cerberus
10-07-2005, 06:54 AM
OSLO (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog and its head Mohamed ElBaradei won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in an award calculated to help efforts to banish the peril of nuclear arms six decades after Hiroshima.
The Nobel Committee praised the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and ElBaradei, a 63-year-old Egyptian, for work to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to new states and to terrorists, and to ensure safe civilian use of nuclear energy.
ElBaradei learned he had won from television news at home after missing a telephone call to his Vienna office from the Nobel Committee in Norway.
ElBaradei "was very humbled by the announcement. Surprised, humbled", IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said. "He sees this as support to what the agency has been doing in the field of non-proliferation, in the field of disarmament."
Congratulations came from world leaders like Britain's Tony Blair and France's Jacques Chirac, who said he was "delighted". Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the 1990 laureate, praised ElBaradei for doing his job "solidly and responsibly".
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, also a peace laureate, called it "a welcome reminder of the acute need to make progress on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament". The IAEA has had little success in recent standoffs with Iran and North Korea and ElBaradei has faced criticism from many quarters, most recently from both the United States and Iran in his efforts to investigate Tehran's nuclear program.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-07T123437Z_01_EIC641890_RTRUKOC_0_US-NOBEL-PEACE.xml
The Nobel Committee praised the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and ElBaradei, a 63-year-old Egyptian, for work to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to new states and to terrorists, and to ensure safe civilian use of nuclear energy.
ElBaradei learned he had won from television news at home after missing a telephone call to his Vienna office from the Nobel Committee in Norway.
ElBaradei "was very humbled by the announcement. Surprised, humbled", IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said. "He sees this as support to what the agency has been doing in the field of non-proliferation, in the field of disarmament."
Congratulations came from world leaders like Britain's Tony Blair and France's Jacques Chirac, who said he was "delighted". Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the 1990 laureate, praised ElBaradei for doing his job "solidly and responsibly".
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, also a peace laureate, called it "a welcome reminder of the acute need to make progress on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament". The IAEA has had little success in recent standoffs with Iran and North Korea and ElBaradei has faced criticism from many quarters, most recently from both the United States and Iran in his efforts to investigate Tehran's nuclear program.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-07T123437Z_01_EIC641890_RTRUKOC_0_US-NOBEL-PEACE.xml