Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded in Norway

OSLO, Norway (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize, often considered the most prestigious award on the planet, will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway. Prognosticators say possible contenders this year include the International Space Station, emergency teams in Sudan, children’s advocates in Ukraine and two top international courts. Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada has attracted attention in prediction markets.

President Donald Trump — who is waging a war against Iran — has long coveted the prize and repeatedly said he deserves it. The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo received nominations for 287 candidates for this year’s prize, and just over a quarter of them are organizations. Experts say the committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals.

Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” Machado gave Trump her Nobel medal shortly after the United States ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. But it was largely a symbolic gesture: the Nobel Committee has said the honor itself cannot be transferred. Nominations can be made by a select group of people and organizations, including heads of state or politicians serving at a national level, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past Nobel Prize recipients and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee itself.

Four of this year’s Nobels were announced earlier this week. The Nobel for medicine went to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works. The physics award recognized a scientist’s efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos.

The chemistry prize recognized two scientists for untangling mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used to develop countless drugs. Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the literature prize Thursday for “bold and inventive” works that fuse the classical and the modern and blur the boundaries of poetry and prose. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced Monday.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (…