Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize 2024
Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2024 on Friday. While announcing this year's award, the committee said, "This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki—also known as Hibakusha—is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."
'Pressing need for nuclear disarmament...'
"In awarding this year's Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honor all survivors who...have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace," the committee added. "Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts...sent annual delegations to the United Nations...to remind the world of the pressing need for nuclear disarmament," it said.
Check out the committee's post here
Winner to receive medal, diploma on December 10
The winner will receive a medal, a diploma, and 11 million Swedish crowns on December 10—the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. Previous laureates of the Peace Prize include prominent figures like Martin Luther King Junior and Nelson Mandela. This is the fifth Nobel awarded this week—after literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine.
Six months after Oppenheimer wins Academy Awards
Notably, this award comes six months after the Hollywood biopic Oppenheimer won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Cillian Murphy won Best Actor for portraying physicist J Robert Oppenheimer—who led the 1940s United States effort to build the atomic bomb. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film about science and politics became a box office success. Nolan also won the Oscar for Best Director.
286 candidates were nominated for this year's prize
This year, a total of 286 candidates were nominated, consisting of 197 people and 89 organizations, a drop from last year's 351 nominees. While nominators are allowed to disclose their own proposals, the Norwegian Nobel Committee maintains confidentiality regarding the names of the nominees for 50 years, making it impossible to know the complete list of candidates.
South Korean author Han Kang wins Nobel Prize in literature
On Thursday, South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in literature for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." Han is the first South Korean and the 18th woman to receive the prestigious literature prize. She started her literary career in 1993 by publishing several poems in the magazine Literature and Society.
