Bosnian groups have nominated former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad for the Nobel Peace Prize for helping the country after its bloody civil war, the Star newspaper reported yesterday.
It said that he was nominated by four civil groups in Bosnia spearheaded by former president Ejup Ganic.
Mahathir was described in their nomination paper as the developing world's "most courageous advocate," the newspaper said.
Under Mahathir, Malaysia provided economic, political and humanitarian aid for Bosnia while it reeled from the trauma of conflict and ethnic cleansing in the 1992 to 1995 civil war.
Mahathir will this week host a conference on exposing war crimes, which he hopes will encourage governments to criminalize war.
When asked to comment on his nomination at a press conference yesterday, Mahathir simply laughed and tried to brush the question aside.
"I don't know about these things. I don't know if I will be asked to accept it or not ... can we have some other more interesting questions?" the former prime minister told reporters.
The deadline for nominations to the Nobel Institute in Oslo closed on Thursday. The winner will be announced in October and the prize will be awarded on Dec. 10. Last year, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank were selected from a list of 191 nominees.
Mahathir, 81, who stepped down in 2003, has seized on the issue of conflict in the Middle East during his retirement.
He launched an unofficial war crimes tribunal last week to focus on victims of abuse in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Mahathir said the international war crimes conference, which will be held in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, from today until Sunday, would highlight testimonies from people tortured and abused in war.
"What we are trying to correct is the thinking of people, the mindset of people ... and spread ideas and perceptions to support what we are subscribing to, which is the criminalization of war," Mahathir said.
The war crimes tribunal would begin its preliminary proceedings with testimonies from witnesses, victims and a panel of expert judges, he said.
"We may not get the accused to come to the court, but trials in absentia have been done before. We think this court will make real, fair decisions," Mahathir said.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS