The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner is expected to be announced today October 7. The Chairman of the prize committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, has decided not to name the much-anticipated short list due to the upheavals in the Arab world and Europe’s spiralling debt crisis. Thorbjoern Jagland in an interview on Wednesday October 5, with the Associated Press, said the winner must “not necessarily be a big name.”
While all attention is tilted to Oslo where the peace prize winner will be declared, other winners are now savouring the pride of being honoured by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Ralph Steinman, a biologist with Rockefeller University, was named on Monday October 3, as the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine. He would have won half the prize of approximately $1.5 million (approximately FCFA 7.5 billion), the other being be shared by scientists Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann. Unfortunately, the news was announced three days after he had passed away. Steinman died of pancreatic cancer last Friday September 30 at the age of 68, after having extended his life by using a kind of therapy he designed, his university said in a statement. CNN reports that the Nobel committee was unaware of his death. Had they known, their own rules would have precluded him being selected as a winner. The decision was made Monday, just before the announcement, Nobel officials said.
Israeli-born Dan Shechtman was prided with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded with one half to Saul Permutter and other half jointly to Briant P Scmidt and Adam G. Riess.
