On the 50th anniversary, in 1995, the prize went to anti-nuclear campaigner Joseph Rotblat and his Pugwash group. “This is a message to all the people of the world: Do what you can to get rid of nuclear weapons,” said Nobel committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes. “The people’s power is formidable.” The committee repeatedly has awarded its peace prize to anti-nuclear weapons campaigners on the major anniversaries of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The Nobel Committee appeared to dismiss those concerns, recognizing the pair “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.” It said: “At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance.” ElBaradei and the agency had been among the favorites to win as speculation mounted that the Nobel committee would seek to honor the victims of nuclear weapons and those who try to contain their use. “The prize was given to someone who did not have success during the year,” he said. “We have to see the prize as, implicitly, an expression of hope that the Iran question can be solved within the IAEA.” Toennesson said it was a bold move for the committee to award the prize to the agency at a time when its members strongly disagree on how to handle Iran “The committee stuck its finger in a wasp’s nest,” he said.

“The award sends a very strong message: ‘Keep doing what you are doing, “‘ he told reporters. “We continue to believe that in all of our activities, we have to be impartial, objective and work with integrity.” Stein Toennesson, director of the Peace Research Institute-Oslo, said the prize was surprising given that the IAEA remains bogged down by Iran and that North Korea has said it has nuclear weapons. Just last month, the IAEA passed a resolution warning Iran it could be referred to the UN Security Council – a move that prompted Iran to threaten to resume uranium enrichment, block some inspections of its nuclear facilities and cut trade ties.
Speaking in Vienna, Austria, where the IAEA is based, ElBaradei said the award reaffirmed the agency’s efforts. Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency that he heads won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize today for their drive to curb the spread of atomic weapons despite lingering standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

ElBaradei, an Egyptian lawyer, has led the UN nuclear agency as it grapples with the crises in Iraq and ongoing efforts to prevent North Korea and Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He owned 50 properties.November 2004:A house belonging to loyalist paramilitary leader and drug dealer Jim Johnston, murdered by rivals, was sold for £410,000.. She was claiming income support.March 2005:A Co Antrim man had £5m in assets frozen after allegations of drug trafficking. They included two petrol stations, a house, an apartment and vehicles.September 2005:A woman who owned and rented 40 properties in Belfast had her assets frozen.

The battlefield has in effect shifted: now the tussle between the authorities and Slab Murphy is a financial rather than a military one.SeizuresSeptember 2005:Assets of £750,000 belonging to two brothers were seized in Newry, Co Down over cross-border fuel smuggling. Yet it seems that, as the process developed, his thinking evolved and he was in the end persuaded to go along with the IRA’s recent voluntary disarmament.But although the IRA’s violent campaign may be over, it seems that it retains its cash and property assets. Mr Murphy has been crucial to the peace process, in that he has always been regarded as a republican “soldier” who concentrated on financial and military matters and was uninterested in politics. Jim Gray, the loyalist leader who has just been shot dead, was involved in drugs, with a flamboyant lifestyle and a conspicuous wardrobe which earned him the nickname of Doris Day.Slab Murphy, by contrast, in person presents the image of an ordinary, not particularly well off farmer who spends most of his time mucking about on his farm. The belief is that he has been proficient in both financing the organisation and by separately making money for himself.The contrast between the two paramilitary figures who have been in the news this week could not be greater.

His crime was to testify before a Dublin jury, to tell the truth and point out that Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy was chief of staff of the IRA and a member of its army council.”Murphy himself is said to be a very wealthy man, owning large amounts of border land, but the assumption is that he has not grown rich by helping himself to IRA money. The newspaper won the case, exposing Mr Murphy to the full glare of recurring publicity. The defeat was an embarrassment to him, but he nonetheless went on to become IRA chief of staff in 1997, according to A Secret History of the IRA by the respected journalist Ed Moloney.He has been continually described as a member of the IRA’s ruling army council by Unionist MPs, including the former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who have used parliamentary privilege to name him in the Commons.Dublin’s Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, made a similar statement in the Irish parliament earlier this year, referring to a man who had been killed near the border He said: “He knew he was a marked man. He thus operates in full view of two police forces, carrying out republican business even though his premises are assumed to be under intensive intelligence surveillance.His name has been known to the wider public since the 1980s, when he stepped from the shadows to sue The Sunday Times for labelling him a senior IRA member. We reckoned that whenever they were going very well it took five million a year to run the war.”The IRA’s finance department involves a number of people, but the authorities have always regarded Slab Murphy as its linchpin, calmly controlling a budget of millions from his farmastride the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. According to a former senior member of the RUC Special Branch: “Money was always a wee bit of a problem – but never too much of a problem to them They always have been very good at concealing it. He was therefore at the heart of the IRA for decades, ensuring it had the money to maintain a campaign which was highly expensive.