Photo : Collected
Next week's Nobel Prize announcements will crown achievements that made the world a better place, a glimmer of optimism amid a spiralling Middle East conflict, war in Ukraine, famine in Sudan and a collapsing climate.
The prize winners will be announced between October 7 and 14.
For the Peace Prize, the most prestigious of the six Nobels, experts say it is harder than ever to predict the Norwegian Nobel Committee's pick, to be revealed on October 11.
Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel created the prizes in his 1895 will, stipulating that they go to those who have "conferred the greatest benefit on humankind".
But given the bleak state of world affairs, perhaps no one should get the Peace Prize this year, suggested Dan Smith, the head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
"Maybe this is the time to say, 'Yes, many people are working very hard, but it's not getting there and we need more people and world leaders to wake up and realise that we are in an extremely dangerous situation,'" he said.
"We have now over 50 armed conflicts around the world. The lethality of those armed conflicts has increased dramatically in the past two decades," he said.
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