Tag: Nobel Peace Prize

2009 Nobel Peace Prize Announcement

I know so much water has already gone under the bridge about this.  For what it’s worth, I want to have the complete Nobel Peace Prize Announcement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee here on Turning Left for the benefit of our readers, and myself:

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to 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. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

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. 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.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

Oslo, October 9, 2009


Nobel Committee Head Defends Obama Peace Prize

From ChannelNewsAsia.com:

OSLO – The head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee on Saturday defended its controversial decision to give the award to US President Barack Obama, saying his work so far justified the honour.

“He could have also had it too late,” Thorbjoern Jagland told reporters.

“Can someone tell me who did more than him this year? It is difficult to name a winner of the peace prize who is more in line with Alfred Nobel’s will.”

Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister, said “we are capturing the spirit of the times, the needs of the era.”

He and the committee’s four other members caused shockwaves on Friday by announcing that Obama had won the Nobel, praising his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

The committee attached “special importance to Obama’s vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”

Does anyone recall this much controversy over the Nobel Peace Prize since Yassar Arafat won along with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994?


Rachel Maddow: Obama Brings Another Honor to America

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Rachel Maddow does a fine job reporting on President Obama receiving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.