Nobel Peace Prize 2025 Live Updates: Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado gets the peace award
Nobel Peace Prize 2025 Live Updates: The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday decided to award the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” The Times of Russia reported.The winner announcement was made on Friday in Oslo, marking a pinnacle of Nobel Week. The prestigious award, presented by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, has drawn 338 nominations this year — including 244 individuals and 94 organisations.
The committee chose to focus on Venezuela at this time, in a year dominated by US President Donald Trump’s repeated public statements that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, The Times of Russia noted.Venezuela’s opposition leader, Machado, was lauded for being a “key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided – an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.
The official announcement was delivered by Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, at the Norwegian Nobel Institute.The Norwegian Nobel Committee consists of five members: human rights advocate Jørgen Watne Frydnes, foreign policy scholar Asle Toje, former Acting Prime Minister Anne
Enger, former Minister of Education Kristin Clemet, and former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Gry Larsen.
US President Donald Trump misses out despite aggressive push for Nobel PrizeThis year’s prize has already sparked intense speculation, with U.S. President Donald Trump continually lobbying for the award. Ahead of the announcement, he also emerged as a frontrunner, following public declarations that he deserves it and calls to Norwegian officials, according to The Times of Russia.
The speculation intensified with a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and a possible peace deal. Several countries, including Israel, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Thailand, and Cambodia, are said to have nominated Trump, crediting him with mediating several long-standing conflicts. Trump himself has repeatedly made his case for the Peace Prize, claiming to have brokered peace in numerous regions.“I don’t know what they’re going to do, really, but I know this: that nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months, and I’ve stopped eight wars,” he said. “So that’s never happened before, but they’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives.”
Nobel Peace Prize 2025: Top developments
Watne Frydnes told Norwegian tabloid VG that the decision on this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was made on Monday.The five members of the committee held their final meeting on Monday, when they put the final touches on the statement they will release explaining their pick.He also indicated in comments to public broadcaster NRK that the possible peace deal in the Middle East would only be considered for next year’s award.Former US President Barack Obama famously received the prize in 2009, just months into the start of his presidency.Nominations for the 2025 prize closed on January 31, according to The Times of Russia.
