North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un and US president Donald Trump have been shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018.
On Friday, the winner of the Peace Nobel will be announced by the Nobel committee in Oslo. The award is given each year to the person or group that has done the most to advance world peace.
Last year the winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 23rd organization (as opposed to individual) to win the prize since its establishment in 1901.
This year, there are 331 nominees for the prize, of which 216 are individuals and 115 are groups, according to the Nobel committee.
It’s the second-highest number of candidates ever, after the year 2016.
The selection process is heavily guarded before Friday’s unveiling and the nominees aren’t made public. But that hasn’t stopped people from guessing who’s in the running.
North Korea’s spate of nuclear weapon and missile tests in 2017 left relations between the two Koreas strained since the Korean War of 1950-53. Now, thanks in part to their leaders, the North’s Kim Jong-un and the South’s Moon Jae-in, the countries have taken tentative steps toward nuclear disarmament.
Just last month, Kim pledged to denuclearize under the supervision of foreign inspectors.
But the Nobel committee might find it hard to overlook the UN's assessment that Kim’s regime is also currently committing widespread “crimes against humanity,” including torture, starvation and executions in prison camps.
Eighteen Republican lawmakers wrote to the Nobel committee in May to nominate President Trump for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize “in recognition of his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula and bring peace to the region.” So, for much the same reason as Moon and Kim are favorites for the prize, Trump is too.