Why the Nobel to Obama?

By Andreas S. von Warburg

Yes, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 to US President Barack Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

This year, the Nobel Committee, according to the official website, received 205 nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, of which 33 were organisations. This is the highest number of nominations ever. The last record was in 2005 when the Committee received 199 nominations.

Obama’s video diplomacy with Iran

Source: Reuters | By Matt Spetalnick

President Barack Obama issued an unprecedented videotaped appeal to Iran on Friday offering a “new beginning” of diplomatic engagement to turn the page on decades of U.S. policy toward America’s longtime foe.

Click on the image to watch the video

UK urges America to lead global effort on climate change

Source: The Guardian | by Patrick Wintour and Ewen MacAskill

Gordon Brown yesterday invoked the spirit of American optimism as he challenged Congress to let Barack Obama lead the world away from self-defeating protectionism and the perils of irreversible climate change.

EU’s climate aid to the developing world

Source: Bloomberg | by Jonathan Stearns

European Union governments kept their options open on how to help the developing world pay for climate- change protection, one of the hurdles to reaching a new United Nations accord.

Obama and the EU: an Atlantic agenda for globalization

Source: EU Delegation to the US

The inauguration of incoming President Obama is not just an American event, it is a global event and Europeans are following it with interest and fascination. In a letter sent to the incoming President of the United States, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso outlined his vision for a more outward-looking and engaged transatlantic partnership.

U.S. to airlift supplies to Darfur

Source: The International Herald Tribune | By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

With just 15 days left in office, President George W. Bush announced that he had ordered an immediate airlift to deliver vehicles and equipment to the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan to bolster a struggling international peacekeeping effort there.

In Obama’s team, two camps on climate

Source: The New York Times | by John M. Broder

In the fall of 1997, when the Clinton administration was forming its position for the Kyoto climate treaty talks, Lawrence H. Summers argued that the United States would risk damaging the domestic economy if it set overly ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions. Mr. Summers, then the deputy Treasury secretary, said at the time that there was a compelling scientific case for action on global warming but that a too-rapid move against emissions of greenhouse gases risked dire and unknowable economic consequences.

Poznan: UN head calls for green new deal

Source: Reuters | by Gabriela Baczynska and Megan Rowling

The world must avoid backsliding in fighting global warming and work out a “Green New Deal” to fix its twin climate and economic crises, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday. “We must re-commit ourselves to the urgency of our cause,” Ban told a December 1-12 meeting of 100 environment ministers in Poznan, Poland, reviewing progress toward a new U.N. climate treaty meant to be agreed at the end of 2009.