The astounding news has reached the baffled ears and eyes of the world today that the Storting, Norway’s national Parliament, has incongruously decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the American President Barack Obama. The official statement appears to imply it is essentially an award of encouragement, which is itself also strange – so far, Nobel Peace Prizes had almost always been given either for lifetime achievement or for a specific occasion, such as a peace treaty. Recently, the Storting committee had expanded its range somewhat by including activism for environmental issues as well as for providing credit to the Third World ‘deserving poor’, but this seems another territory altogether. Continue reading “Obama’s Nobel Prize”