The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) stood as the bookies’ favourite Wednesday to win the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, with experts tipping Greta Thunberg as a strong outside contender along with a host of U.N. subsidiaries.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s chances have been dismissed by at least one observer because, “he hasn’t done anything that is deserving of the prize.”
Only the direct number of potential awardees is known thus far: this year there are 318 nominees, including 211 individuals and 107 organisations, according to the Nobel Institute.
As AFP reports, this has not stopped observers from adding their speculation to that of the bookies.
Henrik Urdal, the director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, told the wire service he cannot see Donald Trump emerging at the head of the crowded field.
“Trump is more likely to get the Nobel prize in literature for his tweets than to get the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Urdal dismissively. “And that’s not because he is Donald Trump, that’s because he hasn’t done anything that is deserving of the prize.”
Greta Thunberg was favorite last year, however it went to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for helping to end a 20-year postwar stalemate with Eritrea.
Nobel historian Asle Sveen said Greta is back again as “a possible candidate, absolutely”.
Greta would be the second-youngest laureate in the Nobel Prizes’ almost 120-year history, after the Pakistani advocate for girls’ education Malala Yousafzai.
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the W.H.O. to the top of online betting sites, just ahead of Greta, yet just how this equates to its performance has not been explained.
The subsidiary U.N. organization very clearly stated there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the cornavirus as the pandemic took hold earlier this year, while at the same time standing alongside Beijing and praising its every effort, as Breitbart News reported.
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
W.H.O. Twitter messages from January and February also show it was spreading Chinese propaganda. Health officials detected the first case of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on November 17 in Wuhan, China.
Even if Trump is not declared the winner this year, he has already been nominated for 2021 courtesy of four Australian law professors who cited the “Trump Doctrine” against endless foreign wars as reason for their support.
As Breitbart News reported, law professor David Flint explained he and his colleagues decided to nominate Trump because of his extraordinary diplomatic work. Flint said they backed Trump because:
He is guided by two things, which seem to be absent from so many politicians. He has firstly common sense and he is only guided by a national interest, and therefore, in our circumstances, an interest in the Western alliance.
What he has done with the Trump Doctrine is that he has decided that he would no longer have America involved in endless wars, wars which achieve nothing, but the killing of thousands of young Americans and enormous debts imposed on America.
During his interview with host Alan Jones, Flint also spoke about the recent peace deal announced by Trump between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making the latter the third Arab country to make peace with the Jewish nation.
Other names making the rounds in Oslo for this year’s prize include German non-governmental organisation Transparency International, the World Food Programme (WFP), the U.N. and its secretary general Antonio Guterres, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The winner will be announced this coming Friday.
AFP contributed to this story
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