Nobel Peace prize - The African Mirror

Oct

2023

Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize

IMPRISONED Iranian women's rights advocate Narges Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in a rebuke to Tehran's theocratic leaders and a boost for anti-government protesters. The award-making committee said the prize honoured those behind recent unprecedented demonstrations in Iran and called for the release of Mohammadi, 51, who has campaigned for three decades for women's rights and abolition of the death penalty. "We hope to send the message to women all around the world that are living in conditions where they are systematically discriminated: 'Have the courage, keep on going'," Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told Reuters. "We want to give the…

Sep

2023

By GWLADYS FOUCHE and ILZE FILKS

Nobel Peace Prize: Indigenous, women or green activists could win 2023 award

WORLD

UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian dissident Alexei Navalny are among favourites for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, but experts say campaigners for women, Indigenous peoples or the environment could well steal the stage. Given past form, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is also capable of a complete surprise in the October 6 announcement. Though bookmakers have Zelenskiy as a top candidate to join the illustrious list of laureates from Nelson Mandela to Martin Luther King, Nobel specialists believe that as a wartime leader, the Ukrainian president is unlikely to be named. The imprisoned Navalny's chances are lessened because Russian dissidents won last…

Sep

2023

By GWLADYS FOUCHE

Nobel Peace Prize: who has won and who missed out?

NEWS

THE winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 6 in Oslo. Here are some past winners - and one person who did not but should have. MARTIN LUTHER KING The leader of the U.S. civil rights movement was "the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence," according to the then chairman of the awarding body, Gunnar Jahn. "He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to…

Aug

2021

By The African Mirror

Africa can prevent Ethiopia from going down Rwanda’s path: here’s how

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

WHEN Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2019, I congratulated him in a public US and Africa dialogue forum. I thought he deserved the prize, given what he had done. In particular, he showed a calm and responsible interest in listening to all community grievances to avoid outbursts of war. EDWARD KISSI, Associate Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida Today, under Abiy’s watch, Ethiopia has descended into a political and humanitarian crisis that threatens the very survival of the federal state. There are reports of ethnic groups in various regions…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

U.S. voting rights activist Stacey Abrams nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

WORLD

TERJE SOLSVIK and GWLADYS FOUCHE U.S. voting rights activist and Democratic Party politician Stacey Abrams has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize for her work to promote nonviolent change via the ballot box, a Norwegian lawmaker said on Monday. Abrams, whose work was credited with boosting voter turnout last year, helping Joe Biden win the U.S. presidency, joins a long list of nominees, including both former President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, former White House adviser Jared Kushner. "Abrams' work follows in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

U.N. food agency WFP wins 2020 Nobel Peace Prize

WORLD

TERJE SOLSVIK and NERIJUS ADOMAITIS THE United Nations food agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), has won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and improve conditions for peace in areas affected by conflict. The Rome-based organisation says it helps some 97 million people in about 88 countries each year, and that one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat. "The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever," Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told a news conference. The WFP is a driving force in efforts…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Thousands rally to support Congo’s threatened Nobel Laureate

NEWS

CRISPIN KYALA A city in eastern Congo has rallied in support of Denis Mukwege, the Congolese Nobel Laureate who received death threats in recent weeks after he called for justice over serious human rights violations. On Thursday his supporters snaked through the streets of Bukavu, the lakeside home of the doctor who has helped thousands of survivors of sexual violence, honking motorcycle horns, singing and waving signs like "Don't touch our Nobel Prize." Mukwege has won international recognition, including the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, for his decades of work treating female victims conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

UN says life of Congo’s Nobel Laureate doctor in danger

NEWS

EMMA FARGE THE life of a top Congolese doctor who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work treating war rape victims is in danger after a series of death threats, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday. The threats, received in the form of phone calls to Dr Denis Mukwege and his family as well as via social media, appeared to be linked to his outspoken criticism of violence against women and other human rights violations, another U.N. official said. "His life seems to be at serious risk," High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said…