What do you know about the Nobel Peace Prize: NPR

Anticipation is building and bookmakers around the world are betting on who will take home this year’s prize Nobel Peace Prizewith President Trump among the most prominent — and controversial — contenders.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce the winner on Friday. The award goes to the person or organization that has made the greatest effort “for brotherhood among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the formation and publication of peace conferences,” the committee says.

Trump has received several nominations and has never hidden his desire to win this prestigious award. As the first phase of his peace plan for Gaza progresses, the focus on his prospects for victory is increasing.

Here’s what to know before this year’s announcement.

How did the peace prize come about?

In his will in 1895, Swedish inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel He declared that his fortune should be divided into five parts to honor outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and work for peace.

The first awards were presented in 1901 and are now announced each October and awarded at a ceremony in December. In 1968, a new award was created – Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences.

Thousands of people can choose to nominate a person or organization for the Peace Prize, although you cannot nominate yourself. Persons eligible to nominate a nominee include members of national governments, officials of international peace organizations, university professors and former laureates.

Winners of four of the awards are determined by a Swedish committee, while the Peace Prize winner is determined by a Norwegian committee of five members appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. The Peace Prize Committee deliberates in secret for several months before arriving at a shortlist and narrowing it down to choose the winner.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner receives a medal and approximately $1.17 million in prize money.

Who won it in the past?

Some of the world’s most famous names have won in the past, including former South African presidents Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk in 1993 for bringing a peaceful end to apartheid, and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964 for his peaceful struggle for civil rights. Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama and Malala Yousafzai are also past winners.

The award also went to people or groups who are not household names. Last year the award was given to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The awarding of the award also sparked controversy. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger He received the award in 1973 with North Vietnam’s chief communist negotiator, Le Duc Tho, for concluding the Paris Peace Accords – which led to America’s exit from the Vietnam War. Thảo refused the award, but the decision was given to Kissinger I was shocked a lot From his critics who saw him as a warmonger.

The president was also controversial Barack Obama He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, just months into his first term. Some criticized the decision, saying that the president did not have time to prove himself. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the award for his efforts to reach peace with neighboring Eritrea in 2019. He then went on to wage a brutal war in the Tigray region in Ethiopia’s far north.

Leaders in the Americas, including Costa Rica and Colombia, as well as human rights defenders in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, also won the award.

Who is the candidate this time?

There are 338 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this year – 244 individuals and 94 organizations.

At the center of intense speculation about this year’s award is President Trump, who is currently engaged in negotiations to end the war in Gaza.

The Nobel website does not list the nominees, although some nominees have told the media who they applied. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that they had nominated Trump.

Trump has repeatedly said he deserves the award, saying he has ended multiple wars this year already, despite fact-checkers. Objection to the claim Many of the conflicts he tried to end are still ongoing. Earlier this year He said At the White House: “They will never give me the Nobel Peace Prize. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”

Other names Potential winners of these rounds include Sudan Emergency Response Rooms, a volunteer network that helps civilians despite high risks in the midst of the country’s civil war, and Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Regarding the possibility of Trump winning, the Gaza ceasefire may come too late to change the outcome of this year’s award, and the committee is known to value continued peace efforts over quick political gains.

However, as of Thursday morning, the bookmakers’ odds were that Trump and the Sudanese group were the joint favourites, according to the British Daily Mail. strange.