World

The Nobel Peace Prize will be unveiled Friday, with experts speculating it could go to critics of Vladimir Putin, climate activists or even no prize at all amid the war in Ukraine.

The climax of the Nobel season, the Peace Prize laureate will be announced at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) in Oslo, against the backdrop of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine which has plunged Europe into one of its worst crises since World War II.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps the list of nominations a closely guarded secret, but it is known to have 343 names on it, including 251 individuals and 92 organisations.

With Ukraine dominating headlines since the start of the year, some prize experts say it is doubtful the committee can ignore it.

“It is likely we will see a prize that in one way or another will point in the direction of Ukraine,” the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Henrik Urdal, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK just hours before the announcement.

In such case, he said possible laureates could be Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, thorns in the side of the Kremlin and one of its few allies in the war, Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

Or it could go to the International Court of Justice based in The Hague, which in March ordered the immediate end of the Russian offensive, or the UN High Commission for Refugees, as millions of people have been displaced by the conflict.

Urdal also mentioned those documenting suspected war crimes, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), also based in The Hague, or investigative site Bellingcat.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chances are seen as minimal as long as the war is raging, even though he is the bookies’ favourite.

Other Nobel observers — including Oda Andersen Nyborg, head of the Norwegian Peace Council — have meanwhile suggested the prize could this year go to climate campaigners, as the planet’s alarm bells ring.

Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg has been seen as a potential Nobel laureate for several years despite her young age, and could take home the prize with her movement “Fridays for Future”, British naturalist David Attenborough or other environmentalists.

– ‘Tense world’ –

The five members of the Nobel committee may also go in an entirely different direction, or even decide to not award the prize at all, as they have already done 19 times in the past, most recently 50 years ago.

The head of the committee hinted mildly however that the panel had chosen one or several laureates — up to three can be honoured. 

The decision was “maybe even harder” this year, Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told NRK, noting that “we’re living in a difficult security situation and a tense world”.

Last year, the Peace Prize crowned two champions of freedom of the press, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa and her Russian colleague Dmitry Muratov.

The Peace Prize is the only Nobel awarded in Oslo, with the other disciplines announced in Stockholm.

On Monday, the Medicine Prize kicked off the 2022 season, going to Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Paabo, who discovered Neanderthal DNA and the previously unknown Denisova hominin.

The Physics Prize on Tuesday honoured Alain Aspect of France, Austria’s Anton Zeilinger and John Clauser of the United States for their discoveries in the field of quantum entanglement.

On Wednesday, the Chemistry Prize went to another trio, Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless of the United States together with Morten Meldal of Denmark, for laying the foundation for a more functional form of chemistry where molecules are linked together, called click chemistry.

French author Annie Ernaux on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize, the 17th woman to get the nod out of 119 literature laureates since 1901.

The Nobel season winds up Monday with the Nobel Economics Prize.

A US federal judge blocked the enforcement of New York’s new gun law Thursday, undermining for the second time this year the state’s efforts to control a key factor in rising homicides.

The judge accepted a petition to place a temporary stay on the state law passed on July 1 and implemented on September 1 that tightly restricted carrying guns in “sensitive places” such as Times Square in New York City, bars, schools and playgrounds.

The new law was passed after the Supreme Court — in a landmark ruling on June 23 — overturned New York’s previous gun laws, saying they unlawfully limited a person’s right to carry a firearm in public.

But gun rights advocates said the new law, even though tailored to follow the Supreme Court ruling, in practice impinged on their constitutional rights to free speech and to possess firearms.

Judge Glenn Suddaby apparently agreed, awarding the gun rights advocates a stay, or temporary block, on the new law while their lawsuit over it proceeds.

The ruling is the latest chapter in the fight over the state’s gun laws tightly limiting permission to carry a firearm outside the home. 

In the newest version after the Supreme Court ruling, the state law required a person seeking a public handgun license to demonstrate “good moral character,” a process that included vetting their social media accounts, providing four character references and taking 18 hours of firearms training.

It also set a long list of “sensitive locations” where firearms could not be carried.

The judge agreed that these requirements were unlawfully onerous and broad, and that Times Square and other sensitive locations did not merit special protection.

Suddaby said the new law still gives New York officials too much power to reject gun permit applicants by forcing them to go to lengths to prove they were of good moral character, rather than assuming they were in the absence of contradictory information.

“We are grateful to Judge Suddaby for his quick action to restore the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” said Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said they were weighing an appeal against the stay. 

“I will continue to do everything in my power to combat the gun violence epidemic and protect New Yorkers,” she said in a statement.

But the plaintiffs in the case, supported by Gun Owners of America, could then pursue their arguments to the Supreme Court, where the majority justices have already made clear they generally endorse a constitutional right to carry arms.

The World Bank has pumped $14.8 billion into fossil fuel projects globally in the period following the landmark Paris climate accord, a report said Thursday.

Though the multilateral lender pledged in 2018 to end financing for upstream oil and gas, and direct funding had declined, the move failed to include indirect financing, according to the report compiled by an NGO coalition called The Big Shift Global.

It comes amid growing pressure on US President Joe Biden to fire World Bank chief David Malpass, a Trump appointee who has dodged questions about the reality of human-driven climate change.

“Each time the World Bank invests in another fossil fuel project, it fuels more climate disaster,” said Sophie Richmond of Big Shift. “There is no justification for using taxpayers’ money to exacerbate the climate crisis.”

One of the main ways the Bank continued to fund fossil fuels was by exploiting a “major loophole” by lending to intermediaries such as banks or financial institutions and by acting as a guarantor in case a country did not meet its obligations, the report said.

Under the 2015 Paris deal, world leaders committed to limiting long-term warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to avert devastating outcomes for the planet’s future habitability. 

The biggest project listed in the report, called “Investing in Climate Disaster: World Bank Finance for Fossil Fuels,” was the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline in Azerbaijan, funded in 2018 to the tune of $1.1 billion, with the Bank acting as a guarantor. 

“It serves to perpetuate on-going use of fossil gas in Europe,” the report said, while noting that while the pipeline may increase gas export revenues, market volatility makes it an unreliable source of income.

The World Bank Group’s own assessment stated the project was “expected to have potentially significant adverse social and environmental impacts that are diverse, irreversible, or unprecedented” — but it gave a green light anyway.

– Coal plants –

Another project highlighted was the construction of two coal plants in Indonesia called Java 9 and 10, where the Bank supplied $65 million in indirect funds — despite the fact that the Java and Bali grid is already experiencing 40 percent oversupply of electricity.

“It is obvious that the new Java 9 & 10 coal-fired power plants will bring more disaster in terms of environmental, social and health issues, in an area already covered with coal plants and industries,” said Yuyun Indradi of Trend Asia, an NGO that promotes clean energy. 

The report’s authors also rejected the Bank’s treatment of natural gas as a “bridge” between fossil fuels and renewable energy, saying it crowded out needed investments in clean energy.

In a statement to AFP, the World Bank said, “We dispute the findings of the report: it makes inaccurate assumptions about the World Bank Group’s lending. 

“In fiscal year 2022, the Bank Group delivered a record $31.7 billion for climate-related investments, to help communities around the world respond to the climate crisis, and build a safer and cleaner future.”

A separate report published by Oxfam earlier this week said the World Bank “supplies very little evidence to support its claims about the amount of climate finance it provides,” leaving the public to take their figures “on faith.”

The global economy is at a difficult crossroads, buffeted by multiple shocks including soaring inflation, rising interest rates and a growing threat of broad debt crisis, but IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told AFP that institutions are better prepared to weather this storm.

Below is an excerpt from an interview conducted ahead of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington next week:

Could the fallout in 2023 be worse than the 2008 global financial crisis?

What we had today is (a) much stronger banking sector than we had then, and that has proven to be a source of resilience for the world economy. We also have something very important: stronger central banks, truly independent with the experience that they have built since the global financial crisis. And that shows in how central banks are reacting to the signs of inflation.

Does the IMF have enough tools and financial resources?

During the last year since Covid, we have extended lending of about $270 billion. We have a lending capacity of $1 trillion. So we have space to continue to support the members. We do see an increase in requests for fund programs, not surprisingly. Just since Russia invaded Ukraine, we have provided financial support to 16 countries of about $90 billion and we are currently looking at some 21 requests… My message to countries: act early. Come to us for precautionary instruments so you can build your position in this very difficult time to sustain your economy against the risks to come.

China is a major creditor, are they doing enough to help with debt relief?

We have got… very substantive engagement with China in the context of the countries that ask for treatment under the Common Framework. And we have made good progress with China stepping up to co-chair the creditors committee for Zambia and to reach an agreement on Zambia, and now we expect the same for Chad. What we need to recognize is that the Chinese institutions are still working their way through debt issues. There are many lenders in China. Only recently the Ministry of Finance and central bank, the People’s Bank of China, got the mandate to coordinate, and it takes some time to reach that coordination. 

But time is not our friend. And this is what we have conveyed clearly, that we do not want to see individual defaults turning into opening a gateway for a debt crisis. And it is not in China’s interest.