Muhummad Yunus has been forced out of his position at Grameen Bank by the Bangladeshi government. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus has been forced out of his position at Grameen Bank by the government in Bangladesh. Yunus, the longtime head of Grameen Bank, is well known for his work in the realm of microfinance, lending small loans to the poor to help them start businesses. He and the Bangladeshi government have feuded for years.

Nobel Prize winner forced from office by government

The Bangladeshi government has forced Muhammad Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank, according to NPR. Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, was ordered out of his position as managing director of Grameen Bank by Bangladesh Bank, the central bank for the nation of Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bank maintains that Yunus did not comply with a statute that mandates bank directors retire at age 60. Yunus is 70, but Grameen Bank was founded under a law passed in 1983 which exempts Yunus from the statute. He was given an indefinite term of office as managing director of Grameen Bank in 2000, when he reached the age of 60. However, Grameen is fighting the charges, and Yunus still retains his position.

Ongoing feud between microcredit legend and government

The Bangladeshi government and Yunus have been embroiled in a feud for years. Yunus has previously  accused the government of corruption, while government officials termed the small loans that Grameen lends to the impoverished as “sucking the blood from the poor.” Muhammad Yunus tried to launch his own political party in 2007, but it floundered. Officials have been looking at the operations of Grameen Bank to root out any possible malfeasance for months, after allegations were made of an improper funds transfer, according to the New York Times. Grameen allegedly transferred more than $100 million in donations from the Norwegian government to a Grameen affiliate without alerting the Norwegian government, but all the funds were redeposited.

Key figure in fight against poverty

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank are held in high esteem worldwide for their work in fighting poverty with microfinance loans. Grameen Bank lends small loans to the very poor, mainly women, in order to help them establish a cottage industry. For instance, an extremely poor clothing maker could get a microloan for a sewing machine and fabric and establish a business and an income. Women make up 97 percent of Grameen’s borrowers, according to USA Today, and the bank has more than $10 billion in loans. Yunus and Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for efforts in alleviating poverty in Bangladesh. However, the microcredit model has come under heavy criticism as microlenders in other countries have been found to engage in corrupt practices, including intimidating customers with violence to collect payments, and some believe it encourages a vicious cycle of debt among the impoverished.

Sources

USA Today

New York Times

NPR

WikiLeaks has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but it is not likely to win. Image: Flickr / amonroy / CC-BY-SA

WikiLeaks, the website responsible for releasing millions of pages of secret documents, has a new headline. One member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee has nominated WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination has been submitted, but WikiLeaks is not likely to win.

Norwegian politician announces WikiLeaks nomination

Generally, the Nobel Committee keeps the file of nominations sealed for 50 years. There is no rule, however, that those making nominations have to keep it secret. Norwegian parliamentarian Snorre Valen announced his nomination of WikiLeaks to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Feb. 1. In the announcement, he said that WikiLeaks should be considered “one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency.” In his mind, this makes the site deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.

WikiLeaks not likely to win the Nobel Peace Prize

Though it has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, WikiLeaks is not likely to actually win the $1.6 million award. Generally, the Nobel Committee receives 200 or more nominations for each prize. The Nobel Committee keeps each discussion confidential, but those who pay attention to the committee’s past decisions do not consider WikiLeaks a strong contender. NPR reported that Kristian Harpsviken, director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, does not consider it likely.

“The reason I think it’s unlikely is that there has been so much criticism of WikiLeaks, not least how they have handled identification issues of people in the documents,” he said. “I don’t think it quite does the trick.”

Using the Peace Prize for a political message

Many are curious about the political message that may be sent if WikiLeaks is considered for — or actually wins — the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee is not afraid of making a political statement with its awards, as President Obama and Liu Xiaobo‘s awards show. The difficulties WikiLeaks faces, especially with identification of individuals in the documents, simply makes it not likely.

Sources

NPR.org
Reuters

The last time the Nobel Peace Prize winner was symbolized by an empty chair, Nobel laureate Carl von Ossietzky was in a Nazi concentration camp. Image: CC Wikimedia Commons

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in Oslo, Norway, on Friday. An empty chair at the Nobel awards ceremony symbolized the absence of Liu, who is locked up in a Chinese prison. China has denounced Liu’s award and became the first state since Nazi Germany to prevent representatives for a Nobel laureate from accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nobel Peace Prize sits in empty chair

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize and the $1.5 million check that comes with the it was set on an empty chair after Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, presented the award. Diplomatic representatives from more than 60 countries attended the Nobel awards ceremony. Notably absent were China and Russia. Jagland gave China credit for its economic development, but said “It is no coincidence that nearly all the richest countries in the world are democratic.” Since Liu Xiaobo was announced as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in October, China has suspended bilateral trade talks with Norway. The Beijing government recently called the members of the Nobel Committee “clowns.”

Liu Xiaobo’s Charter 08

Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was arrested in December 2008 after co-authoring “Charter 08 ,”a manifesto calling for fundamental political change in China. Charter 08 was signed by more than 300 academics, lawyers, journalists and other influential Chinese. For his efforts, Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “subversion of state power.” China has suppressed news of Liu’s award. On Thursday, Zhang Zuhua, a co-author of Charter 08, was seen forced into a vehicle by police. Blue construction panels were erected in front of Liu’s apartment, where his wife has been under house arrest since he was announced as the winner.

Hitler could be China’s role model

Imprisoned political dissidents have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before. Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, Polish labor leader Lech Walesa and Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi were represented by family at the Oslo awards ceremony. The last time an imprisoned Nobel laureate’s family weren’t allowed to attend was in 1935. German journalist Count Carl von Ossietzky won the Nobel Peace Prize while he was in a concentration camp for speaking out against Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler then concocted his own peace prize, just like the Chinese did Thursday with their farcical Confucius Prize.

Sources

The Telegraph

CNN

New York Times

The Confucius Peace Prize was created by China to mock the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Image: CC Ivan Walsh/Flickr

The Confucius Peace Prize is an attempt by China to invalidate the Nobel Peace Prize. When Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, China denounced the award and kept Liu in prison. China held a Confucius Peace Prize ceremony Thursday — the day before the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony — but the winner didn’t show.

Why China concocted the Confucius Peace Prize

The Confucius Peace Prize was conceived by a group of Chinese academics amid the furor over Liu Xiaobo, who was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Price in October. The Beijing government referred to Liu as a criminal and called his selection a desecration of the award. Liu, a hero who emerged from the Tiananmen Square massacre, has been incarcerated off and on since 1989. He is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence and will miss Friday’s Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

And the winner is …

The winner of the first Confucius Peace Prize is Lien Chan, the honorary chairman of Taiwan’s Kuomintang Party. Nominees included President Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates and Yuan Longping, a Chinese scientist known as the “father of hybrid rice.” Known to be friendly to Beijing, the “Confucius Committee” chose Lien for his “contribution to the bridge of peace” between China and Taiwan. China considers Taiwan a rogue province, and often threatens to take it back by force. When asked about his reaction to receiving the award, Lien said he had never heard of it and had no plans to accept either the Confucius Peace Prize or the $15,000 cash that comes with it. A glass trophy and a wad of cash wrapped in a bow was handed to a six-year-old girl.

What would Confucius think?

The Confucius Peace Prize ceremony in Beijing was a farce. The audience was mostly foreign reporters. A booklet was distributed with an opening paragraph stating that China “should have a greater voice on the issue of world peace,” and “Norway is only a small country with scarce land area and population.” When reporters pressed the chairman of the Confucius Committee with questions about Liu Xiaobo, he refused to mention his name, calling him the man “with the three-character name.” One of the judges started shouting that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize yet is currently holding military exercises with South Korea off the Chinese coast.

Sources

New York Times

The Telegraph

USA Today

The Nobel committee has given Beijing a stinging rebuke of its human rights record by awarding Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Image: laihiu/Flickr

Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, but he probably doesn’t even know it yet. Liu, a Chinese literary critic and the country’s most prominent human rights dissident, is in prison. In awarding Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel committee sent an undeniable message to the Chinese government that it must get its human rights house in order.

Tiananmen Square leader is Nobel laureate

Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is currently serving an 11-year sentence for subversion. The New York Times reports that by awarding the prize to Liu, the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave substance to an international rebuke of Beijing’s growing intolerance of dissent. The Chinese Foreign Ministry referred to Liu as a “criminal,” called his award a “desecration” of the Nobel Peace Prize and said it would damage Norwegian-Chinese relations. Liu has been harassed and arrested repeatedly since 1989, when he organized a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square and later convinced students to peacefully retreat as soldiers stood ready to mow them down.

A history of imprisoned Nobel laureates

Liu Xiaobo can be added to the list of Nobel Peace Prize winners who have been awarded the honor while incarcerated. CNN reports that anti-Nazi journalist Carl von Ossietzky was the first Nobel Peace laureate to get the prize while imprisoned in Hitler’s Germany in the mid-1930s. Unless he is set free to receive the award in Oslo in December, Liu will join others including Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, who were unable to receive their medals in person.

Why Liu’s Nobel has special meaning

While the world has engaged with China as its economy booms, Gady Epstein at Forbes said most countries have looked away as Beijing has brutally suppressed dissent. Epstein writes that many Chinese dissidents who westerners have never heard of are being locked away for “peaceful, noble and brave actions.” He points to human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, more famous than Liu at one time and a rumored Nobel contender until he was dragged away by police and forgotten. Perhaps Liu’s Nobel will force the Chinese government to eventually relent and let its people enjoy the freedom that should complement its new-found economic clout.

The Internet, however, in all its glory as a “series of tubes,” is up for consideration because it has advanced numerous debates on world issues. An Internet gaming platform that attempts to solve world problems as “Urgent Evoke” does is enough to attract attention, although Creative Director Jane McGonigal should get the praise in that case, rather than the entire Internet.

For all the good it does, the Internet also serves to devolve us mentally

Or has Nobel Institute Director Geir Lundestad turned a blind eye to the massive, passive time sink that the bulk of Web surfers know as the online experience? Thousands of individuals and organizations may have nominated the Internet for Nobel Prize, including former Nobel laureates, government officials and professors, but does that mean that the nomination is a good idea? Does the small amount of good debate and outreach outweigh all of the garbage that seeks to obtain your credit card number?

Here are some examples of the “extraordinary power of the Internet”

The Nobel Prize committee has received an extensive report on why the Internet should win Nobel Prize. Thanks to the BBC, we have a short list of Digital giants: movers and shakers in Internet technology who make the Internet Nobel Prize worthy. Don’t think that the $100 laptop project isn’t among the selling points for the Internet’s Nobel Prize campaign.

When will we know if the Internet wins Nobel Prize?

That will be on October 8, 2010, so we have a long way to go. There will be the standard cash prize involved, which should amount to about $1.4 million (10 million Swedish kronor). That’s what President Obama received, and I hope it went straight into stimulating America’s economy.

And who will accept if the Internet wins the Nobel Prize?

Who can say? As you aren’t dealing with any one person or organization, I imagine that the tech giants like Cisco who are responsible for much of the hardware that is the Internet will jockey for position. Hardly as glamorous as a human rights activists like Svetlana Gannushkina or Liu Xiaobo, but we can’t all be tech company CEOs, can we?

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/codiceinternet/ / CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Obama wins the Nobel Prize: For world peace or Miller Time? (Photo: flickr.com)

Theodore Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Jimmy Carter (2002) preceded him in winning. Now President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. This time, however, some people are skeptical. The Norwegian Nobel Committee says he won due to his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” but it remains to be seen whether his nuclear disarmament efforts will bear fruit. And with the rate at which taxpayer dollars are being used to bail nearly everything and everyone one, we may need a short term personal loan or two to fund the missile disposal.

Jump the Shark Lately?

If you ask the Taliban (and I know they’re the first people most of us consult in matters of peace), Obama’s choice as the Nobel Peace Prize recipient is questionable. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid exclaimed to Reuters via telephone, “The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the ‘Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians.’” Of course, you can’t please everyone all the time. But perhaps we should have waited to see if peace is the actual result before giving President Obama the award. That’s reasonable, and I’m not Taliban.

Some World Leaders Agree

Japanese President Yukio Hatoyama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appear to look at the Obama Nobel Prize from the standpoint of possible future gains. They think it should encourage other nations to assist him in achieving the nuclear disarmament goal.

Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat sees it as a sign for the Middle East that peace in their time is possible. He’d like to see a return to the Israel/Palestine borders that existed in 1967, where Israel would withdraw and Palestine would be left to exist as an independent state with Jerusalem as the capital city. As Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak sees it, the Obama Nobel Prize should enhance the America president’s ability “to contribute to establishing regional peace in the Middle East and a settlement between us and the Palestinians that will bring security, prosperity and growth to all the peoples of the region.” Just exactly where the lines in the sand would be drawn with such a settlement tends to fuel the flame of conflict, however. We’ll see what Obama can do there, if anything.

Hamas Has a Bone to Pick

What a shocker! Despite Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck’s contention Barack Hussein Obama is a pal of radical Islam, Hamas is up in arms over the Obama Nobel Prize. I hope Glenn doesn’t see what they’re saying about Obama’s policy, because he may not have enough tears to go around. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told Reuters that “(Unless U.S. policy changes regarding) recognizing the rights of the Palestinian people, I would think such a prize would be useless.”

“Waiting For Deeds, Not Words”

That’s what Lebanese Hezbollah parliament member Hassan Fadallah had to say about the Obama Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, that’s what many Americans are saying about President Obama on the domestic front so far, but I’m willing to give him more time. Being president is just among the toughest jobs imaginable, and for that reason I’m not quite so willing as some to jump on the “bash George Bush” bandwagon as others. President Obama certainly doesn’t lack in oratory skills, but I believe we need to let the sand of time pass before we even begin to talk about his legacy. I still think he’s in his “probationary period,” to use corporate talk. There’s much to do in a world gripped by financial difficulty.

But Expectations Are Rising

Will the Obama Nobel Prize raise the pressure on America’s president? Irene Khan of Amnesty International thinks so. “We look to him for decisive action to pursue peace with justice in the Middle East, end the rollback on human rights in the name of counter terrorism and reinforce the fight against poverty at a time of economic crisis,” she said.

Other notable world figures like Poland’s Lech Walesa and South Africa’s Desmond Tutu see promise in Obama, but they tend to agree that we need to see how things play out.

What Won Obama the Nobel Prize?

To cast so levity on the Obama Nobel Prize situation, humorist Andy Borowitz wrote that it was “Beergate” that tipped the tap. The beer summit between President Obama, Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley (invite Aleister and you would have had a different summit altogether) supposedly swayed the Nobel Prize Committee. In Borowitz’s version of events, a Nobel official claimed that “someone brought up the beer summit, and we all agreed that that was awesome.” Not only that, but it was “a tribute to the healing power of beer.”

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So long as you aren’t going to drive or operate heavy machinery and you have a vital political summit to host, perhaps the healing power of hops can set you to stepping. If recessionary economics set upon your budget, perhaps a short term personal loan can help with the morning after.

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