OSLO, Norway — British actress Helen Mirren hailed this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to three women as historic, but said Sunday it’s shameful that so few women have won the award since it was created in 1901.

Mirren said the award marks an “extraordinary moment in the history of women,” but that it is “slightly shameful statistically that only 12 women have won it in 112 years, when you think how important women historically have always been, specifically in terms of peace.”

She spoke before the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo on Sunday, which she hosted with American actress Rosario Dawson.

The concert honored this year’s peace prize winners: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; women’s rights activist Leymah Gbowee, also of Liberia, and democracy activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen. Together, the three have boosted the number of women who have received the peace prize from 12 to 15.

Mirren said this year’s award is a historic moment, “but it is only a step on a journey that women are taking, and hopefully in 20 to 30 years’ time, we will be looking at a very different scenario in the world.”

She also said she has “witnessed first hand” the struggle of women in Uganda.

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“In my personal experience, wherever there was a force for the positive, for creativity, it was almost always led by women, and they are doing it with no recognition and under very difficult circumstances,” she said.

Dawson said the peace prize helps grow the community of peacemakers and “give them a platform that is just as strong as the corrupters’.”

She added that their stories are representations “of who you can become, and it does not matter where you start.”

Baldwin gets an apology — sort of

NEW YORK — Posing as the pilot of the airline flight from which he was expelled, Alec Baldwin apologized to himself on “Saturday Night Live.”

The actor appeared on the sketch program’s “Weekend Update” on Saturday night to lampoon Tuesday’s incident, in which he was kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to stop playing a cellphone game before takeoff.

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As a Southern, mustachioed airline pilot, Baldwin issued an apology for the incident. The joke, though, was how obvious the ploy was.

The actor referred to himself as an “American treasure” who was playing “a word game for smart people.”

“Weekend Update” host Seth Meyers repeatedly questioned the thinly veiled performance, asking Baldwin, “Are you sure this is the right way to handle this?”

‘Skyrim’ wins top prize at Spike Video Game Awards

LOS ANGELES — “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” flew away with the game of the year trophy at the Spike Video Game Awards.

The dragon-slaying epic also won as best role-playing game, and “Skyrim” developer Bethesda Softworks was selected as the studio of the year at Saturday’s Spike Video Game Awards, which honors outstanding achievements in the gaming industry over the past year.

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“We poured ourselves into this for the past three years,” said “Skyrim” game director Todd Howard.

Valve’s sci-fi puzzler “Portal 2” bounced away with the most awards, winning five trophies for best PC game, multiplayer and downloadable content, as well as best performance by female human for Ellen McLain as GLaDOS and male human for Stephen Merchant as Wheatley.

“Chuck” star and avid gamer Zachary Levi hosted the ninth annual ceremony at Sony Pictures Studios.

 


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