Quote Originally Posted by DrBaldhead View Post
I'd rather strip Gorbachev from his Nobel prize.
yes, and Obama....
In fact most people who had it recently! It's just become a stamp for approval of whatever is politically correct.

Obama got it because of his skin colour - what did he ever do for peace in the first year of his presidency - how ridiculous!
He's since become a war criminal and ought to return it.

The EU was relatively deserving actually because whatever else you think about the EU, it works for keeping the peace between its' members, at least. And if you look at the history that is extremely rare in Europe. But of course, the price of it was first the split of the Cold War. then being a USA puppet continent and now the messed up economic system and the exploitation of richer EU areas of poorer ones, labour migration and the dominance of the big 3 countries over the rest.

Quote Originally Posted by sergei View Post
Nobel Peace Prize is too politized and west-oriented stuff. I think Putin refuses an award, because in Russia many people believe that it is an award for dissidents and traitors.
I think we all know that Putin will not get it, exactly because it's so "West oriented" and Putin is not that way inclined.
But sure - why not return it? It's clearly meaningless - a previous winner got it while his country were involved in no less than 2 official wars and several more clandestine ones.

I really respect Russia for how its handled Syria -- really well and cleverly. I also respect that Russia sticks with its commitments to other countries and behaves in a principled way with regards to foreign politics. One would hope that this type of approach pays off in the longer perspective, rather than shortsighted un-principled opportunistic foreign policy of other countries.

People around the world will learn from the Syria situation that Russia does not abandon countries or existing agreements just because the wind changes, and that it values peace above war and is prepared to pay a price for sticking with principles and commitments in foreign policy.

It's pretty obvious that the prize usually goes to dissidents in countries that the West doesn't like or is suspicious about... or people who are doing something politically correct, not necessarily related to peace.
The Scandinavian bias is rather blatant.

A few of the Swedish people who won it have since fallen COMPLETELY out of political favour, so its rather amusing to note that they are Nobel prize winners.

I note that a Vietnamese person apparently declined the prize! Very cool gesture.

I think they should stick with science which is a lot less subjective. Nobel (was Swedish) was NOT a political person at all, and had some rather cool ideas about society. I don't think he would agree at all with how the Peace and Economy prizes are used in his name.
2012: The European Union (EU)
2011: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), Tawakkul Karman (Yemen)
2010: Liu Xiaobo (China)
2009: Barack Obama (US)
2008: Martti Ahtisaari (Finland)
2007: Al Gore (US) and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
2006: Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) and the Grameen Bank
2005: International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei (Egypt)
2004: Wangari Maathai (Kenya)
2003: Shirin Ebadi (Iran)
2002: Jimmy Carter (US)
2001: Kofi Annan (Ghana) and the United Nations
2000: Kim Dae Jung (South Korea)
1999: Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)
1998: John Hume and David Trimble (Northern Ireland)
1997: Jody Williams (US) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
1996: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta (East Timor)
1995: Joseph Rotblat (Britain) and the Pugwash movement
1994: Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres (Israel) and Yasser Arafat (PLO)
1993: Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk (South Africa)
1992: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala)
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma)
1990: Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union)
1989: Dalai Lama (Tibet)
1988: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1987: Oscar Arias Sanchez (Costa Rica)
1986: Elie Wiesel (US)
1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
1984: Desmond Tutu (South Africa)
1983: Lech Walesa (Poland)
1982: Alva Myrdal (Sweden) and Alfonso Garcia Robles (Mexico)
1981: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1980: Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina)
1979: Mother Teresa (Albania)
1978: Anwar Sadat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel)
1977: Amnesty International
1976: Betty Williams (Britain) and Mairead Corrigan (Northern Ireland)
1975: Andrei Sakharov (Soviet Union)
1974: Sean MacBride (Ireland) and Eisaku Sato (Japan)
1973: Henry Kissinger (US) and Le Duc Tho (Vietnam, declined)
1972: prize not handed out
1971: Willy Brandt (Germany)
1970: Norman Borlaug (US)
1969: International Labour Organisation
1968: Rene Cassin (France)
1967: prize not handed out
1966: prize not handed out
1965: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
1964: Martin Luther King Jr (US)
1963: International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies
1962: Linus Carl Pauling (US)
1961: Dag Hammarskjoeld (Sweden)
1960: Albert Lutuli (South Africa)
1959: Philip Noel-Baker (Britain)
1958: Georges Pire (Belgium)
1957: Lester Pearson (Canada)
1956: prize not handed out
1955: prize not handed out
1954: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1953: George Marshall (US)
1952: Albert Schweitzer (France)
1951: Leon Jouhaux (France)
1950: Ralph Bunche (US)
1949: Lord (John) Boyd Orr of Brechin (Britain)
1948: prize not handed out
1947: Friends Service Council (The Quakers), American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers)
1946: Emily Greene Balch (US), John Raleigh Mott (US)
1945: Cordell Hull (US)
1944: International Committee of the Red Cross
1943: prize not handed out
1942: prize not handed out
1941: prize not handed out
1940: prize not handed out
1939: prize not handed out
1938: Nansen International Office for Refugees
1937: Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (Britain)
1936: Carlos Saavedra Lamas (Argentina)
1935: Carl von Ossietzky (Germany)
1934: Arthur Henderson (Britain)
1933: Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane) (Britain)
1932: prize not handed out
1931: Jane Addams (US) and Nicholas Murray Butler (US)
1930: Nathan Soederblom (Sweden)
1929: Frank Billings Kellogg (US)
1928: prize not handed out
1927: Ferdinand Buisson (France) and Ludwig Quidde (Germany)
1926: Aristide Briand (France) and Gustav Stresemann (Germany)
1925: Sir Austen Chamberlain (Britain) and Charles Gates Dawes (US)
1924: prize not handed out
1923: prize not handed out
1922: Fridtjof Nansen (Norway)
1921: Karl Hjalmar Branting (Sweden) and Christian Lous Lange (Norway)
1920: Leon Victor Auguste Bourgeois (France)
1919: Thomas Woodrow Wilson (US)
1918: prize not handed out
1917: International Committee of the Red Cross
1916: prize not handed out
1915: prize not handed out
1914: prize not handed out
1913: Henri La Fontaine (Belgium)
1912: Elihu Root (US)
1911: Tobias Michael Carel Asser (The Netherlands) and Alfred Hermann Fried (Austria)
1910: Permanent International Peace Bureau
1909: Auguste Marie François Beernaert (Belgium) and Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque (France)
1908: Klas Pontus Arnoldson (Sweden) and Fredrik Bajer (Denmark)
1907: Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (Italy) and Louis Renault (France)
1906: Theodore Roosevelt (US)
1905: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner (Austria)
1904: Institute of International Law
1903: William Randal Cremer (Britain)
1902: Elie Ducommun (Switzerland) and Charles Albert Gobat (Switzerland)
1901: Jean Henri Dunant (Switzerland) and Frederic Passy (France)

I feel a bit connected to all this. I grew up on the island east of Stockholm, in the Baltic sea where Nobel lived, after his family returned to Sweden from St Petersburg. (He actually spent his childhood and young adulthood in imperial Russia).

The house where he lived was walking distance from mine. Noted with amusement that the person who founded a boarding school I attended for 6 years, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Had no idea - I only knew he was a bishop.