December, 09 2009, 12:09pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nick Berning, +45 30 48 31 73 (Denmark)
Kelly Trout, +1 202 222 0722 (United
States)
Obama to Receive Prize Based on Promise He Has Failed to Keep
COPENHAGEN
Friends of the Earth members had the following statements prior to U.S.
President Barack Obama's December 10 acceptance of his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
STATEMENT OF
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH-INTERNATIONAL CHAIR NNIMMO BASSEY, WHO HEADS ENVIRONMENTAL
RIGHTS ACTION IN NIGERIA:
"President
Obama has been rewarded the Nobel Prize in large part due to his vision for a
better future and his ability to inspire hope that bold
change is possible. We congratulate him on this honor, but he has not kept true
to the vision he articulated during his campaign.
"President
Obama pledged to solve climate change, but the United States is now playing a
harmful role on the global stage. At climate negotiations in Copenhagen, U.S.
delegates are working to undermine existing agreements and shirk their
country's responsibilities as the world's largest historical polluter. They are
working to protect the interests of rich nations that caused the climate
crisis, instead of heeding developing countries' call for a strong and fair
treaty.
"President
Obama's legacy will not be determined by an award; it will be determined by his
accomplishments. We urge President Obama to find in his award the inspiration
necessary to re-think his administration's approach. He must commit the United States
to partner with the world's poorest nations to solve climate change in a
just and equitable way, with far larger emissions reductions and much more
money on the table than he is currently proposing."
STATEMENT OF ERICH PICA, PRESIDENT OF FRIENDS OF THE EARTH U.S.:
"President
Obama is doing a better job than his predecessor, but this does not mean he
should receive a Nobel Prize. Indeed, he is holding the world back from solving
the climate crisis -- the most pressing global challenge of our time. We
welcome many of the steps our president has taken to promote clean energy,
including making job-creating investments in clean technology and moving to
implement to the Clean Air Act after
years of Bush administration delay. But the fact remains, we cannot solve
global warming without a strong and just global agreement, and President Obama
has thus far refused to partner with developing countries in a way that could
make such an agreement possible."
STATEMENT OF LARS HALTBREKKEN, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH NORWAY:
"President
Obama comes to Norway
to receive his Nobel Prize even though he has failed to show the leadership on
climate change that should be expected of a Nobel Prize recipient. This
provides an opportunity to Norweigan Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. He can
use the Nobel Prize Ceremony to make a profound impact on the climate summit in
Copenhagen by
urging the Obama administration to start supporting a truly fair and effective
agreement -- and to stop standing in the way."
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
Russia's Putin Secures Another Term
The controversial leader won a record number of votes for a post-Soviet candidate even as opponents organized a protest at noon on the election's third and last day.
Mar 17, 2024
Despite protests on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin won reelection with more votes than any candidate since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Exit poll the Public Opinion Foundation (POF) put the final tally after three days of voting at 87.8%, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) at 87%, and Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) at 87.3%. Putin will now serve another six-year term, meaning he will have been at the helm of the Russian state for longer than any leader since Catherine the Great, surpassing Josef Stalin.
The election comes less than a month after the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and is likely to lead to more tensions between the Russian and U.S. governments.
"It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia."
"For a U.S. administration that hoped Putin's Ukraine adventure would be wrapped up by now with a decisive setback to Moscow's interests, the election is a reminder that Putin expects that there will be many more rounds in the geopolitical boxing ring," Nikolas Gvosdev, director of the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told the Russia Matters project.
With most of Putin's prominent opponents either dead, imprisoned, or in exile, the elections results were considered a foregone conclusion by both friends and foes of his administration.
A Putin spokesperson said in 2023 that the election was "not really democracy" but instead "costly bureaucracy," according to CNN. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the election was "obviously not free nor fair."
However, Russian opponents of Putin did find a way to demonstrate their position with a protest called "Noon Against Putin." The protest was called for by St. Petersburg politician Maxim Reznik, according to The Guardian. Participants were instructed to head to a polling place at noon and cast a paper ballot for one of the candidates running against Putin, or to write-in another candidate or spoil their ballot.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had endorsed the protest before his death last month in a Russian prison, leading the Independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper to dub it "Navalny's political testament."
The action drew crowds to polling places both in Russian cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg and at Russian embassies around the world.
"This is the first time in my life I have ever seen a queue for elections," one woman waiting in line in Moscow told
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Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who had also endorsed the protest, voted at the embassy in Berlin, while several protesters gathered outside the embassy in London.
"I expected there to be a lot of people, but not this many," London-based participant Maria Dorofeyeva told The Guardian, adding, "It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia. And we want to stop it."
Ruslan Shaveddinov of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation told Reuters:
"We showed ourselves, all of Russia and the whole world that Putin is not Russia (and) that Putin has seized power in Russia."
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The U.S. was one of many Western countries that paused funding for UNRWA after the agency announced in January that it had fired 12 staffers over Israeli allegations that they had been involved in Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel. However, some countries including Canada, Sweden, the European Union, and Australia have since restored funding. A report has also emerged that Israel tortured UNRWA staffers into falsely confessing to involvement in the Hamas attack.
"Netanyahu has wanted to get rid of UNRWA because he had seen them as a means to continue the hopes of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own."
Van Hollen's remarks on Sunday come days after he argued for the restoration of UNRWA funds on the floor of the U.S. Senate and criticized Republican legislators who wanted to permanently end funds for the organization that supports some 6 million Palestinian refugees in countries across the Middle East, including around 2 million in Gaza.
During his speech, he pointed out that the Netanyahu government had not shared the underlying evidence that UNRWA staffers participated in October 7 with either UNRWA itself or the U.S. government. He also urged his colleagues to read a classified Director of National Intelligence report on Netanyahu's claims of UNRWA complicity with Hamas.
On "Face the Nation," Van Hollen said that the person in charge of operations on the ground in UNRWA was a 20-year U.S. Army veteran.
"You can be sure he is not in cahoots with Hamas," the senator told Brennan.
He also repeated claims that Netanyahu has wanted to eliminate UNRWA entirely since at least 2017.
"Netanyahu has wanted to get rid of UNRWA because he had seen them as a means to continue the hopes of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own," Van Hollen said, adding that the right-wing Israeli leader's "primary objective" was preventing the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, the dismantling of UNRWA would be especially catastrophic amid Israel's ongoing bombardment and invasion of Gaza, which has killed more than 31,000 people and put the survivors at risk of famine. No other organization has the infrastructure in place to distribute the necessary aid.
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Van Hollen also repeated his call for President Joe Biden to condition the sale of offensive military weapons to Israel on the country obeying international law and allowing aid into Gaza. While Israel sent the U.S. a letter saying it was in compliance with the law, "the day it was signed, clearly the Netanyahu government is not in compliance, because we see that they're continuing to restrict humanitarian assistance," he told Brennan.
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Russell said that not enough aid was reaching those who needed it, calling both air drops and sea deliveries "a drop in the bucket."
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In the USA Today interview, Gore also named the fossil fuel industry when asked about his greatest frustration.
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