Thai PM nominated for China's Confucius Peace Prize

BANGKOK, September 10 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been nominated for China's Confucius Peace Prize in 2012, together with other globally-recognized figures. The China International Peace Research Centre, the organizer and sponsor of the Chinese alternative "peace prize", publicly announced nominees of the Chinese 2012 Confucius Peace Prize on Sunday, including Premier Yingluck, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the 11th Panchen Lama, the second-highest Tibetan religious leader after the Dalai Lama appointed by Beijing, Chinese rice researcher Yuan Longping, Peking University Professor Tang Yijie and Chinese social activist Wang Dingguo. Russia's top leader Vladimir Putin won the Chinese alternative peace prize last year for his role in boosting Russia's standing and crushing rebel forces in Chechnya. The Beijing-based China International Peace Research Centre first launched the Confucius Peace Prize in 2010, said to be an attempt to counter the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, which went to Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo who has served an 11-year jail term in China after fighting for political reform in his motherland. (TNA)