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WikiLeaks receives 2011 Nobel Peace Prize nomination WORLD NEWS
WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by a young Norwegian politician. The controversial proposal comes just days ahead of a court appearance by WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, at an extradition hearing in London over allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, a charge he has repeatedly denied The Nobel Peace Prize committee is beginning to deliberate nominations, which closed on February 1. Members of parliament around the world, some academics and previous winners can nominate whoever they like for the award. Snorre Valen, 26, a Norwegian musician and politician, said he chose to nominate WikiLeaks for promoting human rights and freedom of speech. “Liu Xiabao was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom of speech in China,” Mr Valen wrote on his website. “Likewise: WikiLeaks have contributed to the struggle for those very values globally, by exposing (among many other things) corruption, war crimes and torture.” Although it is hard to gauge how seriously the nomination will be
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considered by the Nobel committee, the prospect of giving such a highprofile award to WikiLeaks will outrage many in Washington and governments around the world. The US government has been exploring ways to prosecute Mr Assange for publishing vast quantities of state secrets online, many of which have embarrassed the US administration. Some observers did not rate WikiLeaks’ chances of winning. “To claim that [Mr Assange’s] actions have in some way promoted ‘fraternity among nations,’ to invoke the famous line in Alfred Nobel’s will, would be far-fetched, if not altogether inaccurate,” Scott London, a US journalist and Nobel Peace Prize specialist, told the AFP news agency. Army chiefs have often said that WikiLeaks’ publication of military secrets put at risk the lives of US troops in war zones and their local allies. But Mr Valen noted WikiLeaks’ “small contribution” to the revolution in Tunisia by releasing US diplomatic cables about the president. “It is always easier to support freedom of speech when the one who speaks agree with you politically. This is one of the ‘tests’ on liberal and
Mandela recovering 'very well' South Africa's government says former president Nelson Mandela is doing well in his recovery from a respiratory infection. Minister for the presidency Collins Chabane said Thursday that Mr. Mandela is responding to treatment for the condition. The 92-year-old anti-apartheid icon spent two days in a Johannesburg hospital last week. He was released last Friday and has since received care at his home. Chabane told reporters in Pretoria that Mr. Mandela continues to have doctors around him "all the time." The minister thanked those who are praying for the ailing former president and who have sent messages of support to his family. Mr. Mandela has grown frail in recent years and makes only occasional public appearances, most recently at the championship for the World Cup in July.
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democratic values that governments tend to fail,” Mr Valen said. “And many countries respond to WikiLeaks‘ obvious right to publish material that is of public interest, by seeking to ‘shoot the messenger’… It is not, and should never be, the privilege of politicians to regulate which crimes the public should never be told about, and through which media those crimes become known.” The nomination illustrates the scale of popular support for WikiLeaks. A divisive figure, Mr Assange won the readers’ poll for Time magazine’s person of the year in 2010, although the publication’s editors awarded their prize to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg instead. WikiLeaks recently signed a deal with the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK to continue publishing stories based on its cache of thousands of US diplomatic cables. The site had previously dealt exclusively with the Guardian and the New York Times, but it has struggled to contain its trove of secrets, with Aftenposten, a Norwegian newspaper, claiming to have received all the cables independently of WikiLeaks. Several WikiLeaks copycats and rivals have emerged in recent weeks, notably OpenLeaks, created by a
former WikiLeaks employee, and various regionally focused sites, including IndoLeaks in Indonesia, RuLeaks in Russia and Balkanleaks. Mr Assange is currently writing his autobiography, for which he has secured book deals worth more than £1m, which he said will be put towards his own legal expenses and operation of the site. WikiLeaks has been reliant on donations for its income, but withdrawal of payment processing support by Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Bank of America - along with spiralling operational costs - have left question marks over its financial stability. But the Nobel Committee is not known for shying from controversy. In 2009 it awarded the Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama and in 2010 to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo - both were divisive choices. "I do not think the Nobel Committee sees it as a value in its own right to play with controversy, but certainly many prizes have been controversial," said Harpviken. "And the Nobel Peace Prize has always been most interesting when it has been making a firm political statement." The Peace Prize winner will be announced in October.
Mugabe Declines to Intervene in MDC Formation Reshuffle Dispute A spokesman for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has confirmed his boss will not endorse or intervene to implement a bid by Welshman Ncube, president of the smaller formation of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change, to assume the position of deputy prime minister now held by Arthur Mutambara. The published comments by presidential spokesman George Charamba have added to tensions within the unity government. Mr. Mugabe had said earlier that he would decline to swear in Ncube as deputy prime minister unless Mutambara, replaced recently by Ncube as president of the smaller MDC formation, stepped down on his own. The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted Charamba as reiterating this position and adding that President Mugabe cannot be Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe dragged into internal MDC party politics. "It is not the business of the president to use his powers as an appointing authority to resolve the problems of a political party," Charamba was quoted as saying. Charamba, also permanent secretary of the Information Ministry, added" "Welshman Ncube must deal with the political problems in MDC arising from that party's just-ended congress. That congress, Charamba, added produced a contested leadership. A dissident formation of the Ncube-led MDC formation has filed papers in High Court challenging the outcome of last month’s congress electing him president. The faction has written to Mr. Mugabe asking him not to swear in Ncube as deputy prime minister. Charamba said the president will wait for the judicial process to run its course. Lawyers are divided on the issue. Some say that the president, as appointing authority, has the sole prerogative to appoint or fire any member of the cabinet. Others say the president has no legal or constitutional powers to prevent Ncube from being sworn in. The latter group says President Mugabe could only refuse to swear in Ncube if he were barred from doing so by an order from a High Court justice. Mutambara himself has kept a low profile and has not been reachable all this week.