Finally, a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

[RallyJon]

What, they ran out of simpering dimplomats who negotiate when they should be shooting? They ran out of third world tyrants who cut back on killing their own people for a month or two? They ran out of washed up politicians whose idea of peace is shaking hands and a treaty good for a year at best?

Good choice: some guys who really make a difference...

Never underestimate the power of an economist to change the world.

In 1974 Muhammad Yunus led his students at Chittagong University on a field trip to a poor Bangladeshi village. They met a woman who made bamboo stools, but whose profits were eaten up by the extortionate rates of local lenders. Yunus started lending money himself in the form of "micro-loans" and in 1976 the Grameen Bank Project was born.

The bank now covers nearly 70,000 villages and makes small loans to more than 6 million customers. It is remarkable in many ways: almost all of its borrowers are women, and the loan recovery rate is above 98 per cent, an astonishingly high number.

For its success in lifting the impoverished out of penury across Bangladesh, and for providing the model for a worldwide revolution of micro-credit, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were today awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2402667,00.html

[widebody911]

But wait - I thought all Nobel winners were white?

The Turkish author who wrote about the Armenian genocides was another good choice, IMO. Turkey is in an awkward position, having thrown his ass in jail previously for writing about it, but now they want some of the glory...