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Mohammed cartoon editor put up for Nobel

The Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose, who made waves in 2005 by publishing Prophet Mohammed cartoons in his paper Jyllands-Posten, was one of those nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize ahead of this week's deadline.

Mohammed cartoon editor put up for Nobel
Flemming Rose. Photo: Søren Bidstrup/Scanpix

After the trauma of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, champions and icons of free speech head the pack in the names put forward for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, with jailed Saudi blogger Raef Badawi and fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden also receiving nominations. 

"This year again one can see the candidates reflect the issues that dominated the news in recent months," Olav Njølstad, the Nobel Institute's new director, and also secretary of its awarding committee, told AFP.

While the official list of Nobel nominees remains a well-kept secret, those authorised to lodge nominations — members of parliament, past Nobel laureates, academics — can publicly announce their choices, fuelling speculation on the likely winners.

Norwegian member of parliament Michael Tetzschner, for instance, put up Flemming Rose, who a decade before last month's slaughter of French cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo magazine triggered global protests over depictions of the Muslim prophet.

"Giving the prize to a consistent defender of freedom of expression, even at a personal cost, would give a sign that those who try to muzzle that freedom through cowardly attacks against civilians, thus undermining peace between peoples, cannot ever succeed," Tetzschner wrote in his letter to the Nobel committee, according to NTB news agency.

Jyllands-Posten — which has been under constant Islamist threat since 2005 — stood out last month as the only major daily in Denmark not to publish Charlie Hebdo illustrations after a January 7 attack on the satirical magazine in Paris that left 12 dead. 

Saudi blogger Badawi, who was jointly nominated with also jailed Saudi lawyer and rights activist Walid Abul Khair, has been condemned to 10 years in prison for insulting Islam and last month received the first 50 of his 1,000 lashes.

"While everyone was saying 'I am Charlie' just a few weeks ago, heads of state attended the funeral of the king of Saudi Arabia, which violates all human rights, executes and whips people exercising their freedom of expression, and treats women worse than animals," said Norwegian MP Karin Andersen, who co-sponsored his candidacy for the Nobel award. "Those people weren't 'Charlie', they were simply cartoons," she told AFP.

– Pope and Snowden nominated again –

Other idols of free speech in the running for this year's peace prize include Snowden, who revealed the scale of the National Security Agency's (NSA) electronic surveillance, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked documents to the New York Times damning to the US government during the Vietnam War.  Ellsberg helped end the war and "paved the way for whistleblowers of today," said Norwegian MP Marit Arnstad, who nominated him.

Other candidates include Pope Francis — nominated by a Muslim Norwegian MP — Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and
his predecessor Moncef Marzouki.   Also suggested are Egypt's Maggie Gobran for helping Cairo's poor, US academic and non-violent revolution expert Gene Sharp and a group campaigning
for Japan to remain committed to its policy of neutrality and pacifism.

Kristian Berg Harpviken, a prominent Nobel-watcher and director of Oslo's Peace Research Institute (Prio) but who has so far failed to correctly predict a winner — tipped Don Mussie Zerai, an Erithrean Catholic priest, for his work in helping sub-Saharan immigrants cross the Mediterranean safely.

Harpviken also said Russian anti-establishment newspaper Novaya Gazeta might pick up the prize at a time when President Vladimir Putin faces criticism for crushing dissent and supporting separatist rebels in Ukraine. 

The current list of nominees can be lengthened by the five members of the Nobel committee at their first meeting in early March. The prize will be awarded in Oslo in early October.

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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.

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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