feeling that there is a lord in heavy and believers on earth.”

Mr. Peres, who won the peace prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat in 1994 following the Oslo Accords, added: “Under your leadership, peace became a real and original agenda. And from Jerusalem, I am sure all the bells of engagement and understanding will ring again. You gave us a license to dream and act in a noble direction.”

MORGAN TSVANGARAI

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai of Zimbabwe, who had been among the favorites to win this year, told Reuters: “I wish to congratulate President Obama. I think he is a deserving candidate.”

NILS BUTENSCHON

Nils Butenschon, director of the Norwegian Center for Human Rights at the University of Oslo and a well-known human rights champion in Norway, said the committee has risked the authority of the peace prize by awarding it to Mr. Obama before he has accomplished much of substance.

“It seems premature to me,” Mr. Butenschon said. “I think the committee should be very careful with the integrity of the prize, and in this case I don’t think we are in a position to really evaluate the full impact of what this candidate has achieved. Sometimes of course the prize is awarded to people who are in the process of making history, so to speak, but in this case I think it is too early to know that.”

KHALED AL-BATSH

A leader of the militant Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Mr. Al-Batsh, condemned the award, saying it “shows these prizes are political, not governed by the principles of credibility, values and morals,” Reuters reported.

“Why should Obama be given a peace prize while his country owns the largest nuclear arsenal on earth and his soldiers continue to shed innocent blood in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

Reporting was contributed by Walter Gibbs in Oslo, Norway.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[webrunner]

He's not even willing to meet with the Dalai Lama.

[rosa]

Oct 9, 2009 4:49:45 GMT -7 rosa said:

In my opinion, this award goes undeserved-let alone to someone who's been in office for less than a year and is credited with accomplishments that aren't his alone

not by a long shot

here I was, trying to reconcile this when a friend reminded me: they also awarded this prize to Henry Kissinger. I'd forgotten that...

from Wiki: "The musical satirist Tom Lehrer says that 'political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize.' "

and the band plays on....