London: South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu has won the 2013 Templeton Prize worth $1.7 million for helping inspire people around the world by promoting forgiveness and justice, organisers said on Thursday. A leading human rights activist of the late 20th century, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town played a pivotal role in the downfall of apartheid and subsequently worked to heal wounds in South Africa's traumatised society.
Tutu, 81, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for standing up against white-minority rule. He remains a prominent campaigner for peace and human rights. The Templeton award was announced as his friend and fellow Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela was fighting pneumonia in a third health scare in four months for South Africa's first black president.
Established in 1972 by the late American-born investor and philanthropist John Templeton, the annual prize - worth more, in monetary terms, than the Nobel - honours a living person "who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension".
"When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd it's usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others," Tutu was quoted as saying in a statement released by the US - based foundation....
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12:18 PM, Apr 04, 2013
Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl-turned-icon of Taliban resistance who was shot at has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Fifteen-year-old Malala was targeted for promoting girls' education. ...
10:29 AM, Feb 02, 2013
London: Actress Angelina Jolie has written an essay sharing how she informed her children about Pakistani child activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot early this month. The 14-year-old girl, Pakistan's first National Peace Award winner, was shot and seriously injured by unidentified gunmen in the country's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Oct 9. She is currently being treated in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, Britain. In the essay written in Daily Beast, the...
06:25 PM, Oct 17, 2012
Oslo: The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union (EU) for contributing to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe for over six decades . An hour before the official announcement, Norway's NRK public radio had said that the EU will win the award. The prize, worth $1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10. The decision by the five-member...
02:31 PM, Oct 12, 2012
Oslo: The European Union will win the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its historic role in uniting the continent in an award that plays down the euro zone's debt crisis, Norway's NRK public radio said. The prize, worth $1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10. The decision by the five-member panel, led by Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjoern Jagland, was unanimous, NRK said. "We have had...
02:25 PM, Oct 12, 2012
Twenty-one years after she won the Nobel peace prize, Myanmar's democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi gave her acceptance speech for it on Saturday. ...
09:39 AM, Jun 17, 2012
Geneva: Twenty-four years ago Aung San Suu Kyi left Europe for what was then a military-controlled nation called Burma. She returned on Wednesday as the icon of Myanmar's democracy movement to a continent eager to hear from her whether the country's recent reforms truly spell the end of its cruel dictatorship. The trip is seen as a sign of gratitude to those governments and organisations that supported Suu Kyi's peaceful...
11:07 PM, Jun 13, 2012
Chicago: Poverty, a lack of education and arms proliferation present daunting obstacles, yet peace can be achieved if world leaders are more willing to talk and young people are encouraged to get involved, Nobel Peace Prize winners said on Monday at their annual meeting. Former US President Jimmy Carter and ex-presidents Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union and Lech Walesa of Poland were among the Peace Prize winners in...
02:02 PM, Apr 24, 2012
Yangon: Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi might stand for parliament in an upcoming by-election after her party re-registers itself to enter politics, a party spokesman said. Suu Kyi has been blocked from politics and detained for long stretches of time since returning to her homeland from abroad in 1988. But after holding the first election in 20 years last November, Myanmar's military nominally handed power in March to...
11:47 PM, Oct 30, 2011
Oslo: The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen for their work on women's rights. The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored the three women "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." "I am very very happy about this prize," said Karman, a...
02:39 PM, Oct 07, 2011
Yangon: For the first time in nearly a decade, Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi celebrated her birthday in freedom on Sunday, with supporters freeing symbolic caged birds as more than 50 state security agents watched from across the street. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate turned 66, and received one gift at Yangon's international airport - the arrival of her youngest son, Kim Aris, who lives in Britain and...
09:06 AM, Jun 20, 2011
Guwahati: Archbishop of Guwahati Thomas Menamparampil has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his initiatives to bring peace among ethnic communities of the North East. The Archbishop's name has been nominated by a popular Italian magazine 'Il Bollettino Salesiano' which also published a four-page story on Menamparampil in its June edition titled 'A Bishop for Nobel Prize'. "I had not expected the nomination, but was overwhelmed...
01:29 PM, Jun 13, 2011
Oslo: Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, the Internet and a Russian human rights activist are among a record 241 nominations for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Tuesday that the 2011 field includes 53 organisations and tops last year's 237 nominees. Known nominees also include Afghan rights advocate Sima Samar, the European Union, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, Russian rights group Memorial...
10:57 AM, Mar 02, 2011
Dhaka: Eminent people from across the world have formed "Friends of Grameen", vowing to protect the micro-credit pioneer and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus from "politically orchestrated" attacks. Over 50 charities and public figures, including former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, former chief justice of India JS Verma and French-born American actress Yeardley Smith have joined hands to form the voluntary body. Former Irish president Mary Robinson has also joined the...
04:18 PM, Feb 18, 2011
Prof Mohammad Yunus, founder of the pioneering microcredit institution 'Grameen Bank', thwarted the allegations of fraud against him. ...
10:58 AM, Feb 17, 2011
Oslo, Norway: A Norwegian lawmaker has nominated WikiLeaks for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, saying that its disclosures of classified documents promote world peace by holding governments accountable for their actions. The Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps candidates secret for 50 years, but those with nomination rights sometimes make their picks known. Snorre Valen, a 26-year-old legislator from Norway's Socialist Left Party, told The Associated Press he handed in his nomination...
11:38 AM, Feb 03, 2011
Beijing: The wife of China's imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was able to leave house arrest for a family meal while President Hu Jintao was visiting the United States last week but she is still unable to visit her husband in jail, a rights group said today. It was the first known time that Liu Xia has been able to leave house arrest since October, shortly after her...
07:17 PM, Jan 28, 2011
China heavy handed tactics to keep news about Liu Xiaobo out of public sight before the ceremony at Oslo is a measure to silence dissidents. ...
12:26 PM, Dec 11, 2010
In Beijing, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia remains under house arrest. ...
09:50 AM, Dec 11, 2010
New Delhi: The pitch for the release of Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo has gathered fresh momentum with more than 500 high-profile literary signatories from around the world joining ranks with the Internationales Literaturfestival-Berlin. The litterateurs who have joined the crusade against Xiaobo's detention include the likes of John Ashbery, Wolf Biermann, Breyten Breytenbach, Hans Christoph Buch, Judith Butler, J.M. Coetzee, Dave Eggers, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller, Salman Rushdie...
07:30 PM, Dec 10, 2010
