This year there are 197 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008. Interesting nominations are Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Father John Dear.

Altogether, 164 peacemakers and 33 organizations have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008. This is slightly fewer than the 2005 record of 199 candidates. 2008 Nominees include Bob Geldof, Vladimir Putin and Esperanto

2008 Nobel Peace Prize Nominees

The secretive committee will, as usual, not release any information about who the candidate peacemakers are, but other sources say that Finnish peace negotiator Martti Ahtisaari has been nominated. He was also a top candidate last year. Rock musician and ambassador for the third world, Bob Geldof has also been nominated again.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Putin was chosen, not for his statemans hip, which some regard as questionable, but by The International Center for Research on Biofuels and Patents in Zurich for his alternative fuel initiatives in Russia. The Center praised the Vladimir Putin for his efforts to reduce Russia's reliance on fossil fuels.

Esperanto – International Language

Esperanto, the international language, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008 by two Swiss MPs, Gisele Ory and Francine John-Calame.

Esperanto is being promoted under the Slovenian Presidency of the European Parliament. In a short period of 121 years Esperanto is now placed within the top 100 languages of all 6,000 languages worldwide. It is the 17th most popular language in Wikipedia, and in use by Google and Skype.

Bill Richardson, Peace Jam, Algerian President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika

The Nobel committee does not reveal who is on the list. But Nobel nominees often announce themselves or those who nominate them leak the names of their peacemakers in order to drum up support before the final selection.

Among the nominations are thought to be former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl; Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika; Hu Jia, Chinese activist and dissident; another Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng; Israel's Mordechai Vanunu; Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do and The African Union.

Other candidates who have been announced by their nominators include New Mexico Gov Bill Richardson for humanitarian efforts in North Korea and Sudan, and a Colorado couple, who founded the youth-based Peace Jam movement.

Father John Dear, Peacemaker

Rev, John Dear is certainly a peacemaker, although he has made many people within the sytem rather angry over the years. He is a Jesuit Priest, Peace Activist, Organizer, Lecturer, Retreat leader, and author/editor of 20 books on peace and nonviolence. He has been jailed 75 times for nonviolent acts of civil disobedience and peace demonstrations. Dear’s 2008 Nobel Peace Prize nomination was endorsed by South Africa’s former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in the ending of apartheid.

"We are very pleased that we are receiving nominations from all over the world," Nobel Prize committee secretary Geir Lundestad said. "The peace prize has become more and more global."

Lundestad said the prize committee had already decided on a short-list of contenders.

2007 Nobel Peace Prize

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was shared by former US Vice-President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to raise awareness of global warming.

"I think they will try to find someone who is more directly linked to peace this year," said Stein Toennesson, a prominent Nobel-watcher and the director of the International Peace Research Institute-Oslo.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce the winner in the middle of October, and the award will be presented at a ceremony at the Oslo City Hall on December 10th.

Sources:

The Nobel Peace Prize