THREE TIPPED FOR 2005 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Save the Children, Yushchenko and Powell tipped for 2005 Nobel Peace Prize
(AFP)

31 January 2005

OSLO - Humanitarian aid group Save the Children, Ukraine's new President Viktor Yushchenko and former US secretary of state Colin Powell are seen as likely candidates for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize ahead of Tuesday's deadline for nominations.

While Asia copes with the disastrous effects of the December 26 tsunamis, some have argued that humanitarian organisations involved in the largest and fastest relief effort the world has ever seen would be deserving candidates for the prestigious prize.

Former US president Bill Clinton recently said he believed that the aid effort would help to increase "religious reconciliation" and contribute to "reducing the likelihood of terror".

But choosing just one relief organisation would be hard, observers say.

The International Red Cross could be considered an obvious choice, but it has already received the prize three times?-in 1917, 1944 and 1963. The founder of the Red Cross, Henri Dunant, was also awarded the very first Peace Prize in 1901.

Many children were orphaned in the catastrophe and will need support for many years, and thus Save The Children International could appear as a judicious choice. The organisation has operated in the hardest hit countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka for decades.

The annual deadline for nominations is Tuesday, and the laureate is announced every year in October.

As tradition dictates, the Nobel Institute never reveals the identities of the candidates. However, those entitled to submit nominations for the prize?-including past laureates, members of parliament and cabinet ministers from around the world and some university professors?-are allowed to disclose their suggestions.

The Ukrainian president is thus known to be on the list, having been nominated by a group within the Ukrainian academic community for his peaceful fight for democracy in his country.

But some observers stressed that it was still early days to be speculating about who the Nobel Committee would honour later this year.

"I haven't started thinking about this year's nominees yet," admitted Stein Toennesson, director of the Norwegian Peace Research Institute, PRIO, who is considered a local expert on the committee's inclinations.

"If one would follow the committee's policy the last few years, it will be a woman who represents something special."

Last year, the prize went to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, and the year before to Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi.

Rebiya Kadeer could be a possible candidate. She is a prisoner of conscience in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, also known as East Turkistan, in China.

She is a prominent symbol of the Uyghurs' struggle for basic human rights, and just a few days ago her family received the Norwegian Rafto Prize?-often seen as a forerunner to the Nobel Prize?-on her behalf at a ceremony in Washington.

The Thorolf Rafto Foundation for Human Rights has earlier been awarded to two women who later became the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize: Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, and Shirin Ebadi in 2003.

The committee might however want to take the opportunity to highlight other, more silent catastrophies, such as hunger and AIDS.

The conflict in Sudan, Africa's longest running war which ended in January when the government and Sudan People's Liberation Army signed a peace treaty, could also earn Colin Powell the prize, a candidate vigorously supported by US Senator Frank Wolf.

"President Bush and Secretary Powell should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts" in Sudan, he said at a peace ceremony in Naivasha, Kenya on January 9.

The Nobel Peace Prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a cheque for about 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.3 million dollars, 1.1 million euros).

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