More than 40,000 people had by Sunday morning signed two petitions calling for New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to get the Nobel Peace Prize.
As Ardern has been widely praised for her leadership in response to last week's terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques, The New York Times has published an editorial, titled "America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern."
" A French petition for Ardern to the Norwegian Nobel Committe, which selects recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize each year, had garnered almost 3000 signatures by Saturday morning.
" The change.org petition to the United Nations had more than36,000 signatures. It praised Ardern for her gun control action, getting the government to pay for the funerals of all 50 mosque shooting victims, for dressing in black and wearing a hijab when meeting victims' families and for hugging them. The petition states:
"If a Nobel Prize for Peace could be given to a spontaneous statement for wisdom and courage, rather to a person, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern deserves it.
"... Her strong leadership after the shootings in Christchurch, the first attack of its kind in New Zealand's modern history, could teach a thing or two to other world leaders who at times have come short when tragedy strikes."
Radio New Zealand asked should she be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize she would have to wait until the 2020 event, with nomination having already closed for this year.
U.S. Deserves Leader 'As Good As Jacinda Ardern'
Meanwhile, a New York Times editorial on Thursday heap praise on New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's leadership in the wake of March 15 tragic twin attack on mosques in Christchurch killing 50 worshippers and injuring scores.
The Times editorial entitled 'America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern' said the world should learn from the 38-year-old that has stunningly responded to the horror.
The NYT Editorial Board highlighted her swift action in signing a ban on all military-style semiautomatic and automatic weapons and for calling on social media companies to curtail hate speech that spreads on their platforms.
"In New Zealand, it took one mass shooting to awaken the government. In the United States, even a string of mass killings 26 dead in a school in Newtown, Conn.; 49 in a nightclub in Orlando; 58 at a concert in Las Vegas; 17 in a school in Parkland, Fla. has not been enough. Nor has the fact that 73 percent of Americans say that more needs to be done to curb gun violence, according to recent polling," it said.
It commends the world's youngest female head of government for her capacity to carry a nation from the shocking events what she called New Zealand's 'darkest hour.
Here are excerpts from the New York Times editorial:
"The murder of 50 Muslim worshipers in New Zealand, allegedly by a 28-year-old Australian white supremacist, will be long scrutinized for the way violent hatreds are spawned and staged on social media and the internet. But now the world should learn from the way Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's prime minister, has responded to the horror.
"Almost immediately after last Friday's killings, Ms. Ardern listened to her constituents' outrage and declared that within days her government would introduce new controls on the military-style weapons that the Christchurch shooter and many of the mass killers in the United States have used on their rampages. And she delivered.
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