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OSLO, Norway – Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Friday night after taking office for a little over 8 months. He was award the prize due to his “extraordinary” diplomatic efforts on the international stage.

Barack Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

“I am both surprised and deeply humbled,” Obama said from the White House Friday morning.

He said he does not “view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments,” but rather as a “call to action” for the United States and other nations tackling global issues.

“I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize,” he added.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.

Sydney Peace Foundation director Stuart Rees said Mr Obama had been given the prize prematurely. Professor Rees said Mr Obama’s win came as a massive shock and he had much work to do if he was to live up to the award.

“We’ve all got our fingers crossed (Obama) can wave his magic wand and make these things happen. Perhaps the Nobel organisation wants to give him a magic wand,” he said. “I think the guy is full of promise but I don’t think the promise has been realised yet particularly in regards the Middle East.”

Mr Obama’s name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to honour the US President. Observers had also suggested there was no obvious candidate for the prize as no major conflicts had been resolved by peaceful means in the past year.

Speculation had focused on Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba and jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia, along with an Afghan women’s rights activist Sima Samar.

Asked whether it was too early to give Mr Obama the prize at a time when the US was fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland last night replied: “If you look at the history of the Peace Prize, we have on many occasions given it to try to enhance what many personalities were trying to do.

“Before he took office the situation was so dangerous. Step by step, he has given the message to the world that he wants to negotiate on all conflicts, strengthen the UN and work for a world without any nuclear arms.

“We had no problem … It was a unanimous decision.”

The Nobel committee praised Mr Obama’s creation of “a new climate in international politics” and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions such as the UN to the centre of the world stage.

The plaudit appeared to be a slap at George W.Bush from a committee that harshly criticised Mr Obama’s predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Rather than recognising concrete achievement, this year’s prize is intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing US conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the US role in combating climate change.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” Mr Jagland said.

“In the past year Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the UN, for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations.”

He added that the committee endorsed “Obama’s appeal that ‘Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges’.”

The first African-American President has brought the Israeli and Palestinian leaders together for a meeting, approved new diplomatic engagement with Iran, Burma and North Korea and signalled a new willingness to attack growing environmental problems.

Mr Obama went to Cairo to make a major speech on relations with the Muslim world, badly tarnished by Mr Bush’s order to invade Iraq. At the UN, he has launched an initiative to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

“The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it’s given to someone … who has the power to contribute to peace,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.

Last year’s Peace Prize winner Matti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president and veteran troubleshooter in international conflicts, said the award should “encourage” Mr Obama’s Middle East peace efforts. “We do not yet have a peace in the Middle East … this time it it was very clear that they wanted to encourage Obama to move on these issues,” Mr Ahtisaari told CNN. “This is a clear encouragement to do something on this issue. I wish him good luck.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Mr Obama was the “appropriate” person to win the prize; however, the Taliban said the US President had “not taken a single step towards peace in Afghanistan”.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer said the honour would raise expectations for the US leader to stand up for human rights around the world.

Ms Kadeer, who has been tipped as a laureate for her fight on behalf of the Chinese minority group, said: “I am very happy that he got it. Now he has to do something with the award. It raises expectations on him to stand up for oppressed nations.”

The Australian contributed to this story

Kim Jong Il

South Korean media reported today that Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, allegedly has a fatal form of cancer. A South Korean cable news channel, citing unnamed Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources, reported that that doctors diagnosed Kim with pancreatic cancer when he had a stroke, last August.

The highly secretive leader of the nuclear state appeared frail and sickly on state television in April, raising questions about his health.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it could not confirm the report, and a unification ministry spokesman, Chun Hae-sung, told reporters he knew nothing of the claims. US officials contacted by Reuters were unable to comment.

Tensions on the peninsula have been running high in recent months, since the North’s nuclear and missile tests, making the stability of the regime a more pressing issue than ever.

Analysts initially suggested Pyongyang was seeking to grab the Obama administration’s attention and force the US to the negotiating table, but some now believe that it is more concerned with shoring up domestic support and ensuring a successful leadership transition.

Kim’s youngest son, 25-year-old Kim Jong-un, is said to have been chosen as his heir, but North Korea has made no such announcement.

Today’s report came a week after Kim attended an annual memorial for his late father, North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung. The appearance was only his second at a state event since his reported stroke last year.

While he looked thin and limped slightly, analysts said his attendance sent out the message that he was still in charge.

Daniel Pinkston, a senior analyst and expert on North Korea at the International Crisis Group, warned that Japanese media had floated many rumours about Kim’s health. He pointed out that the subject was so sensitive that a specific diagnosis of illness seemed “a little odd”, adding: “This kind of information would not be shared easily or casually.”

Patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer typically have a poor prognosis partly because the cancer usually causes no symptoms early on, leading to locally advanced or metastatic disease at time of diagnosis. Median survival from diagnosis is around 3 to 6 months; 5-year survival is less than 5%. With 37,170 cases diagnosed in the United States in 2007, and 33,700 deaths, pancreatic cancer has one of the highest fatality rates of all cancers and is the fourth highest cancer killer in the United States among both men and women. Although it accounts for only 2.5% of new cases, pancreatic cancer is responsible for 6% of cancer deaths each year.

The US National Cancer Institute puts the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer at 5.5%.

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According to The Associated Press the cyber attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was also targeted the White House, the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange.

The initial target included the National Security Agency, Homeland Security Department, State Department, the Nasdaq stock market and The Washington Post. Many of the organizations appeared to successfully blunt the sustained attacks.

The Associated Press obtained the target list from security experts analyzing the attack. It was not immediately clear who might be responsible or what their motives were.

The attack was remarkably successful. Some of the affected government Web sites — such as the Treasury Department, Federal Trade Commission and Secret Service — were still reporting problems days after it started during the July 4 holiday.

Bernie Madoff

Procsecutors asked for 150 years and they got it.  There will be no parole or light of day for Bernard Madoff.  Bernnie Madoff has finally been sentenced to 150 years as the mastermind of a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme perpetrating Wall Street’s biggest investment fraud. Although his victims asked for the maximum and got it, their lives have been virtually destroyed.

Judge Denny Chin said the sentence was a symbolic one for a crime that showed “extraordinary evil” and “took a staggering human tool.” Madoff , addressing the court in a dark suit for about six minutes, said that when he started the scam, he thought he’d be able to “work my way out.” He said he lives in a tormented stated and expressed regret of leaving a “legacy of shame” to his family and grandchildren.” Madoff said his wife Ruth will make a statement later today. He maintained that he acted alone, saying, “How do you excuse lying to brother and sons? How do you excuse lying and deceiving a wife who stood by you for 50 years and still stands by you? There is no excuse for that and I don’t ask for forgiveness.” He then faced his victims in court and said, “I’m sorry.”   Madoff expressed regret before he received the maximum sentence for his crimes.

Watch Bernie Madoff Sentencing Video

Prosecutors continue to look into charges against Madoff’s wife and family.

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Ten thousands of citizens gathered in Kim II Sung Square, as North Korea vowed to enlarge its atomic arsenal and warned of a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” in the event of a U.S. attack.

In Pyongyang, an estimated 100,000 rallyed in the main square, shouting “Let’s smash!” in unison while punching clenched fists in the air, footage from APTN in North Korea showed. A placard showed hands crushing a missile with “U.S.” written on it.

North Korea anti sanctions rally denounces US. Watch video.

The rally came a day after President Barack Obama extended U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea for another year, saying the North’s possession of “weapons-usable fissile material” and its proliferation risk “continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States, according to the White House Web site.

North Korea has organized massive rallies in the past.

North Korea’s “armed forces will deal an annihilating blow that is unpredictable and unavoidable, to any ’sanctions’ or provocations by the US,” Pak Pyong Jong, first vice chairman of the Pyongyang City People’s Committee, told the crowd.

State-run newspapers ran lengthy editorials accusing the U.S. of invading the country in 1950 and of looking for an opportunity to attack again. The editorials said those actions justified North Korea’s development of atomic bombs to defend itself.

The North “will never give up its nuclear deterrent … and will further strengthen it” as long as Washington remains hostile, Pyongyang’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

The new U.N. resolution—passed to punish Pyongyang after its May 25 nuclear test—seeks to clamp down on North Korea’s trading of banned arms and weapons-related material by requiring U.N. member states to request inspections of ships carrying suspicious cargo.

North Korea has said it would consider any interception of its ships a declaration of war.

A senior South Korean government official said the ban is believed connected to North Korean plans to fire short- or mid-range missiles. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

The Defense Department says it is prepared if North Korea test fires another ballistic missile. The Reports coming from Asia are saying that the missile test may launch July 4th aimed at Hawaii.

Watch Video

June 14, 2009 – In defiance of new U.N. sanctions, North Korea is promising to increase its atomic bomb-making program while threatening a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.

On Saturday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North’s latest nuclear test.

While Barack Obama is preparing for talks Tuesday with South Korean regarding the North’s missile and nuclear programs, this defiance has to be viewed aa serious threat and dealt with accordingly. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told security-related ministers during an unscheduled meeting Sunday to “resolutely and squarely” cope with the North’s latest threat, his office said. Lee is to leave for the U.S. on Monday morning.

A commentary Sunday in the North’s main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.

North Korea “is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world,” the Tongil Sinbo commentary said.

Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, called the latest accusation “baseless,” saying Washington has no nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry issued a statement Sunday demanding the North stop stoking tension, abandon its nuclear weapons and return to dialogue with the South.

On Saturday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North’s latest nuclear test.

It is not clear if the statements are simply rhetorical. Still, they are a huge setback for international attempts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions following its second nuclear test on May 25. It first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

In Saturday’s statement, North Korea said it has been enriching uranium to provide fuel for its light-water reactor. It was the first public acknowledgment the North is running a uranium enrichment program in addition to its known plutonium-based program. The two radioactive materials are key ingredients in making atomic bombs.

On Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported South Korea and the U.S. have mobilized spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and human intelligence networks to obtain evidence that the North has been running a uranium enrichment program.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report. The National Intelligence Service – South Korea’s main spy agency – was not available for comment.

North Korea said more than one-third of 8,000 spent fuel rods in its possession has been reprocessed and all the plutonium extracted would be used to make atomic bombs. The country could harvest 13-18 pounds (6-8 kilograms) of plutonium – enough to make at least one nuclear bomb – if all the rods are reprocessed.

In addition, North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention.

The new U.N. sanctions are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its rogue nuclear program. The resolution also authorized searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the new U.N. penalties provide the necessary tools to help check North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The sanctions show that “North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community,” Clinton said Saturday at a news conference in Canada.

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Republican leaders are looking forward to the 2010 midterm congressional elections. Their case is that Obama is spending recklessly. It is true that George W. Bush and democratic congress contributed to our economic mess by excessive borrowing and expansion of entitlement, but at what point do the fiscal choices and excessive spending now become Obama’s responsibility?

“The reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole,” Obama said last week. “And digging our way out of it will take time, patience and some tough choices.”

If the previous administration’s fiscal policies were reckless, then why is Obama’s spending policies (which are magnified from the previous administration) not being viewed as reckless? How do you dig one’s way out of the mess by doing more of the same?

During a town hall forum in New Mexico last month, Obama acknowledged that the “long-term deficit and debt that we have accumulated is unsustainable.” The statement followed several fiscal reform initiatives, including changes in defense procurement policy, that advisers say will save tens of billions of dollars a year.

Other measures proposed appear have an air of desperation. In April, he publicly instructed his Cabinet secretaries to find $100 million in savings, a fraction of the more than $3 trillion annual budget.

“Everything that the White House does concerning this deep recession contains an element of gambling because no one has been here before,” said Robert B. Reich, labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “There’s no formula that can be applied, and that’s why the president’s popularity and credibility are vitally important.”

Reich noted, “Very soon we’ll be in the gravitational pull of the midterm elections, and it seems clear that Republicans want to challenge Obama on the economy and will run on tax cuts, deficit reduction, and a much more scaled-down and privatized health-care plan.”

“If they can get their act together and come up with something that is halfway respectable, and if the public begins to lose patience by Election Day, Democrats could have some real problems,” he said. “And those problems, of course, could possibly extend through 2012.”

Obama’s spending plans reflects a fiscal philosophy that differs from that of the last Democratic administration.

I fear we are gambling with our country’s future. Nowhere in history has spending of this magnitude been a solution to long term economic expansion.

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Sonia Sotomayor

 The following are the opinions and  previous rulings that Sonia Sotomayor has made while serving as a judge. She is considered a political centrist by the American Bar Association Journal and other sources and organizations. Several lawyers, legal experts, and news organizations also identify her as someone who has liberal inclinations.

1994 Baseball Strike
On March 30, 1995, as a district judge, Sotomayor issued the preliminary injunction against Major League Baseball, preventing MLB from unilaterally implementing a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and using replacement players. Her ruling ended the 1994 baseball strike after 232 days, the day before the new season was scheduled to begin. The Second Circuit upheld Sotomayor’s decision and denied the owners’ request to stay the ruling.

Copyright
In New York Times Co. v. Tasini, freelance journalists sued the New York Times Company for copyright infringement for the New York Times’ inclusion in an electronic archival database (LexisNexis) the work of freelancers it had published. Sotomayor (who was then a District Judge) ruled that the publisher had the right to license the freelancer’s work. This decision was reversed on appeal, and the Supreme Court upheld the reversal; two dissenters (John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer) took Sotomayor’s position.

In Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, Sotomayor ruled as a district judge that a book of trivia from the television program Seinfeld infringed on the copyright of the show’s producer and did not constitute legal fair use. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld Sotomayor’s ruling.

Abortion
In the 2002 decision Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush,[55] Sotomayor upheld the Bush administration’s implementation of the Mexico City Policy, which states that “the United States will no longer contribute to separate nongovernmental organizations which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” Sotomayor held that the policy did not constitute a violation of equal protection, as “the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds.”
First Amendment rights In Pappas v. Giuliani,  Sotomayor dissented from her colleagues’ ruling that the NYPD could terminate an employee from his desk job who sent racist materials through the mail. Sotomayor argued that the First Amendment protected speech by the employee “away from the office, on [his] own time,” even if that speech was “offensive, hateful, and insulting,” and that therefore the employee’s First Amendment claim should have gone to trial rather than being dismissed on summary judgment.

In Dow Jones v. Department of Justice, Sotomayor sided with the Wall Street Journal in its efforts to obtain and publish a photocopy of the suicide note of former White House Counsel Vince Foster. Sotomayor ruled that the public had “a substantial interest” in viewing the note and enjoined the Justice Department from blocking its release.

 
Second Amendment Rights
Sotomayor was part of the three-judge Second Circuit panel that affirmed the district court’s ruling in Maloney v. Cuomo Maloney was arrested for possession of nunchakus, which are illegal in New York; Maloney argued that this law violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Second Circuit’s per curiam opinion noted that the Supreme Court has not, so far, ever held that the Second Amendment is binding against state governments. On the contrary, in Presser v. Illinois, a Supreme Court case from 1886, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment “is a limitation only upon the power of Congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state.” With respect to the Presser v. Illinois precedent, the panel stated that the recent Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller (which struck down the district’s gun ban as unconstitutional) “does not invalidate this longstanding principle.” Thus, the Second Circuit panel upheld the lower court’s decision dismissing Maloney’s complaint.

Fourth Amendment Rights
In N.G. ex rel. S.G. v. Connecticut, Sotomayor dissented from her colleagues’ decision to uphold a series of strip searches of “troubled adolescent girls” in juvenile detention centers. While Sotomayor agreed that some of the strip searches at issue in the case were lawful, she would have held that due to the “the severely intrusive nature of strip searches,” they should not be allowed “in the absence of individualized suspicion, of adolescents who have never been charged with a crime.” She argued that an “individualized suspicion” rule was more consistent with Second Circuit precedent than the majority’s rule.

In Leventhal v. Knapek, Sotomayor rejected a Fourth Amendment challenge by a Department of Transportation employee whose employer searched his office computer. She held that “even though [the employee] had some expectation of privacy in the contents of his office computer, the investigatory searches by the DOT did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights” because here “there were reasonable grounds for suspecting” the search would reveal evidence of “work-related misconduct.”

 
Employment Discrimination
Sotomayor was a member of a Second Circuit panel in a high-profile case that upheld without significant comment a lower court decision backing the right of the City of New Haven to throw out its promotional test for firefighters and start over with a new test, because the City believed the test had a “disparate impact” on minority firefighters and it might therefore be subject to a lawsuit from minority firefighters under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if it certified the test results. (No black firefighters qualified for promotion under the test, whereas some had qualified under tests used in previous years.) Several white firefighters who had passed the test, including the lead plaintiff who has dyslexia and had put much extra effort into studying, sued the City of New Haven, claiming that their rights were violated because the test was thrown out. The case was recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court as Ricci v. DeStefano, and a ruling has not yet been issued.

 
Antitrust
In Clarett v. National Football League Sotomayor upheld the NFL’s eligibility rules requiring players to wait three full seasons after high school graduation before entering the NFL draft. Maurice Clarett challenged these rules, which were part of the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and its players, on antitrust grounds. Sotomayor held that Clarett’s claim would upset the established “federal labor law favoring and governing the collective bargaining process.” She wrote: “We follow the Supreme Court’s lead in declining to ‘fashion an antitrust exemption [so as to give] additional advantages to professional football players . . . that transport workers, coal miners, or meat packers would not enjoy.’”

 
Civil Rights
In Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., Sotomayor, writing for the court, supported the right of an individual to sue a private corporation working on behalf of the federal government for alleged violations of that individual’s constitutional rights. Reversing a lower court decision, Sotomayor found that an existing Supreme Court doctrine, known as “Bivens” — which allows suits against individuals working for the federal government for constitutional rights violations — could be applied to the case of a former prisoner seeking to sue the private company operating the federal halfway house facility in which he resided. The Supreme Court reversed Sotomayor’s ruling in a 5-4 decision, saying that the Bivens doctrine could not be expanded to cover private entities working on behalf of the federal government. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer dissented, siding with Sotomayor’s original ruling.

 
Property Rights
In Krimstock v. Kelly,  Sotomayor wrote an opinion halting New York City’s practice of seizing the motor vehicles of drivers accused of driving while intoxicated and some other crimes and holding those vehicles for “months or even years” during criminal proceedings. Noting the importance of cars to many individuals’ livelihoods or daily activities, she held that it violated individuals’ due process rights to hold the vehicles without permitting the owners to challenge the City’s continued possession of their property.

In Brody v. Village of Port Chester, a takings case, Sotomayor wrote an opinion remanding the case to the district court for further proceedings on whether Brody had adequate notice of the Village’s condemnation proceedings against his property. (A related proceeding in the lower court was called Didden v. Village of Port Chester. The case has drawn attention from libertarian commentators.

Do you agree with these Sotomayor’s opinions and rulings.? Will Sotomayor be confirmed as the next supreme court justice? We will your comments.

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Taxpayer tea parties are as American as it gets. These protests are made up of people of all party affiliations who are fed up with a government that thinks it knows better than the people. Apparently this administration believes government is the solution, unlike Ronald Reagan, who said government is the problem, not the solution. The government couldn’t even run the post office. They couldn’t even manage their own cafeteria. What a joke. Why anyone in the media wants to discredit this movement, especially MSNBC is beyond me. This movement represents a government for the people and by the people, everything America stands for. I’m proud to be an American, whose roots are founded in the Constitution.

CNBC’s Rick Santelli calls the movement inspirational. “I don’t know about cultural phenomenon, but I’ll tell you what,” Santelli said. “I think that this tea party phenomenon is steeped in American culture and steeped in American notion to get involved with what’s going on with our government. I haven’t organized. I’m going to have to work to pay my taxes, so I’m not going to be able to get away today. But, I have to tell you – I’m pretty proud of this.

He also said despite the claims from others in the media, including people at CNBC’s sister network MSNBC, calling the movement “Astroturf,” Santelli declared it a grassroots movement.

“I think from a grassroots standpoint, I’m sure some of the media out there is not going to peg it that way, but isn’t it about as American as it gets – for people to roll their strollers and make their signs and go voice their opinion about the direction of the country?” Santelli said. “Good, bad or indifferent – that’s a great thing. There’s not a lot of countries, of course, that afford their people that, that type of right. It’s a great thing.”

Americans are standing up for their rights before they may not have any.