News from Burma cheers Norway
October 12, 2011
News this week that Burma’s government was releasing political prisoners, after earlier easing press censorship and showing other signs of more openness, cheered Burma-watchers in Norway and not least the Foreign Ministry. Former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, who long has followed events in Burma, said the Burmese government seems to finally be moving towards [...]
Støre makes new overture to China
October 11, 2011
It’s been widely claimed that China “lost face” when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident. Norway’s foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, now seems to be making a concerted effort to help China get it back. In a full-page commentary in Norway’s leading business newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) [...]
Winning women hailed for courage
October 7, 2011
The Oslo-based, five-member committee that selects winners of the Nobel Peace Prize hailed the courage of the three women they chose to honour with the prize this year. The committee hopes the prize will help “bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries.” The committee announced Friday that Ellen [...]
A Nobel Peace Prize for women
October 7, 2011
The Norwegian Nobel Committee moved away from highly controversial choices on Friday to award this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to three women in Liberia and Yemen who the committee believes have played important roles in creating peace, reconciliation and democracy. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen were awarded [...]
Conflict lingers over last year’s prize
October 7, 2011
A new Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo on Friday but Norway is still feeling the ill effects of last year’s prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Ongoing conflict between Norway and China over the prize continues to raise questions about the composition of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Last year’s prize so angered Chinese [...]
EU rises in Peace Prize speculation
October 6, 2011
UPDATED: Thorbjørn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, has often referred to the European Union (EU) as one of the greatest peace experiments of recent decades. Now the EU itself has risen as a candidate to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and Jagland dropped a few more hints before the prize was due to [...]
‘Arab Spring’ leads Nobel speculation
October 3, 2011
Initiators of the “Arab Spring” movement who used social media to fight for democracy and human rights in northern Africa and the Middle East lead the lists of candidates deemed most likely to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday. The biggest question is, perhaps, exactly who [...]
Nobel committee leader strikes back
September 30, 2011
Thorbjørn Jagland, leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, is firmly defending the independence of the committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize and clearly sees no need for concerns raised by one of his own political colleagues. He called a curious new debate over the committee’s composition and independence “surreal.” The debate was launched on [...]
Labour top calls for Nobel shake-up
September 29, 2011
One week before the next Nobel Peace Prize is due to be awarded, a top official of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labour Party is calling for the Norwegian Parliament to consider changes in the composition of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that decides the winner. Raymond Johansen, party secretary for Labour and a powerful figure in [...]
Norway mourns Nobel winner’s death
September 27, 2011
Norway’s government minister in charge of environmental issues, Erik Solheim, called the death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai “a great loss for the global environmental movement.” Maathai died at a hospital in Nairobi over the weekend while undergoing treatment for cancer. Solheim called Maathai herself a “pioneer in modern environmental protection and among [...]
China allows ministerial meeting
August 29, 2011
Diplomatic relations between Norway and China, all but frozen since the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident, may finally have begun to thaw. Chinese authorities have agreed to allow Norway’s government minister in charge of oil and energy to attend an international ministerial meeting in Beijing. “I’m looking forward [...]
Norway re-thinks Burma policies
May 18, 2011
Norway has started talking with some new leaders in Burma, but state secretary Espen Barth Eide insists the Norwegian government won’t let itself be fooled by them. He thinks there’s been “real change” within the Burmese dictatorship and that it’s worthwhile to have a dialogue. Eide traveled to Burma at the end of last week, [...]
Chinese want Norwegian apology
May 2, 2011
Remarks made by the Chinese ambassador to Norway at a meeting in Bergen have been reported by participants as some of the strongest since diplomatic tension between Norway and China set in, following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. They suggest that the Chinese want an apology from the [...]
DNV ‘back to normal’ in China
April 28, 2011
Large Norwegian risk management firm Det Norske Veritas (DNV) seems to have settled its own risk of doing business in China. After months of disruption following license revocations, DNV has won permission to resume operations once again. Chinese authorities had suddenly revoked DNV licenses tied to its certification work, in a move that itself was [...]
Pressure grows on Nobel committee
February 28, 2011
As the Norwegian Nobel Committee starts meeting in Oslo for the first time this year, pressure is growing on both committee members and the system by which they’re chosen. They’re trying to remain immune from the rumbling, both over their selection process and their Nobel Peace Prize choices. The leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, [...]
