Prizes of Alfred Nobel will be presented on December, 10
How will the world perceive the solemn walk of the ex-president of Finland Martii Ahtisaari on the victory carpet path at the ceremony of presenting of the Nobel Prize in peace? As far as he will get it for … for receiving of independence of Kosovo province, which hasn’t been acknowledged neither by the EU nor by the UNO. Consequently, the present Nobel Prize in peace has become the most debatable one in history.
Officially Ahtisaari has been awarded (it was declared already in October) for the 30-year-old peacemaking activity on different continents and, in particular, for the participation in the settlement of the conflict in Kosovo: he worked out the plan of granting the status of the independent state to the province. However exactly this fact causes the dispute about the decision made by the Norwegian Nobel committee in Oslo: maybe, it is a holiday for Albanians, who live in Kosovo, but it is not a holiday for international society and Serbia. Some Russian politicians contest the decision: “The Prize can not be given for instigation of the war and encouragement of separatism”. And Ahtisaari himself considers the situation to be fully logical, as far as, according to his words, he played a leading part in the settlement of not only the conflict in Kosovo, but also of the regional conflicts in North Ireland, Central Asia and Africa and in the granting of independence to Namibia.
Information. The Nobel Prize was established over one hundred years ago by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel in 5 fields: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Physiology, Literature and in Peace. The scientist granted all his capital (about 31,5 million Swedish crowns) to its financing. According to his will the annual income from this inheritance has to be divided in 5 equal parts between people who to the greatest extent served the humanity in different spheres of life in the previous year. The Prize in Economy was established by the State Bank of Sweden in 1969 in order to commemorate him. After Nobel’s death (1896) the parliaments of Sweden and Norway (countries which then formed an intergovernmental union) co-ordinated the rewarding terms during four years and the presentation of the Prizes began in 1901. But it should be noticed that not every year it is possible to define honorable candidates. That is why the Prize was not presented in 1916, 1917, 1919, 1924 and 1933, and also from 1940 to 1942 inclusive.
The year 2008 favored the world with c a new cohort of Nobel laureates in all other nominations too.
Українська редакція
