Pope and Snowden tipped for Nobel Peace Prize

Oslo: The race for the Nobel peace prize, to be announced Friday, has rarely been as open or unpredictable, experts say, with Pope Francis and Edward Snowden tipped as possible winners.

Snowden, the former intelligence analyst who revealed the extend of US global eavesdropping, was one of the joint winners of the “alternative Nobel peace prize” last month. A hero to some and a traitor to others, he would be a highly controversial choice for the 878,000-euro ($1.11-million) award.The Pakistani girls’ education campaigner Malala Yousafzai — who was also a favourite last year — is also said to be in the running along with Pope Francis and a Japanese pacifist group.

Predicting the winner is even harder than usual this year, as the Nobel committee has received a record 278 candidates, so experts only have the names of those made public by their sponsors to go on.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst, was proposed by two Norwegian members of parliament. Last month he shared the “alternative” $210,000 Norwegian Right Livelihood Award with The Guardian newspaper and human rights and environmental activists. But from his exile in Russia, the US fugitive said during a recent press conference that “it is somewhat unlikely that the Nobel committee would back…” him winning the real Nobel.However, other Russian-based individuals or groups could be a popular choice for the Nobel Committee. “Russia’s policy in Ukraine, annexing Crimea and questioning borders, but also the way the Kremlin treats dissenters cannot be ignored by the Nobel committee,” said.