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Is this the first time in history that a Nobel laureate is overseeing thecriminal prosecution of a Nobel nominee? Apparently, three members of the Icelandic Parliament have nominated Army PFC Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. On February 1, 2012, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Margrét Tryggvadóttir, and Þór Saari, all members of the Icelandic Parliament, sent their nominating letter to the Nobel nominating committee. This is, of course, their right to do so. But it shows a deep ignorance of what Manning stands accused of. Manning, you may recall is to be court-martialed for allegedly capturing 250,000 Department of State...

Nobel peace prize jury under investigation By KARL RITTER | Associated Press – 10 hrs ago. STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize's original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday. The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations. /snip For example, in 2007 the prize went to climate activist Al...

...Speaking after receiving the prize at a ceremony in Oslo, 32-year-old Yemeni journalist Tawakul Karman said Saleh, who promised last month to stand down by February, "will not leave. He wants to (push) the country into civil war." "If the international community does not freeze his money and that of high officials and his family, he will continue to try to (lead) the country into civil war," she told Reuters in an interview in Oslo... During her prize acceptance speech, the 32-year-old journalist rebuked the international community for failing to support the Yemen uprising... "The democratic world, which has told...

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman says she believes the pro-democracy revolts that have swept the Arab world will help "drive out" al-Qaida terrorists. Karman told The Associated Press on the eve of Saturday's award ceremony that the autocratic leaders that were toppled from Tunisia to her native Yemen created an environment where extremism could grow.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama hailed Muammar Gaddafi's death on Thursday as a warning to authoritarian leaders across the Middle East that iron-fisted rule "inevitably comes to an end," and as vindication for his cautious strategy toward Libya. Obama joined U.S. politicians and ordinary Americans in welcoming the demise of Gaddafi, who was for decades regarded as a nemesis of American presidents, and also claimed some of the credit for the Libyan strongman's downfall. ... "This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya who now have the opportunity to determine their own...

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni women's rights advocate Tawakkul Karman. The Norwegian Nobel Committee made the announcement Friday in Oslo, saying the three women will split the coveted award for "their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights." Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland praised the work of the three recipients, saying that "we cannot achieve lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men." Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 72, became Africa's first democratically elected female president in 2005....

OSLO - The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize may recognize activists who helped unleash the revolutionary wave that swept through North Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian Internet activist and Google executive, Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement, one of its founders Israa Abdel Fattah, and Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni could therefore be among those in line for the award when it is announced on Oct. 7. "My strong sense is that this (Nobel) committee and its leader want to reflect the biggest international issues as defined by a wide definition of peace," said...

Former President Jimmy Carter and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari were hoping to visit the State Department this week to brief officials on their recent trip to North Korea, but nobody at the State Department was available to meet with them. Carter and Ahtisaari, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates, had been eager to give their readout of their meetings in North Korea April 26 and 27 to U.S. officials and press their case for a resumption of food aid to the Hermit Kingdom. The two are members of the Elders, a group of senior figures who have been informally engaging...

Irena Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker when the Nazis walled the Jewish quarter of her beloved Warsaw. The occupiers ruthlessly exacerbated the suffering in the ghetto by forbidding Poles from helping Jews. Sendler originally smuggled food and medicine into the ghetto, but changed tactics once she saw that the Nazis’ aim wasn’t humiliation but annihilation. “Very quickly we realized that the only way to save the children was to get them out,” she recalled. Sendler and her cohorts began smuggling Jewish babies and adolescents from the ghetto with their parents’ blessing. The women acclimated the kids to non-Jewish homes...

NATO has asked the United States to continue participating in airstrikes over Libya through late Monday, ABC News has learned. This was done to make up for the bad weather earlier in the week that had hampered targeting of Gadhafi forces and allowed them to push the rebels back to Ajdabiyah. The United States was supposed to have significantly begun dropping its participation in airstrikes over Libya. "Due to poor weather conditions over the last few days in Libya, the United States has approved a request by NATO to extend the use of some U.S. strike aircraft," NATO spokeswoman Oana...

Hillary Clinton has paved the way for the United States to arm the Libyan rebels by declaring that the recent UN security council resolution relaxed an arms embargo on the country. As Libya's opposition leaders called for the international community to arm them, the secretary of state indicated that the US was considering whether to meet their demands when she talked of a "work in progress". The US indicated on Monday night that it had not ruled out arming the rebels, though it was assumed this would take some time because of a UN arms embargo which applies to all...

President Barack Obama is offering Congress and an anxious public his first detailed accounting of his rationale for U.S. military involvement in Lybia and perhaps an answer to the burning question: What's next? His speech, set for 7:30 p.m. EDT Monday, comes after the administration scored an important diplomatic victory. NATO ambassadors on Sunday approved a plan for the alliance to assume from the U.S. command all aerial operations, including ground attacks.

"I am accustomed to this contradiction of being both a commander-in-chief but also someone who aspires to peace," President Obama told a CNN reporter in El Salvador. Later in the interview Obama says he doesn't think "the American people don't see any contradiction in somebody who cares about peace also wanting to make sure that people aren't butchered because of a dictator who wants to cling to power." Several countries and people, such as Michael Moore, have called for Obama to return the award he received shortly after his inauguration.

Why … no, as a matter of fact, it isn’t. The Bolivian President and a Russian political leader have launched a campaign to revoke Obama’s honour after the US attacked Libya.Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader and Vice-Chairman of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky released a statement today calling for the Nobel Prize Committee to take back the honour bestowed on US President Barack Obama in 2009…Bolivian President Evo Morales echoed the call: “How is it possible that a Nobel Peace Prize winner leads a gang to attack and invade? This is not a defence of human rights or self-determination.”Morales...

“Barack Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined.” Exactly who said that first is unclear, but at some point over the weekend, the line began circulating around Twitter. Since President Obama announced Friday that he had ordered an attack on Muammar Qadhafi’s forces in Libya, he has attracted plenty of new critics, including lawmakers in his party. Now, some foreign leaders are asking that the Nobel Committee take back the peace prize it awarded Obama in 2009. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the vice chairman of the Russian legislature’s lower house, released a statement on...

The Bolivian President and a Russian political leader have launched a campaign to revoke Obama's honour after the US attacked Libya. Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader and Vice-Chairman of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky released a statement today calling for the Nobel Prize Committee to take back the honour bestowed on US President Barack Obama in 2009. Zhirinovsky said the attacks were "another outrageous act of aggression by NATO forces and, in particular, the United States," and that the attacks demonstrated a "colonial policy" with "one goal: to establish control over Libyan oil and the Libyan regime." He said...

The controversial leader of the Russian Liberal Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky,  said in a statement on Monday that he will ask the Nobel Committee to strip President Barack Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize. Zhirinovsky said in the letter that the prize, awarded in 2009 for Obama’s historic presidential victory and his work on nuclear non proliferation, was now hypocritical in light of recent missile strikes in Libya. The US and some allies fired Tomahawk missiles into Libya on Sunday when Moammar Gadhafi failed to obide by his own cease-fire agreement, made with the UN Security Council early Friday.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which gives the Nobel Peace Prize, loves an anniversary. The U.S. Peace Corps has never won the award, and is a natural winner of it. The 50th anniversary of the Corps is this year. Someone, or someones, should nominate the Peace Corps for the prize. The deadline is fast approaching: February 1. In October 1960, John F. Kennedy introduced the idea of the Peace Corps, while campaigning at the University of Michigan. He made his speech at 2 a.m. Bill Clinton was not the only lover of late-night campaigning. The Corps was established very quickly after...

Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder. In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate". "Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."

Foreign media websites apparently blocked in China BEIJING (AFP) - The websites of several foreign media outlets appeared to be blocked in China on Thursday on the eve of the award ceremony in Oslo honouring the 2010 Nobel peace laureate, jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo. AFP attempts to access the websites of television networks CNN, the BBC and Norwegian public broadcaster NRK were unsuccessful, with the message "Internet Explorer cannot display the web page" appearing on the screen. China on Thursday stepped up its criticism of the Oslo-based Nobel committee that in October chose Liu -- who was jailed in December...