Clinton, Bradley Manning Among Nobel Prize Nominees

Former president Bill Clinton and jailed WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning have been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, reports Agence France-Presse.

Those revelations came Monday after the Nobel Peace Prize jury announced that it had received a total of 231 nominations for this year's award. Though the Norwegian institute didn’t announce the nominees outright—it keeps those secret for 50 years—the names are sometimes revealed by nominating institutions. In the case of Clinton and Manning, however, the AFP makes no mention of who did the nominating.

Likely among the most interesting on this year's list is Manning, the 24-year-old U.S. soldier accused of the biggest leak of U.S. classified information in history. Along with 250,000 diplomatic cables, Manning is also accused of leaking footage of U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan and Baghdad.

Others reportedly on the list include ex-German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who led his country’s reunification process, Ukraine’s ex-premier and jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and Tunisian President Moncef Marzouk.

But the award isn't only limited to people, with 43 of this round's nominations going to organizations: the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera, for example, has reportedly been nominated for its reporting, along with GAVI, a vaccination program partially funded by Bill Gates, notes Reuters.

The director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo also offered his own prediction Monday on who will win the icon year this October: Gene Sharp, an American non-violence advocate credited as inspiration for the Arab Spring.

Last year’s prize went to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian women’s rights advocate Leymah Gbowee and Yemen's Tawakkul Karman. This year's winner will be announced in October.