The catch is that not everyone can nominate someone for an award. And did previous winners really deserve it?
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It’s not clear whether they have been nominated, but experts say it’s likely.
Apparently it was a woman, Bertha von Suttner, who inspired Alfred Nobel to include peace as a category for the awards he was thinking of creating. More organisations (22) have won the prize than women.
Club Vice President Hunter Reinhardt told the school board that students have prepared background reports on the award winners expected to attend the summit. The letter, which was circulated to Members before His Holiness’ address to Congress on Thursday, highlights the Pope’s commitment to peace, his leadership in taking on the challenges facing our planet, and his courageous stand for human rights, his pleas on behalf of refugees, and his condemnation of all genocides, Adam Schiff’s Press Office rports. Mussie Zerai, a Catholic priest originally from Eritrea, is the founder of the humanitarian organization ‘Habeshia.’ Zerai and his organization work with refugees when they arrive in Europe, but also helps those stricken on boats crossing the Mediterranean and at risk of drowning, finding their Global Positioning System coordinates which he then passes on to the Italian coast guard. But his lack of open-mindedness about women being able to serve as priests is a knock against his popularity, and Harpviken wonders if past snubs indicate he won’t win the Peace Prize this year.
Though religious leaders represent a sizeable cluster of peace prize winners, they each had particularly hard routes to get there.
Pope Francis is already considered a top contender for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for participating in behind-the-scenes diplomacy regarding the recent U.S.-Cuba rapprochement and for being an outspoken advocate for immigrants, refugees and the downtrodden.
Ultimately, it’s anyone’s guess who will be this year’s Peace Prize victor – which will be announced Friday in Oslo at 6 a.m. ET.
Since it’s a very political decision, the award has often provoked controversy, such as in 1973 when U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho were honored for their efforts to achieve a cease-fire in the Vietnam War. The prize was awarded on the basis that Mr. Obama had fostered a new climate in worldwide relations and reached out to the Muslim world. “We should all give peace a chance”. Two Nobel Peace Prizes have been shared between three people.
One of the strangest things about the peace prize is that it can be won by organisations as well as individuals.
As the British newspaper, The Telegraph, put it: “Speculation is mounting that Angela Merkel will win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for her handling of the European refugee crisis and the war in Ukraine, just as public opinion in Germany is hardening on the migrant issue”.
The institute tapped Francis as the favorite past year, but the award went to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai, who shared it “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”. The oldest to date is Joseph Rotblat, a Polish physicist who was 87 years-old when presented the 1995 prize.
If you don’t win, don’t worry, neither did Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi with his granddaughters in Delhi in 1947. The Mahatma was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and 1948, a few days before his death, but he never won.
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The only firm information released by the Nobel committee itself is that there are 273 candidates for the Peace Prize thus year, the second-highest ever after last year’s 278.
