Myanmar’s military government tightened security as the country’s pro-democracy party of detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi gathered Tuesday to discuss political issues including next year’s planned election.

Nobel Learning Communities Inc., which runs more than 180 private schools, said Thursday that its board has unanimously rejected a $13.50 per share takeover bid by Knowledge Learning Corp.

“Ragtime” novelist E.L. Doctorow and Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul were among the 14 finalists announced Wednesday for the Man Booker International Prize, given every two years for lifetime achievement by a fiction writer who writes in English or whose work

Nobel laureates and celebrities have joined Archbishop Desmond Tutu in urging China to stop “verbally abusing” Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, according to a human rights Web site.

President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy are believed to be among a record 205 nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that Lech Walesa will be barred from entering Venezuela if the Nobel Peace Prize laureate attempts to come to lend his support to opposition groups.

The head of the Nobel Foundation on Tuesday rejected criticism against all-expenses-paid trips that prize jurors made to China and said it was “normal” for them to accept such invitations.

Nobel Prize jurors who accepted all-expenses-paid trips to China to discuss the coveted awards are being investigated on suspicion of bribery, a Swedish prosecutor said Thursday.

American actress Scarlett Johansson, British actor Michael Caine and other entertainers said they hope their performances Thursday at the Nobel Peace Concert draw attention to laureate Martti Ahtisaari’s style of mediating as a solution to conflicts.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari urged President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday to start his term by giving “high priority” to the Mideast conflict, calling it the world’s most challenging peace-building project.