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The 2009
Nobel Peace Prize citation
By The Associated Press The Associated Press – 2 hrs 13 mins ago
OSLO, Norway – The complete text of the citation awarding
the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama as delivered by the
Norwegian
Nobel Committee:
___
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."
President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers Karl
Ritter And Matt Moore, Associated Press Writers – 7 mins ago
OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
on Friday in a stunning decision designed to build momentum behind his
initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and
stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor,
and planned to travel to Oslo to accept the prize, which he said he does not
see "as a recognition of my own accomplishments," but rather as a
recognition of goals he has set for the United States and the world.
"I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of
so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize,"
Obama said.
Many observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so
early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb.
1 nomination deadline and has yet to yield concrete achievements in
peacemaking.
Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who
still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly
counter-terror strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.
Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said their choice
could be seen as an early vote of confidence in Obama intended to build global
support for his policies. They lauded the change in global mood wrought by
Obama's calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the
world stock of nuclear arms, ease American conflicts with Muslim nations and
strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change.
Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who
joined the committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as
"support and a commitment for Obama."
"And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those
that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament," she told The
Associated Press in a rare interview. Members of the Nobel peace committee
usually speak only through its chairman.
The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing
peace efforts but Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than past winners'.
The Nobel committee acknowledged that they may not bear fruit at all.
"He got the prize because he has been able to change
the international climate," Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland
said. "Some people say, and I understand it, isn't it premature? Too
early? Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from
now. It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us."
After the prize was announced, Jagland compared the decision
to give it to Obama to the prize was given to German Chancellor Willy Brandt in
1971 for his "Ostpolitik" policy of trying to find common ground with
Eastern Europe, which was under Communist sway.
He said the same thing was true when then-Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev got the prize in 1990 after he had launched perestroika and glasnost,
and allowed Eastern Europe to emerge from Kremlin control.
The selection to some extent reflects a trans-Atlantic
divergence on Obama. In Europe and much of the world he is lionized for
bringing the United States closer to mainstream global thinking on issues like
climate
change and multilateralism. At home, the picture is more complicated. As
president, Obama is often criticized as he attempts to carry out his agenda —
drawing fire over a host of issues from government spending to health care to
the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.
U.S. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele contended that
Obama won the prize as a result of his "star power" rather than
meaningful accomplishments.
"The real question Americans are asking is, What has
President Obama actually accomplished?" Steele said.
Obama's election and foreign policy moves caused a dramatic
improvement in the image of the U.S. around the world. A 25-nation poll of
27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found
double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in
countries
around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President
George W. Bush.
Asked whether the prize could be seen as praising Obama's
reversal of Bush administration policies, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a senior
political adviser to the right-wing populist Progress Party told the AP that:
"I guess you could read it like that."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made no secret of
his admiration for Obama, called the decision the embodiment of the
"return of America into the hearts of the people of the world."
But Obama's work is far from done, on numerous fronts.
He said he would end the Iraq war but has been slow to bring
the troops home and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come
until at least 2012.
He's running a second war in the Muslim world, in Afghanistan
— and is seriously considering ramping up the number of U.S. troops on the
ground and asking for help from others, too.
"I don't think Obama deserves this. I don't know who's
making all these decisions. The prize should go to someone who has done
something for peace and humanity," said Ahmad Shabir, 18-year-old student
in Kabul. "Since he is the president, I don't see any change in U.S.
strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Obama has said that battling climate change is a priority.
But the U.S. seems likely to head into crucial international negotiations set
for Copenhagen in December with Obama-backed legislation still stalled in
Congress.
Former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the prize in
1983, questioned whether Obama deserved it now.
"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He
is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," Walesa said.
"This is probably an encouragement for him to act.
Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act," Walesa said.
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish
institutions, the peace prize is given out by a five-member committee elected
by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the committee has a leftist
slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties. Jagland said the
decision to honor Obama was unanimous.
The award appeared to be at least partly a slap at Bush from
a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely
unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"Those who were in support of Bush in his belief in war
solving problems, on rearmament, and that nuclear weapons play an important
role ... probably won't be happy," said Valle, the Nobel Committee member.
The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new
climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral
diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.
"You have to remember that the world has been in a
pretty dangerous phase," Jagland said. "And anybody who can
contribute to getting the world out of this situation deserves a Nobel Peace
Prize."
Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a
wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's
rights activist, among others. The Nobel committee received a record 205
nominations for this year's prize, though it was not immediately apparent who
nominated Obama.
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President
Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the
prize in 1919.
Wilson received the prize for his role in founding the League
of Nations, the hopeful but ultimately failed precursor to the contemporary
United Nations.
The Nobel committee chairman said after awarding the 2002
prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in
international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the
leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.
Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in
the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness
about global warming.
In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery
vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that
warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low
as 1,500. The United States now has about 2,200 such warheads, compared to
about 2,800 for the Russians.
But there has been no word on whether either side has
started to act on the reductions.
Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director
general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has
already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear
proliferation.
"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," ElBaradei said. "He has shown an
unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best
means of resolving conflicts."
Obama also has attempted to restart stalled talks between
the Israelis and Palestinians, but just a day after Obama hosted the Israeli
and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had
fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians
said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a
freeze.
Obama was to meet with his top advisers on the Afghan war on
Friday to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in
Afghanistan,
to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there
enters its ninth year.
Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan
earlier this year and has continued the use of unmanned drones for attacks on
militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush
administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area.
Nominators for the prize include former laureates; current
and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national
governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social
sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs
institutes; and members of international courts of law.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace
prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best
work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of
standing
armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's
guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to
combat poverty, disease and climate change.
___
Associated Press writers Ian MacDougall in Oslo, Rahim Faiez
in Kabul, Celean Jacobson in Johannesburg, George Jahn in Vienna, Monika
Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki and Jennifer Loven in
Washington contributed to this report.
Obama
says he'll accept Nobel as 'call to action'
AP – 16 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Friday he was honored and
humbled to win the Nobel Peace Prize and would accept it as a "call to
action" to work with other nations to solve the problems of the 21st
century.
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009
"who, with the
concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of
the dispossessed"
Herta Müller
Herta Müller
Copyright © Hanser Verlag
Germany
b. 1953
(in Nitzkydorf, Banat, Romania)
________________________________
October 8, 2009, 7:22 am
Herta Müller Wins the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature
By Motoko Rich
Update | 9:30 a.m. Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German writer, has won the
2009 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Jens Meyer/Associated Press Herta Mueller in 2004.
Announcing the award in Stockholm on Thursday, the Swedish Academy
described Ms. Müller, “who, with the concentration of poetry and the
frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.”
Ms. Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany from Romania in 1987 because
many of her works were censored in her native country. She has written
often of corruption and intolerance under a dictatorship.
“I am very surprised and still cannot believe it,” Ms. Muller said
in a statement released by her publisher in Germany. “I can’t say
anything more at the moment.”
Her novels include “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment.”
The awards ceremony is planned for December in Stockholm. As the
winner, Ms. Müller will receive 10 million Swedish kronor, about $1.4
million.
