The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize has demoted its chairman for the first time in the 114-year history of the award, after years of pressure from Beijing for his removal….
Mr Jagland also oversaw the controversial award handed to newly elected US President Barack Obama in 2009, shortly after becoming chairman that same year.
The move stunned the world and the recipient alike, as Mr Obama had been in office for fewer than nine months and the United States was still waging simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr Jagland said at the time that the organisation wanted to praise the US leader’s early vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and capture “the spirit of the times, the needs of the era”.
The article tries to blame it on politics but this is the first time in the award’s 114 year history that a chairman has been demoted. There certainly have been political shifts in Norway and on the committee in 144 years and no one else got canned. Maybe the Nobel laureate who had a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons can explain why he is so intent on making sure Iran gets some.
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