The Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons, the body overseeing the
destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal, has
won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Committee said it was in honour of the
OPCW's "extensive work to eliminate chemical
weapons".

The OPCW, based in The Hague, was established to
enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
OPCW director general Ahmet Uzumcu said the
award was a "great honour" and would spur it on in
its work.

He said the deployment of chemical weapons in
Syria had been a "tragic reminder that there
remains much work to be done".

The OPCW recently sent inspectors to oversee the
dismantling of Syria's stockpile of chemical
weapons.

It is the first time OPCW inspectors have worked in
an active war zone.

The watchdog picks up a gold medal and 8m
Swedish kronor ($1.25m; £780,000) as winner of the most coveted of the Nobel honours.

'Vindication'
Announcing the award in Oslo, Norwegian Nobel
Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said it
wanted to recognise the OPCW's "extensive work".
"The conventions and the work of the OPCW have
defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo
under international law," he said.
"Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons
have again been put to use, have underlined the
need to enhance the efforts to do away with such
weapons."

The OPCW's Ahmet Uzumcu said the organisation
had been working "with quiet determination to rid
the world of these heinous weapons", away from the spotlight, for the past 16 years.
He said the Syria mission was the first time the
OPCW had worked to such a short timeframe and in an ongoing conflict, and that it was "conscious of the enormous trust" placed on it by the international community.
Praising the commitment of his staff and the support of member states, he said the Nobel Peace Prize would "spur us to untiring effort, even stronger commitment and greater dedication" to bring about a world free of chemical weapons".

The OPCW is made up of 189 member states and the principal role of its 500-strong staff is to monitor and destroy all existing chemical weapons.
It draws on a network of some of the best
laboratories and scientists in the world to help it in
its work, the BBC's science correspondent Pallab
Ghosh says.

The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention has
contributed to the destruction of nearly 80% of the
world's chemical weapons stockpile.
Syria is expected to sign the treaty in the coming
days.

French President Francois Hollande said the Nobel
prize was a "vindication" of the international efforts
in Syria and pledged continued support for the
OPCW's work there and elsewhere.

Notable omission
There were a record 259 nominees for this year's
Peace Prize, but the list remains a secret.
Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai
and gynaecologist Denis Mukwege of the
Democratic Republic of Congo had been tipped as
favourites to take the award.
Others who had been listed as contenders were
Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), the
US soldier convicted of giving classified documents
to Wikileaks and Maggie Gobran, an Egyptian
computer scientist who abandoned her academic
career to become a Coptic Christian nun and
founded the charity Stephen's Children.
But an hour before Friday's announcement, NRK
reported the award would go to the OPCW.
The European Union won the prize in 2012 in
recognition of its contribution to peace and
reconciliation, democracy and human rights in
Europe.

Previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates include anti-
apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, US President
Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and Burmese
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel Committee has in the past publicly
regretted never awarding the prize to Mahatma
Gandhi, the pacifist leader of the Indian nationalist
movement against British rule, even though he was
nominated five times.

Abu Mikey:

SOURCE

sKeetz: End Time Prize!

You wen just dey serve ban finish