Piedad Cordoba and the Nobel Peace Prize

To the surprise of a lot of people, including me, Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba was not awarded the Nobel peace prize for her role in the many releases of hostages by the FARC guerrilla in Colombia. The prize was instead awarded to US President Barak Obama, possibly in an strategic move by the Nobel Prize committee, in the same manner that the prize was given to Desmond Tutu in 1984 as explained by Robert Nairman in the Huffington Post.

The Venezuelan Chavista press as well as its political figures are outraged by the announcement, as an international victory in the magnitude of a Nobel prize is impatiently awaited, one that would perhaps reverse the major international setback Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa and Cordoba suffered by the Ingrid Betancourt rescue of June 2008. Shortly after the rescue, the three politicians were forced to silence their shameful plea to recognize "belligerence status" for the FARC after its viciousness was so widely exposed to the entire world, clear and uncensored.

Instead, Cordoba might have to wait another year, or perhaps longer, along characters such as Shlomo Ben-Ami from Israel who lives in that grayzone of almost-Nobel-peace-prize recipients but not quite. Among Cordoba's declarations on the prize announcement was a strange ramble about Obama's possible assasination and thus the urgency for him to keep working for peace: "Obama is being threatened and could be assasined and has to keep himself above the pressures of war, he must keep working for peace."

Nobel peace prize recipients beliefs and ideals are usually elevated for political gain; though, when Desmond Tutu and Henry Kissinger are both prize recipients, people must question the merits of this prize. I believe the hostage releases, even if plagued by the most disgusting Chavista propaghanda in them, are a good reason to nominate the PDVSA financed Cordoba for the prize, but they are certainly not significant enough to earn it. Not in the same manner that Oscar Arias won it in 1987 by getting the peace of accord of Guatemala. To a lesser extent is Barak Obama anywhere near worthy of receiving this prize, though, one must recognize that the potential of an US president armed with a friendly senate and congress is definitely worth awarding the "strategic" Nobel Peace prize.

Democracy Now! NOT reporting death sentence of Iranian dissident

The unfortunate event that Iranian's theocracy is sentecing to death a man involved in the street protests of june will go unreported on Democracy Now!. As reported on the New York times:

"The man sentenced, Muhammad-Reza Ali Zamani, is a member of a group called Kingdom Assembly of Iran, which is considered a terrorist organization in Iran for seeking to replace the Islamic theocracy by restoring the shah to the throne, according to Iranian Web sites.

He was sentenced to death in a verdict issued Monday, according the Website Mowjcamp.com, which said Thursday that he had been taken from Evin prison in Tehran to the revolutionary tribunal, where he was informed of the verdict"

Media outlets have been responsible of saving people's lives such as in the case of academic Hashem Aghajari in 2002, where the media uproar about his conviction resulted in the revocation of his death sentence by Iranian authorities and its further release.

I hope Ali Zamani's sentence is revoked too, but I guess if it happens, Democracy Now! is not going to be thanked for helping. Thank you Amy Goodman!