Free Republic

Uganda's Pastor Umar Mulinde had the incredible courage to convert from Islam to Christianity, and even to become a Christian minister, well knowing the mortal risk he was taking. Islam prescribes the death penalty for apostates, those who leave Islam. This is how Islam has conquered peoples and maintained its position: through the sword, waging war against infidels and beheading apostates. If there were no death penalty for apostasy, there would be no Islam. This is what cleric and prominent leader of the (now the West's ally) Muslim Brotherhood Yusuf al-Qaradawi says, on video: "If they left apostasy (rida)...

Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani activist who was the target of an assassination attempt by the Taliban in 2012 has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by three members of the Norwegian parliament from the ruling Labor Party. Yousufzai is a vocal advocate for women's education and rights. She was shot in the head by Taliban terrorists but survived...

Like no cabinet secretary before, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is being sent off with a huge thank you from the Democratic Party and some of her supporters are even urging the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to give the award to her and her husband Bill Clinton. A new petition on Change.org calls on the committee to present the prize to Hillary for her work around the world for President Obama and Bill Clinton for his post-presidential international involvement. "President and Mrs. Clinton have had a lasting impact upon promoting peace in this world. Both have reached out to...

Rita Levi-Montalcini, a biologist who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the cell, died at her home in Rome on Sunday, Dec. 30. She was 103 and had worked well into her final years. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, announcing her death in a statement, called it a great loss "for all of humanity." He praised her as someone who represented "civic conscience, culture and the spirit of research of our time." Italy's so-called "Lady of the Cells," a Jew who lived through anti-Semitic discrimination...

A group of Nobel peace-prize winners, prominent artists and activists issued a call for a “comprehensive military embargo against Israel” following the recent hostilities in Gaza. In a letter, the group denounces the United States, European Union and several developing countries for what it describes as their "complicity" through weapons sales and other military support for the Jewish state, The Guardian reported. The 52 signatories include the Nobel peace laureates Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Perez Esquivel; film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach; author Alice Walker; notorious anti-Israel academic Noam Chomsky; Roger Waters of Pink Floyd; and Stephane Hessel, a...

WASHINGTON -- Shinya Yamanaka, a scientist at Kyoto University, loved stem-cell research. But he didn't want to destroy embryos. So he figured out a way around the problem. In a paper published five years ago in Cell, Yamanaka and six colleagues showed how "induced pluripotent stem cells" could be derived from adult cells and potentially substituted, in research and therapy, for embryonic stem cells. This week, that discovery earned him a Nobel Prize, shared with British scientist John Gurdon. But the prize announcement and much of the media coverage missed half the story. Yamanaka's venture wasn't just an experiment. It...

Once again, the toothless committee of unexceptional Norwegians has bestowed the world’s highest honor not for achievement, but for expectation. Hey EU! Kissinger and Obama are waiting to congratulate you backstage. In case you thought the crumbling, ineffective, and overly-bureaucratic European Union was on life-support, the Eurozone in danger of splintering, and the single currency on the verge of collapse, a group of unexceptional Norwegians would like you to remember that the 27 member states of the EU are, in fact, the global bulwark against war and misery. But when the Nobel Committee announced in Oslo on Friday that it...

Has the committee which runs the Nobel Peace Prize been infiltrated by satirists or opponents keen on discrediting the organisation? Norwegian radio reports this morning, carried by Reuters, suggested that the European Union is to be awarded the prize for supposedly keeping the peace in Europe for the last sixty years. Was this a Nordic spoof? Apparently not. It is only a few years since President Obama was ludicrously awarded the Nobel peace prize for winning the 2008 election and not being George Bush. Since then Mr Obama has continued the war in Afghanistan, stepped up drone attacks and got...

John B. Gurdon of the U.K. and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan shared this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in so-called cellular reprogramming, which has unleashed a wave of advances in everything from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using stem cells.... It also allows scientists to create human embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos, sidestepping an approach that has long been fraught with ethical controversies. Most important, perhaps, it has significantly advanced the prospect of using a patient's own mature cells to create fresh tissue and treat disease.

This year's Nobel prize season kicks off Monday with rumours suggesting the peace prize could go to Egypt's Maggie Gobran for helping Cairo's poor, Afghan burka opponent Sima Samar or US scholar Gene Sharp. The first Nobel to be announced this year will be the medicine prize on Monday, when the jury in Stockholm reveals the winner or winners around 11:30 am (0930 GMT.) Like every year, most of the speculation in the run-up to the announcements focuses on who will take home the prestigious peace and literature prizes. Betting sites have become a popular feature of the guessing game...

Jon Lovitz ✔ @realjonlovitz I didn't build my business, either. pic.twitter.com/I8w9BLks

Interior Minister Eli Yishai has banned German poet Gunter Grass from entering Israel. Yishai declared Grass “persona non grata” in the Jewish State on Sunday, saying his poems were an attempt to “fan the flames of hatred against the state, and against Israel.” If Gunter chooses to spread distortion and falsehood, said Yishai, “I suggest that he do so from Iran, where he can find a [more] receptive audience.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also had harsh words for the 84-year-old poet, saying “In order to get publicity and sell a few books, he once more is willing to sacrifice Jews.”...

PEACE, THEY SAY: A HISTORY OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, THE MOST FAMOUS AND CONTROVERSIAL PRIZE IN THE WORLD Jay Nordlinger What on Earth has happened to the Nobel Peace Prize, which once was easily the world’s most prestigious award? Consider that in 1953, Albert Schweitzer and Gen. George C. Marshall were honored on the same day (with Winston Churchill winning the prize for literature, incidentally). Then fast-forward four decades to the 1990s when it was won by Yasser Arafat and Rigoberta Menchu Tum, the Guatemalan who supported murderous Communist guerrillas and has been accused of fabricating parts of her...

The Nobel Foundation, which administrates the prestigious prizes in line with the will of Alfred Nobel, on Thursday rejected criticism of recent choices for the Peace Prize. "Despite that many lively discussions have been held on whether the chosen Peace Prize laureates fulfilled the prescribed provisions, the Foundation does not consider that the prize decisions made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee have entailed any such deviation," it said in a statement. Swedish authorities had asked the foundation to look into claims from Fredrik Heffermehl, a lawyer and author of the book "The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted," that...

A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a ancient wooden device called a "slide-rule" and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-Gebra is a problem for us," the Attorney General said. "Al-Gebra has terrorized many young people for years. They...

An oldie but goody. Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government's control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama's approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad. The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Obama Underwrites...

No matter how skeptical one is of the authority of “experts,” it’s hard to avoid paying at least some attention to the people who award the Nobel prize — especially when they give one to someone who tends to support some things one tended to believe already. So it is in the case of Thomas Sargent, the New York University professor who was announced Monday as a winner of the Nobel in economics. An interview of Professor Sargent by the Minneapolis Fed in August 2010 summed up some of his contributions succinctly: “policymakers can’t manipulate the economy by systematically ‘tricking’...

The following is an excerpt of my interview with Thorbjørn Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is responsible for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize. In this section, Jagland speaks about whether Obama lived up to the expectations of the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in 2009. The rest of the interview will be published later today covering topics from the tragedy in Norway to Europe's role in Central Asia. Has President Obama lived up to his Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, I think so. I’m as convinced as I was when he got it that he deserved it...

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2011 is awarded to Tomas Tranströmer "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality".

<p>JERUSALEM — JERUSALEM (AP) - When Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman claimed to have stumbled upon a new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate the laws of nature, colleagues mocked him, insulted him and exiled him from his research group.</p>