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Agence France-Presse

Donald Trump? Hardly.
Reconciliation between the Koreas? Rather premature.
Peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea? Probably missed the deadline.
As the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize looms, it’s easier to rule out names than guess who’s going to win.
This year the field of possibilities facing the five members of the Norwegian committee tasked with awarding the prize was pretty wide, with 331 individuals and organisations proposed for the prestigious prize, which will be announced on Friday in Oslo.
And, as usual, despite the fact the list of candidates is a secret, predictions about who might win are gathering pace.
With the postponement of this year’s Literature Prize for the first time in 70 years over a #MeToo scandal at the Swedish Academy, Friday’s peace award has become the most highly anticipated Nobel announcement this year.
Looking at the odds on some of the online betting sites, you might think North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in were the front runners for their efforts at rapprochement between the two nations.

But the Nobel experts – who are more often than not wrong – are scratching their heads.
“On the one hand, the inter-Korean breakthrough is I think the most dramatic thing in this field this year,” said Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
“On the other hand I wonder whether it would be premature to be giving the prize on that basis this year.”
Apart from anything else, Kim’s record on human rights hardly stands in his favour.
Could Moon get it on his own?
It’s no joke: the North Korean nuclear crisis could get Trump the Nobel Peace Prize 
“(He) did well, with the peace-promoting use of the (Winter) Olympic Games” in Pyeongchang, said Peter Wallensteen, a Swedish professor who specialises in international relations.
But what of Trump? Certain international figures like Britain’s Boris Johnson, when he was foreign minister, and even Moon himself have suggested the US leader could win the prize for his initiatives on the Korean peninsula.
At 7-1, the bombastic American president is one of three front runners flagged by online bookies Betsson, far ahead of other global figures like France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Theresa May and Russia’s Vladimir Putin all with odds of 75-1.

Such a prize would be “inappropriate”, said Smith, pointing to a string of decisions by Trump which “are very negative as far as peace is concerned”, most notably withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal.
And in any case, the only known Trump nomination submitted to the Nobel committee was fake, filed by someone suspected of identity fraud as only certain individuals are allowed to propose names.
The nascent reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea has also fuelled hope that a durable peace can be reached between the two neighbouring countries after 20 years of war.
James Allison and Tasuku Honjo win the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize for cancer research
For Wallensteen, the peace prize could go to Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed. But he only took power in April with his peace overtures coming to fruition this summer.
That is a little late for the Nobel committee, which takes nominations at the start of the year.
Given the lack of certainty and the limited scope of progress on potentially prize-winning initiatives, some observers are turning to some longer-term contenders.

With the #MeToo movement raising global awareness about sexual abuse and harassment, the award could honour those engaged in the fight against sexual violence, such as Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege or Yazidi rape victim Nadia Murad.
Nominated many times in the past, Mukwege has spent two decades helping women recover from the violence and trauma of rape in war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, while Murad became an activist after being kidnapped by Islamic State group militants and held as a sex slave.
Jean-Claude Arnault, man at centre of Nobel Literature scandal, jailed for rape
Henrik Urdal, head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (Prio), believes the award could go to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), which feeds millions of starving people every year.
From the battlefields of Yemen to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, “we are seeing now that hunger is becoming again one of the bigger humanitarian challenges of our time,” he said.
Other potential laureates include the UN refugee agency UNHCR, jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, organisations defending the media such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists (RSF) and Russian human rights champions like the NGO Memorial and opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
With everything up in the air, the verdict will only be known on Friday at 11am (5pm Hong Kong time).


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Nobel Prize

2018 Nobel Peace Prize: it’s easier to rule out names than guess the winner

The prestigious prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo

This undated handout photo made available by the Right Livelihood Awards shows 2013's laureate Congolese surgeon Denis Mukwege who along with 3 others was awarded the Right Livelihood Award on September 26, 2013. Mukwege won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on October 21, 2014 for his work in helping thousands of gang rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo. AFP PHOTO / HANDOUT/ RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARDS /STINA BERGE www.rightlivelihood.org RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / HANDOUT / RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARDS / STINA BERGE " - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS www.rightlivelihood.org

(FILES) In this file photo taken on August 27, 2018 US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after a phone conversation with Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto on trade in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. - US President Donald Trump claimed August 28, 2018 that Google results were "rigged" because searches for "Trump News" brought up negative stories about him, and questioned whether this was illegal. The president has attacked US social media giants in the past days for allegedly censoring conservative voices, an unfounded claim widely believed by his followers."Google search results for 'Trump News' shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media," the president tweeted on Tuesday. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)

(180904) -- BEIJING, Sept. 4, 2018 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali attends the roundtable meeting of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 4, 2018. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)(mcg)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. File photo: AP

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The prestigious prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo


As the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize looms, it’s easier to rule out names than guess who’s going to win.
