Nobel Peace Prize nominations set record

• Tweet

OSLO, Norway, March 5 (UPI) -- The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it received 259 nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, eclipsing last year's 241 nominations.

Among the nominees for this year's price was the youngest on record, 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai of Pakistan, who was nominated for defying the Taliban and getting shot for it, Views and News from Norway reported Tuesday.

Anyone can nominate a person or organization for the peace price, the newspaper said.

Other candidates reportedly included on the list are Myanmar's reform-minded president, Thein Sein; jailed human rights activist Ales Bjaljatski of Belarus, and Ludmila Alexejeva, leader of the Helsinki Committee in Russia, Views and News said. Bjaljatski and Alexejeva both have been nominated previously.

NRK reported U.S. Army Pfc Bradley Manning, jailed on charges of giving classified documents to whistle-blower Wikileaks, and Kurdish activist Leyla Zana also were among those nominated for the prize.

Nominations will be whittled down to a short list then pared again to those considered by the five-member panel appointed by the Norwegian Parliament under the terms of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the prize's benefactor, News and Views said.

The prize winner typically is announced on the second Friday of October and the prize is always awarded on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.