Author and pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, today, as Chinese officials continue to hold him in prison. In 1989, Liu was working at Columbia University in New York, when news of the protests in Tiananmen Square reached him: he decided to go home. His ongoing writing advocating the end of one-party rule in China earned him acclaim overseas and a prison sentence at home. Who is the man receiving the Nobel Peace Prize today?
With the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony set for Friday, China is making clear its disapproval of the Nobel Committee's having given this year's award to political activist Liu Xiaobo. China is not only publicly boycotting the ceremony, but also encouraging other coutnries to follow their lead. 18 countries have followed China's lead in refusing to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony; what are their motivations? And how is all of this going over with the Nobel Prize committee?
China and a group of other countries are boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony over the award being given to Chinese Dissident Lee Shaou Bao. But one violinist scheduled for a performance might be making a political statement with his instrument.
We continue our coverage of Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident who was announced this morning as the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. To learn more about Liu, we speak with a man who has known him for over 20 years. Wan Yanhai directs an AIDS awareness group, and was jailed in his home country of China three times in the past 12 years. He fled to Washington, D.C. earlier this year, and has been celebrating Liu's honor all morning.
Described as a chain-smoking, impassioned literary critic and political essayist, he has spent his adult life advocating for democratic reform in China. Today, he becomes the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And as of now, it is unclear how he will receive that news in his prison cell.
Liu Xiaobo is the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his nonviolent political reform movement. The 54-year-old is months into an 11 year prison sentence for "inciting the subversion of state power."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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