OSLO: As speculation mounts ahead of Friday's Nobel Peace Prize announcement, observers suggest the committee may sound the alarm over the war in Ukraine or climate change.
The prize experts are split over who will get it.
One camp thinks that this year's award winner will be a critique of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The urgent need to combat global warming is what is said by the other.
With a total of 343 top secret nominations this year, the five members of the Norwegian Nobel CommitteeNobel Committee could surprise experts and go with a completely different pick.
Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo PRIO, said the Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny deserve to win the prestigious honor together.
He said that they are both champions of non-violent pro-democracy activities within their own country.
Both Navalny and Tikhanovskaya have been strong opponents of the war in Ukraine. Since World War II, there has been a conflict between two countries so close to Oslo, the home of the Peace Prize.
The committee could give the Nobel to those documenting suspected war crimes in Ukraine, such as the International Criminal Court ICC or the digital investigative group Bellingcat, to make a statement against Putin's war.