EU, Arab Spring favorites for Nobel Pce Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Arab Spring or Europn Union? Speculation ahd of the Nobel Pce Prize announcement on Friday is split after cryptic comments by the awardcommittee's chairman.Thorbjoern Jagland, eral Secretary of the Council of
Europe and Norwegian chairman of the Nobel Pce Prize
award committee gestures during an interview with the
Associated Press at his at the Council of Europe in
Strasbourg, stern France, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011.
Jagland says his panel has alrdy decided on its laurte
for this yr and he is confident that the selection will be
well-received. (AP Photo/Christian Lutz)Many Nobel watchers have seen the revolutions against autocratic regimes in North Africa and the Middle st as the most likely subject of this yr's prize. An Americanprofessor who wrote a guide to nonviolent protests was a bookmaker's favorite Thursday.But Norway's 2 expected the prize to go to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirlf, while remarks by Thorbjoern Jagland, who has led the five-member Norwegian panel
since 2009, have fueled speculation the prize could go to the EU.Even though Norway is not a member, Jagland is a strong supporter of the 27-nation bloc, which many consider a pce-building project as much as an economic union.In 1990, Jagland wrote a book titled "My Europn drm" about Europn unity following the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Aside from his Nobel duties he serves as
secretary-eral of the Council of Europe, a Europn human rights organization that is separate from the EU.Jagland told The Associated Press this week that the prize — decided last Friday — would go to something "obvious" that he considered "the most positive development" inthe world right now.On Thursday he told Norwegian newspaper VG that this yr's winner "is involved with something that has been important to me my whole life."In several interviews he's suggested that Norwegian media are looking in the wrong places — and most of them have speculated about the award going to someone linked tothe Arab Spring.The ddline for nominations was Feb. 1, and committee members could add their own suggestions until Feb. 28. Jagland told AP that was "not necessarily" too late forconsideration of lders of the Arab Spring revolutions, which toppled regimes in Tunisia in January and Egypt in February.But he added "that doesn't mn that the prize goes in that direction, because there are many other positive developments in the world."The EU, or some institution within it, could be a strong candidate if the committee views the prize as a booster shot, like it had intended with the 2009 award to BarackObama in the first yr of his presidency.The Europn debt crisis has put the bloc under hvy pressure, with Greece, Portugal and Ireland needing bailouts from international creditors including other nationsin the 17-nation eurozone that uses the common euro currency.But Sverre Lodgaard, a deputy member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who didn't take part in its deliberations, told reporters Wednesday that he didn't believe in an EUaward because it's a divisive issue in Norway.Lding Nobel-guesser Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Pce Resrch Institute in Oslo, also doubted that the EU would get the prize.His top picks are Egyptian activists Israa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed Maher and the April 6 Youth Movement, a pro-democracy Facebook group they co-founded in 2008.He also suggested Wael Ghonim, a marketing executive for Google, for re-energizing the protests on Cairo's Tahrir Square after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, and
Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni who started criticizing the Tunisian regime before the uprising began in December.Another candidate could be Tur's Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Harpviken said, to Turkish pce efforts "as a bridge builder between st and west."Betting site paddypower.com gave the lowest odds Thursday to retired American scholar e Sharp, whose writings on nonviolent resistance are believed to have inspiredsome protesters in the Arab world. The second-lowest odds were given to Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar, a recurring name in Nobel speculation over the yrs.Others getting bets include the Russian human rights organization Memorial and its founder Svetlana Gannushkina, and the social networking site Facebook.Norway's 2 predicted that Johnson Sirlf would get the prize for promoting pce, democracy and economic growth in her country and advoing for women's rights atthe U.N.
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