Tag Archives: Nobel

Shenyang, China | AFP |  China’s Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo died Thursday after a battle with cancer, remaining in custody until the end as officials ignored international pleas to let him spend his final days free and abroad. The prominent democracy advocate died aged 61, more than a month after …

Oslo, Norway | AFP |  A near-record 318 people and organisations are in the running for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Institute said on Thursday, a motley crew believed to include Syria’s White Helmets, Donald Trump and Pope Francis. The names of the nominees are kept secret for …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP |  Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka hit back Monday at critics from his native Nigeria, denouncing the “slugs, barbarians and imbeciles” who derided him for tearing up his US residency card after Donald Trump’s election win. “I don’t want people we fought for to have the …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP |  Two US-based academics won the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for groundbreaking research on contract theory that has helped design insurance policies, executive pay and even prison management. Oliver Hart, a British-American economist, and Bengt Holmstrom of Finland “have developed contract theory, a comprehensive framework …

Bogota, Colombia | AFP | In a Colombia left deeply divided by a contested peace deal with the FARC rebels, not everyone was happy about President Juan Manuel Santos winning the Nobel Peace Prize Friday. “Santos doesn’t deserve it,” said Rodolfo Oviedo, one of the opponents of a peace deal …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP |  A French, British and Dutch trio of scientists won the Nobel Chemistry Prize on Wednesday for developing the world’s smallest machines that may one day act as artificial muscles to power tiny robots or even prosthetic limbs. Jean-Pierre Sauvage of France, Fraser Stoddart of Britain …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | It’s serendipity: from America to Viagra, history is full of great discoveries helped along by chance, as more than a century of Nobel prizes can attest. Among the chance discoveries that have been honoured with the prestigious prize are X-rays (physics, 1901), penicillin (medicine, 1945), …