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Following are some facts about the Nobel Peace Prize:
- The 2009 winner was selected from a record 205 nominees.
- The 2009 prize was awarded to US President Barack Obama for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.
- Mother Teresa refused to attend a Nobel dinner in Oslo when she went to collect her prize in 1979, saying the money would be better spent on the poor. The banquet was cancelled.
- The International Committee of the Red Cross is the most successful winner, with prizes in 1917, 1944 and 1963. Red Cross founder Henri Dunant of Switzerland shared the first award in 1901.
- Protesters threw snowballs at the US ambassador in Oslo when he arrived to collect the 1973 prize on behalf of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for brokering an unsuccessful deal to end the Vietnam war. North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho turned down the joint award, the most controversial in the prize's history.
- Past nominees have included Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
- Hitler banned Germans from accepting Nobel prizes in disgust after the 1935 award went to pacifist anti-Nazi writer Carl von Ossietzky. The ruling affected three German scientists awarded prizes for chemistry and medicine in the late 1930s.
- The 2008 prize was won by Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, for his efforts on several continents and over more than three decades to resolve international conflicts.
- The 2007 prize was won by former US Vice-President Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for raising awareness of the risks of global warming.
- The 2006 Peace Prize was won by Bangladeshi economist Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded for their work to help millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans, pioneering a global movement known as microcredit.
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