Wikileaks obtains internal Nobel Prize committee communications revealing 2011 winners

Stockholm. October 3, 2011. 

Well, Wikileaks has done it again. Though this time they have cracked one of the most secret organizations in the world – the Nobel Prize Committee, Julian Assange announced in a press conference today. Assange said

“We have obtained the entire database of email communications for all Nobel Prize decisions for the last ten years. To say the least, these provide a fascinating look at the secret decision making process.”

The cables have not yet been released to the public. Assange said

“We are working with journalists to go through all the documents and redact out names in order to protect the innocent. There is some potentially damaging material in there and though we are inclined to release it immediately, we also understand there are risks. For example, there are many discussions disparaging the work of many famous scientists as being “obvious” or “inane.” In addition, we have obtained all the nominations submitted from around the world, which includes a remarkable number of self-nominations by people who have done relatively trivial work.”

Assange proceeded to show highly redacted examples of email communications from inside some of the committees, discussing things such as who would look good next to the King of Sweden or the King of Norway and thgat the peace prize award to Obama was given simply “for not being George Bush.”

Assange also stated that the communications reveal the winners of the 2011 prizes which he was not going to reveal “in order to make a little bit of money on the side” to support Wikileaks activities. Although Assange did state that “I can conclusively state that Obama will not win the Medicine prize for his healthcare system” as some have suggested.

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen