- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday, a ray of light in a dark year for world peace, with the International Court of Justice, UNRWA and UN chief Antonio Guterres seen as favourites.
In the final run-up to the announcement, Nobel-watchers are struggling to predict this year's laureate, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, famine in Sudan, and a collapsing climate painting a grim picture of world affairs.
A total of 286 candidates -- 197 individuals and 89 organisations -- are known to be on this year's list of nominees.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps the candidates' names secret for 50 years, but those eligible to nominate are allowed to reveal who they have proposed.
The Norwegian Peace Council, an umbrella organisation of NGOs, predicts the prize will go to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), as the devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas, sparked by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli soil, risks pushing the entire Middle East into full-scale war.
"A Peace Prize to UNRWA would be a strong recognition of their work in the face of a difficult political and economic situation," the collective said.
UNRWA provides aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and neighbouring countries.
But lauding their work with a Peace Prize would certainly anger Israeli authorities, who accuse the organisation of colluding with Hamas.
If this prediction were to prove accurate, the UN agency could possibly receive the prize together with its Swiss-Italian head Philippe Lazzarini.
- Preserving world order -
Another way of addressing the Middle East conflict and Russia's offensive in Ukraine could be to honour the International Court of Justice (ICJ), tasked with resolving conflicts between countries in the courtroom rather than on the battlefield.
The UN's highest court, the ICJ, based in The Hague, has ordered Russia to cease its invasion of Ukraine and, earlier this year, ordered Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Rafah.
The orders were disregarded on the ground, but cranked up pressure on the two countries to respect international law.
"The ICJ has made important contributions," said Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO).
"Obviously, it's not a court that has any power or any structure to put power behind their rulings, but they rely on the international community to follow up on their rulings," he said.
Asle Sveen, a Nobel expert and historian, meanwhile said he thought the prize should go to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres of Portugal, possibly together with a UN agency.
"The UN needs all the support and attention the organisation can get to survive against the forces which in reality claim might is right," Sveen said.
"A Peace Prize to Antonio Guterres will give him a unique opportunity to... warn against the dangers of making the UN and the world order irrelevant," he said.
- No prize? -
Other possible winners are the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms and Afghan women's rights campaigner Mahbouba Seraj.
But given the bleak state of world affairs, perhaps no one should get the Peace Prize this year, suggested Dan Smith, the head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
"Maybe this is the time to say, 'Yes, many people are working very hard, but it's not getting there and we need more people and world leaders to wake up and realise that we are in an extremely dangerous situation,'" he told AFP.
But that would be viewed as an acknowledgement of failure by the award committee, and is therefore deemed unlikely.
"I'm confident there will be a worthy candidate for the Peace Prize this year as well," the secretary of the committee, Olav Njolstad, told AFP.
The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday at 11:00 am (0900 GMT).
Ch.Kahalev--AMWN