2023-10-05 04:00:00
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced this Friday (6) Angela Weiss/ via Reuters – 12/8/2020 In a world ravaged by crises, between the war in Ukraine, coups d’état in Africa and geopolitical tensions, the Nobel Prize for Peace is announced as this year’s big unknown. The long-awaited Peace Prize, a key point in the Nobel season, will be announced this Friday (6), in Oslo, but rarely has the situation on the planet made predictions so difficult. “The sad reality is that there is not much progress in world peace in 2023,” said Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). “There are more wars now, almost twice as many as there were in 2010, for example. So I don’t believe we will find a peacemaker for the Nobel Peace Prize this year,” Smith told AFP. See also Technology and Science Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman win Nobel Prize in Medicine for messenger RNA vaccine Technology and Science Trio wins Nobel Prize in Physics for developing short flashes of light to study electrons Technology and Science Trio wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research on nanoparticles Last year, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the Nobel was awarded to a symbolic trio of defenders of rights and freedoms: the Russian NGO Memorial — officially dissolved in Russia —, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties and the arrested Belarusian militant Ales Beliatsky. After consecrating another critic of the Kremlin the previous year — Russian journalist Dmitri Mouratov, awarded alongside Filipino journalist Maria Ressa —, the Norwegian Nobel Committee may be tempted this time to look at another area of the planet. For example, the Iranian women who expressed their outrage and, in some cases, removed the veil after the death of young Mahsa Amini, in September 2022, in Tehran, or the activists who fight for women’s rights, especially in education, in countries where these rights are disrespected. The director of the Oslo Peace Research Institute, Henrik Urdal, would like the Nobel Prize to award to Iranian Narges Mohammadi, currently imprisoned, and Afghan Mahbouba Seraj, who fought “for access to politics and society.” His Sipri counterpart, Smith, is more inclined to an award that highlights the urgency of climate change and mentions the Fridays for Future movement, inspired by Swedish Greta Thunberg, along with Brazilian chief Raoni Metuktire, defender of the rights of indigenous peoples against deforestation. Read also Russian auctions Nobel Prize with record R$537 million to help Ukrainian children Nobel-winning journalist’s website receives order to close activities in the Philippines Nobel Foundation ‘disinvites’ members from Russia, Belarus and Iran from award ceremony Blank year? Others, depressed by the current geopolitical situation, believe that the Nobel Committee may not award the Peace Prize this year. But the commission does not like the “blank years” — the last one was in 1972 — as it considers them an admission of failure, in the year in which it received many nominations: 351. The list has remained secret for 50 years, which makes it predictions even more difficult. Thousands of people around the world (legislators and ministers from every country, previous winners, some university professors) can propose a name before the January 31st deadline. The five members of the Nobel Committee can also nominate names at their first annual meeting. Among the candidates mentioned are the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or courts such as the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. Bet on Zelensky The President of Ukraine, Volodmir Zelensky, is the favorite of online betting sites, but experts consider it unlikely that the Nobel Prize will be awarded to the leader of a country at war. Nobel Prize historian Asle Sveen points to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who a month ago stated that the “global family is quite dysfunctional.” For Sveen, this award would be a welcome boost to multilateralism, peace efforts, human rights, and climate and environmental advocacy, at a time when all of these causes are under attack. The verdict will be announced on Friday, at 11am (6am Brasília time), at the Nobel Institute.
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