President Obama is in Oslo today where he will accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Both supporters and critics alike have asked whether the President is deserving of this prestigious award only months into his presidency. Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times, Shuja Nawaz of the Atlantic Council and Steve Cohen of The Earth Institute at Columbia University evaluate the President’s policies – international diplomacy, Middle East outreach and climate change – that won him the award.
Details of the health care compromise reached by Senate Democrats – which will certainly change as Congressional negotiations grind on – are trickling out. Changes on the table include dropping the contentious 'public option,' and an expansion in Medicare coverage to include people aged 55-64. To discuss this and other aspects of yesterday's deal, we talk with our Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich and Ken Thorpe, chair of the Department of Health Policy at Emory University.
Not even today’s otherwise somber Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will prove immune from the trappings of a big award show: marquee names will introduce over-the-top performances by acts that inconceivably and incoherently share the regal Norwegian stage.
Past performers have included Sinead O’Connor, Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), A-HA, The Cranberries ... Tonight’s show is the 16th Annual Nobel Peace Prize concert. It will be hosted by Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, and will include Wyclef Jean, Toby Keith, Donna Summer and more.
Joining us now to explain some of those choices (and to expound on the award show phenomenon) is our culture critic, Mary Elizabeth Williams.
This week Facebook announced the formation of a new Safety Advisory Board to monitor online crimes, such as cyber-bullying and stalking. That announcement got us thinking about the people most likely to use those sites, and the most vulnerable to those crimes: teenagers.
The issue becomes even more serious when you consider the statistics. According to a new survey conducted by MTV and the Associated Press, almost half of sexually active young people report being involved in sexting, or sending nude photos of themselves or their sexual partners via cell phone.
Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist at The Pew Research Center’s The Internet and American Life Project and Bryan Taylor, Unit Chief for Crimes Against Persons in the Canyon County Prosecutors Office, say that these digital-world problems are on the rise and educating kids about them is the only way to prepare them.
The Nobel Peace Prize – along with prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine, and literature – has been awarded annually since 1901. The Takeaway takes a look at the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and where President Obama fits in that history. We're joined by 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who – along with her organization, the Green Belt Movement – won the award for work in human rights and environmental conservation. Michael Doyle, a professor of international affairs, law and political science at Columbia University, was a special advisor to former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and accompanied him on his trip to Oslo for his acceptance of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. And with us for the whole morning is Charlie Sennott, executive editor and vice president of GlobalPost.
Anticipating President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, we speak to Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and Charlie Sennott, executive editor of Globalpost.
For reactions to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech we speak to Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Charlie Sennott, executive editor of Globalpost.
President Obama was in part awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his outreach to the Muslim world. The administration has made Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan top priorities, but some analysts say Obama has neglected much of the Middle East. We ask Reza Aslan, author and contributing editor to the Daily Beast, and Abderrahim Foukara, the D.C. Bureau Cheif of al-Jazeera, to evaluate the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to the president's Middle East diplomacy.
As President Obama declared in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes," new details were emerging from Pakistan, where five American Muslims have been detained on suspicions of possible involvement in terrorism. Law enforcement in that country said the United States nationals, who disappeared from Washington D.C. last month, were suspected of planning attacks against "American interests" in Pakistan.
Aleem Maqbool, Islamabad correspondent for the BBC, joins the conversation about these five young men, ages 19-25, whose families recently asked for help in finding them. One possible piece of evidence in the case is a video the men left behind, featuring scenes of armed conflict and a message that young Muslims had to do more.
The mastermind of 1994's "Republican Revolution," former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, has never been shy with his opinion. He joins us this morning giving his read on President Obama's accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.
"I thought the speech was actually very good. And he clearly understood that he had been given the prize prematurely, but he used it as an occasion to remind people, first of all, as he said: that there is evil in the world. I think having a liberal president who goes to Oslo on behalf of a peace prize and reminds the committee that they would not be free, they wouldn't be able to have a peace prize, without having force... I thought in some ways it's a very historic speech. And the President, I think, did a very good job of representing the role of America which has been that of – at the risk of lives of young Americans – creating the fabric of security within which you could have a Martin Luther King Jr. or you could have a Mahatma Gandhi."
— Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, on President Obama's acceptance speech before the Nobel Committee
The announcement that President Barack Obama would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year came as a surprise to many – including the president, apparently – and inspired criticism that his record thus far hasn't justified such an award. How can President Obama show from this point forward that he deserves the Peace Prize? To help answer that is David Sanger, The New York Times chief Washington correspondent; and James Fallows, former presidential speechwriter and a contributor for the Atlantic.
We continue our coverage of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech with Charlie Sennott, executive editor of Globalpost.
A leaked document on climate change is causing furor and driving a wedge between rich and poor countries at the worldwide summit in Copenhagen. Developing nations say that the document asks them to reduce carbon emissions by unfair levels. Former Vice President Al Gore and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon went on the defensive Tuesday, saying that the draft text was only one of many options on the table. We talk with Andrew Revkin, environment reporter for The New York Times and Richie Ahuja, India Program Manager for the Environmental Defense Fund.
Amnesty International is taking sides on the drug and gang violence that's already killed 7,000 people this year in Mexico... and their stance may surprise you.
The international human rights watchdog group is accusing the Mexican government of turning a blind eye to thousands of complaints against the Mexican military. According to the charges, the same military troops tasked with providing security against gang violence are themselves guilty of torturing, and in some cases murdering, civilians.
The Houston Chronicle's Mexico bureau chief, Dudley Althaus, covered this story and joins us to discuss the ramifications of these alleged abuses. Are these violations a necessary evil in fighting a war so out-of-control, or something to inspire the ancient question: "Who Watches the Watchmen?"
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