Oslo braces to welcome 'war president' Nobel laureate

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Barricades were placed along the sidewalks of Oslo's main avenues, between 2,000 and 2,500 police officers have been mobilised, the Schengen-member country reinstated border controls and anti-aircraft missiles were deployed near the airport and around Oslo to ensure the president's security.

Obama steers clear of bioweapons convention in new strategy
Washington (AFP) Dec 9, 2009 - The United States issued a new strategy Wednesday for dealing with a rising threat from biological weapons but stopped short of measures to give teeth to an existing international convention. Instead, the White House said it would step up protections against biological attacks by increasing vigilance and global access to information on disease outbreaks and strengthening norms of scientific conduct. "We will continue to face new and emerging biological threats that will require the coordinated and concerted efforts of a broad range of domestic and international partners," President Barack Obama said in releasing the strategy. The White House paper said risks traditionally associated with state-run germ warfare programs have spread in recent years to extremist groups as technological advances have made it easier and cheaper to produce biological agents.

While the United States has made strides over the past eight years in recognizing and responding to acts of bioterrorism, it said less attention has been paid to developing strategies to prevent attacks. "Although it is entirely feasible to mitigate the impact of even a large-scale biological attack upon a city's population, doing so incurs a significant cost and effort," the paper said. "We therefore need to place increased priority on actions to further reduce the likelihood that such an attack might occur." The paper sets out a series of objectives for the new strategy, broadly aimed at protecting against "the misuse of the life sciences to develop or use biological agents that cause harm." These include efforts to increase access to knowledge and products that can reduce the impact of outbreaks of infectious disease. It calls for activities to reinforce "a culture of responsibility, awareness and vigilance" in the life sciences, and steps to safeguard scientific knowledge and capabilities that could be vulnerable to misuse.

Other objectives are to obtain timely and accurate information on bio threats; expand US capacity to identify and stop those who might carry out an attack; and to promote an international discussion of the threats and steps needed to counter it. But, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Obama refrained from reviving negotiations on a protocol to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which though ratified by 163 countries has no verification mechanism. "We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security," said Ellen Tauscher, a US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, in Geneva. At BWC talks in 2001, the Bush administration scuttled negotiations for such a protocol, saying that intrusive checks could compromise US security and trade secrets.

by Staff Writers
Oslo (AFP) Dec 9, 2009
Helicopters buzzed through central Oslo's grey skies Wednesday as the city beefed up security on the eve of US President Barack Obama's visit to accept his controversial Nobel Peace Prize.

Two military choppers circled above Obama's hotel while others flew over the city centre, their sound reverberating throughout normally-peaceful Oslo as Norway laid on unprecedented security measures for the visit.

"All that noise we are hearing and everything we are seeing, it's a bit creepy," May-Britt Gundersen told AFP as she walked alongside barricades blocking the street facing the Grand Hotel, adding that for Norwegians such a display was "highly unusual."

"Terrorism is the word that comes to mind."

The security deployed for Obama's visit is the largest police operation ever in the Scandinavian country, costing the government around 92 million kroner (10.9 million euros, 16 million dollars) -- more than 10 times the prize money awarded to the Peace Prize laureate.

"It's exciting to see a little bit of action," Gundersen's daughter Helle, walking with her child in a pram, told AFP.

The beefed-up protection was however not necessarily reflective of support for the choice of Obama as the 2009 Peace Prize laureate.

A controversial choice as soon as it was announced on October 9 because of US engagement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, announced only nine days before Thursday's Nobel prize ceremony, raised eyebrows further.

The White House has acknowledged that Obama will accept the prize as a "war president," and will reference the troop surge in his acceptance speech.

"We'll address directly the notion, I think, that many have wondered, which is the juxtaposition of the timing of the Nobel Peace Prize and his commitment to add more troops," spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

In the United States, a December 1-6 Quinnipiac University survey of 2,313 registered voters published Tuesday showed that by a wide margin of 66-26 percent, Americans think Obama does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award is also viewed with mixed feelings in Norway.

A poll published Wednesday in the daily Verdens Gang showed that just 35.9 percent of Norwegians thought Obama deserved the prize, down from 42.7 percent when it was announced in October.

Nearly as many, 33.5 percent, believe he is unworthy of the award that has been handed out for over a century.

Geir Lundestad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told public radio NRK this week that most US presidents face conflicts and wars -- but the new mood in US foreign policy justified Obama's elevation.

Obama will be in Oslo for just over 24 hours to pick up the award that adds him to a list of laureates including Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi.

But White House spokesman Gibbs stressed Wednesday that Obama "understands and again will also recognise that he doesn't belong in the same discussion as Mandela and Mother Theresa."

Events related to the formal Nobel Peace Prize ceremony normally run over three days, but the president has shortened his visit and excluded the traditional lunch with the king and a Friday night concert in his honour.

There will also be no day-before press conference or lengthy CNN sit-down interview laureates usually grant -- enabling him to avoid potentially embarrassing questions.

Obama will however watch the traditional torchlight procession on Thursday evening from the balcony of the Grand Hotel, where bullet-proof glass has been installed.

At the same time, he will also be greeted by some who plan to make sure the prize attribution does not go unquestioned.

Anna Carraro, who was already demonstrating outside the hotel on Wednesday, came to Oslo from Italy to protest against a US military base being built outside Venice, and said she would be part of a demonstration scheduled for Thursday evening outside Grand Hotel.

"We are protesting against him because he is going to have this prize and we don't think he is a man of peace," she told AFP.

The other Nobel laureates in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and literature will meanwhile receive their awards at a gala ceremony in Stockholm on Thursday.

burs/sah/mdl

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Helsinki, Finland (UPI) Dec 9, 2009
Speaking during a joint news conference with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: "We have a shared interest in promoting prosperity and stability in the Asia Pacific region. We have a common stake in peace and development in Afghanistan and in defeating terrorism in South Asia and beyond." Singh clearly noted that progress in Afghanistan ... read more

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