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Peace Prize Guessing Begins
The annual sport of Nobel Peace Prize predicting has begun, though the selection committee remains as mute as ever, with the mystery to be revealed on Friday, October 7.
Only two of the many global wars and conflicts have neared a solution in the past year, but clear candidates have not emerged from the work done to bring peace to Sudan or Indonesia's Aceh province.
Director Stein Tønneson at the International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) said that Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari's peace-brokering role in Aceh must make him a prize favorite, though this is complicated by the fact that the agreement in Aceh is so new that the withdrawal of Indonesia has barely begun.
PRIO also considers Irish rock artist Bono of U2 and American senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn to be favorites for the prestigious award. Bono has been a tireless campaigner for the victims of third world debt, while senators Lugar and Nunn have spent recent years working to secure nuclear material from the aging ex-Soviet fleet.
This year there are a record number of 36 organizations nominated and Save the Children and Oxfam may be recognized for their high profile efforts after the tsunami in Southeast Asia last Christmas.
Among the most famous names nominated for the 2005 prize are German prime minister Gerhard Schröder, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Ukraine president Viktor Yuschenko and Georgia president Mikhail Saakashvili. Regular nominees like Vaclav Havel, Mordechai Vanunu and the Salvation Army are again on the list.
Absolute outsiders include unusual nominees such as the Pakistan border city Peshawar, Iraqi shia leader Ali al-Sistani and imprisoned American gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams, who is sentenced to death.
--Aftenposten English Web Desk/NTB
The annual sport of Nobel Peace Prize predicting has begun, though the selection committee remains as mute as ever, with the mystery to be revealed on Friday, October 7.
Only two of the many global wars and conflicts have neared a solution in the past year, but clear candidates have not emerged from the work done to bring peace to Sudan or Indonesia's Aceh province.
Director Stein Tønneson at the International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) said that Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari's peace-brokering role in Aceh must make him a prize favorite, though this is complicated by the fact that the agreement in Aceh is so new that the withdrawal of Indonesia has barely begun.
PRIO also considers Irish rock artist Bono of U2 and American senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn to be favorites for the prestigious award. Bono has been a tireless campaigner for the victims of third world debt, while senators Lugar and Nunn have spent recent years working to secure nuclear material from the aging ex-Soviet fleet.
This year there are a record number of 36 organizations nominated and Save the Children and Oxfam may be recognized for their high profile efforts after the tsunami in Southeast Asia last Christmas.
Among the most famous names nominated for the 2005 prize are German prime minister Gerhard Schröder, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Ukraine president Viktor Yuschenko and Georgia president Mikhail Saakashvili. Regular nominees like Vaclav Havel, Mordechai Vanunu and the Salvation Army are again on the list.
Absolute outsiders include unusual nominees such as the Pakistan border city Peshawar, Iraqi shia leader Ali al-Sistani and imprisoned American gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams, who is sentenced to death.
--Aftenposten English Web Desk/NTB