Nobel Peace Prize

Readers will be aware that, especially in recent years, the Norwegian Parliament has not used the Nobel Peace Prize for peaceful purposes! Some will remember that when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize it rendered the concept of satire untenable.

I am an admirer of the extremely intelligent and eloquent Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. She survived an assassination attempt by the 'Taliban.' He has since become a worldwide celebrity. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but I was unhappy about this because she deserved better than that. She has already won the Sakharov Prize which, in the eyes of people like me, is the kiss of death.

Malala would have many years to play a useful role in the world.

There was some unexpected and therefore doubly pleasant news from Oslo this week. The Peace Prize was awarded to a venerable organisation: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. I'm really pleased about this although I didn't know much about the organisation nor of the Convention from which it sprang. 

There's a wonderful episode of Democracy Now! (11 October 2013) which explains a lot about the OPCW and I recommend it. It also explains the skullduggery of the US government in its attempts to sabotage it and deals with a US plan to thwart the establishment of a nuclear-free zone throughout the Middle East. Read it!