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Norway MPs nominate Snowden for Nobel Prize

Two Norwegian MPs have nominated the fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.

Published: 29 January 2014 15:05 CET
Norway MPs nominate Snowden for Nobel Prize
Screen capture from the interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras on June 6, 2013
Bård Vegar Solhjell, who served as environment minister in the last Norwegian government, and Snorre Valen, a colleague from the Socialist Left Party said on Wednesday that
Snowden's "whistleblowing" on surveillance by US and UK intelligence agencies had "contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order."
 
"He has contributed to revealing the extreme level of surveillance by nations against other nations and of citizens,"  Solhjell told AFP, explaining his move. "Snowden contributed to people knowing about what has happened and spurring public debate" on trust in government, which he said was "a fundamental requirement for peace".
 
In a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee obtained by AFP, Solhjell and Valen said that they did not necessarily condone or support all of Snowden's disclosures, but praised him for revealing the "nature and technological prowess of modern surveillance".
 
"The level of sophistication and depth of surveillance that citizens all over the world are subject to have stunned us, and stirred debate," they wrote in the nomination letter.
   
They added that Snowden's actions have "led to the reintroduction of trust and transparency as a leading principle in global security policies".
   
US National Security Agency documents leaked by Snowden in 2013 revealed widespread surveillance of individuals and institutions in the United States and around the world.
   
According to the whistleblowing website Wikileaks, Snowden, who is currently living in Russia, applied for asylum in several countries, including Norway, last summer.
   
Solhjell, who was environment minister until Norway's left-wing government lost power last year, told AFP that he was aware of Snowden's reported request for asylum and that it should be handled according to normal procedures.
   
"This matter has not affected our decision to nominate Snowden for the peace prize," Solhjell said.
   
The deadline for submitting nominations for the 2014 peace prize is February 1st.
   
Among those eligible to forward nominations are politicians and barristers around the world, as well as university professors from certain disciplines.
   
In July 2013 a Swedish sociology professor, Stefan Svallfors, nominated Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize after the deadline had passed but the nomination is still valid for 2014.

 
Nominations for the prize can come from members of national parliaments and governments, university professors and previous laureates. 
 
Only the five prize committee members are permitted to nominate candidates later than the deadline, and they must make their submission at their first meeting to discuss nominations. 
 
Snowden has been living in exile in Russia since June, when he leaked tens of thousands of secret documents revealing the surveillance methods of the US's National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's GCHQ.

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NOBEL

US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain

US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch.

Published: 4 October 2021 13:42 CEST
US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain
Thomas Perlmann (right), the Secretary of the Nobel Committee, stands next to a screen showing David Julius (L) and Ardem Patapoutian, winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

“The groundbreaking discoveries… by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world,” the Nobel jury said.

The pair’s research is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases and conditions, including chronic pain. Julius, who in 2019 won the $3-million Breakthrough Prize in life sciences, said he was stunned to receive the call from the Nobel committee early Monday.

“One never really expects that to happen …I thought it was a prank,” he told Swedish Radio.

The Nobel Foundation meanwhile posted a picture of Patapoutian next to his son Luca after hearing the happy news.

Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival, the Nobel Committee explained, and underpins our interaction with the world around us.

“In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates.”

Prior to their discoveries, “our understanding of how the nervous system senses and interprets our environment still contained a fundamental unsolved question: how are temperature and mechanical stimuli converted into electrical impulses in the nervous system.”

Grocery store research

Julius, 65, was recognised for his research using capsaicin — a compound from chili peppers that induces a burning sensation — to identify which nerve sensors in the skin respond to heat.

He told Scientific American in 2019 that he got the idea to study chili peppers after a visit to the grocery store.  “I was looking at these shelves and shelves of basically chili peppers and extracts (hot sauce) and thinking, ‘This is such an important and such a fun problem to look at. I’ve really got to get serious about this’,” he said.

Patapoutian’s pioneering discovery was identifying the class of nerve sensors that respond to touch.

Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and the 12-year-younger Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).

The pair were not among the frontrunners mentioned in the speculation ahead of the announcement.

Pioneers of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which paved the way for mRNA Covid vaccines, and immune system researchers had been widely tipped as favourites.

While the 2020 award was handed out in the midst of the pandemic, this is the first time the entire selection process has taken place under the shadow of Covid-19.

Last year, the award went to three virologists for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.

Media, Belarus opposition for Peace Prize?

The Nobel season continues on Tuesday with the award for physics and Wednesday with chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.

For the Peace Prize on Friday, media watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have been mentioned as possible winners, as has the Belarusian opposition spearheaded by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Also mentioned are climate campaigners such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement.

Meanwhile, for the Literature Prize on Thursday, Stockholm’s literary circles have been buzzing with the names of dozens of usual suspects.

The Swedish Academy has only chosen laureates from Europe and North America since 2012 when China’s Mo Yan won, raising speculation that it could choose to rectify that imbalance this year. A total of 95 of 117 literature laureates have come from Europe and North America.

While the names of the Nobel laureates are kept secret until the last minute, the Nobel Foundation has already announced that the glittering prize ceremony and banquet held in Stockholm in December for the science and literature laureates will not happen this year due to the pandemic.

Like last year, laureates will receive their awards in their home countries. A decision has yet to be made about the lavish Peace Prize ceremony held in Oslo on the same day.

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