Slovaks are voting in a parliamentary election on Saturday, a knife-edge vote that could radically reshape Slovakia’s approach to Ukraine and create deep rifts within NATO and the European Union.

The frontrunner, former Prime Minister Robert Fico, has made no secret of his affinity for the Kremlin during the election campaign. He has criticized the West for supporting Ukraine and adopted a strong anti-US message, even accusing Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová of being an “American agent.” He has said that if elected, he would stop sending weapons to Ukraine and block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.

Fico’s left-wing populist SMER party has been leading for months, although opinion polls published earlier this week showed SMER neck-and-neck with the Progressive Slovakia (PS) party.

The liberal PS party, led by the EU Parliament Vice-President Michal Šimečka, is pushing for a completely different future for Slovakia – one that includes a continued strong support for Kyiv and strong links with the West.

Experts said that misinformation and Russian propaganda have become prominent during the election campaign, with social media companies criticized for not doing enough to stop it.

“Slovakia has been chosen (by Russia) as the country where there is fertile soil for success of the Russian pro-Kremlin, pro-war narratives,” Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s top digital affairs official, told a news conference Tuesday.

She said the election was a “test case” on the power of social media and misinformation. “The approach to Russian war in Ukraine is a divisive line (in the election),” she said.

Coalition likely

While either of the two parties could end up winning the election, according to the polls, neither is likely to secure a majority that would allow them to form a government on their own.

With as many as nine parties potentially reaching the 5% threshold needed to enter the parliament, coalition negotiations will almost certainly include multiple players and could be long and messy. It is also far from certain that the leader of the biggest party will become the prime minister.

Hlas, a party that was formed as an offshoot of SMER following an internal dispute between Fico loyalists and the-then Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, was polling third in the last and could turn out to be the kingmaker.

Pellegrini became prime minister in 2018 after Fico resigned following weeks of protests in the wake of the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiance Martina Kušnírová.

But opinion polls suggest that neither Fico nor Šimečka are likely to have enough seats to form a government with just Hlas and will have to bring in more coalition parties.

Fico has also not ruled out working with Republika, an extremist far-right party which claims that the war in Ukraine is a consequence of NATO’s “expansion toward Russia” and Kyiv’s “aggression towards the Russian minority in eastern Ukraine.”

PS, meanwhile, is most likely to court the Christian democratic KDH party, the liberal Freedom and Solidarity Party or a coalition grouping formed around the center-right Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO) party. OLaNO won the last election in 2020, but its government collapsed following a series of scandals and infighting.

PS said in its manifesto that Ukraine deserves all the “humanitarian, financial, diplomatic and military help it needs to succeed against the Russian aggression.”

‘Not another round of ammunition’ for Ukraine

Fico is a proven vote winner, a populist with a strong voter base. He has won parliamentary elections three times in the past, including in 2012 when he secured an absolute majority – the first and only time any party has managed that since the 1989 revolution.

His potential return to power could have serious consequences for the region. Slovakia is a member of both NATO and the European Union and has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies. It was among the handful of European countries pushing for tough EU sanctions against Russia and has donated a large amount of military equipment to Ukraine.

But this would likely change under Fico, who has blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Russia’s President Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Putin has used to justify his invasion.

Fico has called on the Slovak government to stop supplying weapons to Kyiv, and said that if he were to become prime minister, Slovakia would “not send another round of ammunition.” He is also opposed to Ukraine joining NATO.

While in opposition, Fico has also become a close ally of Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban, especially when it comes to criticism of the European Union. If Fico wins, he and Orban could gang up together and create obstacles for Brussels. If Poland’s governing Law and Justice party manages to win a third term in Polish parliamentary elections next month, this bloc of EU troublemakers could become even stronger.

The United Nations is to send a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh this weekend, its first access to the breakaway region in about 30 years, amid reports that more than 80% of the population have been displaced.

The announcement follows Azerbaijan’s lightening victory over the territory, marking the end of long years of fighting.

Concerns over the future of the region – internationally seen as part of Azerbaijan though under the control of separatists for decades – and its residents linger despite a ceasefire brokered by Russia.

By Saturday morning local time, more than 100,000 people had left Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia, the Armenian prime minister’s spokeswoman, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, told reporters.

That accounts for more than 80% of the estimated population of 120,000 people in the enclave.

Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric said during a press briefing on Friday that the mission’s visit had been agreed by Azerbaijan and would go ahead over the weekend.

“We haven’t had access there in about 30 years. So it’s very important that we will be able to get in,” he said.

“While there, the team will seek to assess the situation on the ground and identify the humanitarian needs for both people remaining and the people that are on the move,” the spokesperson added.

Fears of ‘punitive actions’

Armenian authorities have responded to the outflux of people by asking the International Court of Justice, a judicial arm of the UN, to tell Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops – citing fears of “punitive actions.”

They requested the court order Azerbaijan to “withdraw all military and law-enforcement personnel from all civilian establishments in Nagorno-Karabakh,” while refraining from “taking any actions directly or indirectly” that would have the effect of displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians or preventing those who fled from returning.

Azerbaijan should also allow people to leave the region “without any hindrance” if they wanted to, the Armenian authorities demanded.

Armenia also asked the court to direct Azerbaijan to grant the UN and the Red Cross access to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan should “refrain from taking punitive actions against the current or former political representatives or military personnel of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Armenian authorities said.

Commanders detained

The appeal comes as Azerbaijani state media reported Friday that the security services in the country had detained two former commanders of the self-proclaimed “Republic of Artsakh’s” military.

Loven Mnatsakanyan and Davit Manukyan were intercepted while attempting to cross from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia via the Lachin Corridor, the one road connecting the landlocked enclave to Armenia.

Mnatsakanyan, who reportedly served as defense minister from 2015 to 2018, was arrested Friday and taken to the Azebaijani capital of Baku, according to state media. He was accused of illegally entering its territory.

Manukyan, who reportedly served as the former deputy commander of Nagorno-Karbakh’s armed forces, was detained Wednesday, Azerbaijani state media reported.

He was accused of engaging in terrorism, setting up illegal armed groups, illegal possession of a firearm, and illegally entering Azerbaijan, though no evidence was presented to support the claims.

The announcement of the arrests came after the indictment of prominent Nagorno-Karabakh politician and businessman Ruben Vardanyan on multiple charges in Azerbaijan Thursday after being detained while trying to cross into Armenia the day before, according to state media citing the Azerbaijani State Security Service.

A former Minister of State of the self-proclaimed republic, Vardanyan is accused of financing terrorism, participating in the creation and activities of illegal armed groups, and illegally crossing Azerbaijani borders, according to state media. Azerbaijan has not presented evidence to support its claims.

On Thursday, local politician David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh,” wrote on Telegram that he would hand himself over to Azerbaijan.

“My failure to appear, or worse, my escape, will cause serious harm to our long-suffering nation, to many people, and I, as an honest person, hard worker, patriot and Christian, cannot allow this,” Babayan wrote.

Four occupied regions of Ukraine will be included for the first time in a new round of Russian military conscriptions this fall, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Friday.

Autumn conscription will begin from October 1 in all parts of the Russian Federation, according to the ministry, including in the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine.

Putin announced the annexation of the four areas – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – last September, following so-called referendums in the regions that were universally dismissed as “shams” by Ukraine and Western nations. Russia had previously annexed Crimea in 2014.

In some regions of Russia’s Far North, the conscription will begin on November 1 due to the climate differences, Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, Deputy Chief of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said during a briefing.

“The autumn conscription will take place from October 1 in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The exception is certain regions of the Far North and certain areas equated to regions of the Far North, where citizens living in these territories are conscripted for military service from November 1 to December 31. This is primarily due to the climatic characteristics of these territories,” Tsimlyansky said.

The departure of conscripts from collection points is scheduled to begin on October 16, he said. “The term of conscription military service, as before, will be 12 months,” Tsimlyansky said.

“Military personnel undergoing military service upon conscription will not be sent to the points of deployment of units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the new regions of the Russian Federation: Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions or to participate there in carrying out the tasks of a special military operation,” he said, using Russia’s euphemistic term for its war in Ukraine.

Conscription for military service in what Moscow describes as Russia’s new regions is regulated by a so-called constitutional law on admission to the Russian Federation, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

According to the law, the autumn 2023 conscription round will include the newly annexed territories for the first time. There was no conscription for military service last year and in the spring of 2023 in these regions, according to TASS.

While regular conscriptions will be carried out, Russia has no plans for further mobilizations, Tsimlyansky said. “I’d like to stress that the General Staff (of Russia’s Armed Forces) has no plans for a further mobilization,” he said.

Conscriptions in Russia happen twice per year. Last fall’s conscription began a month later than usual due to bottlenecks at conscription offices amid a partial mobilization, according to TASS.

The full harvest moon shined in the early morning hours of September 29, also marking the fourth and final supermoon of 2023.

September’s full moon reached peak illumination around 5:58 a.m. ET Friday, but it is expected to appear entirely illuminated through Saturday morning, according to NASA.

Definitions of a supermoon can vary, but the term generally denotes a full moon that is closer to Earth than normal and thus appears larger and brighter in the night sky. The moon is 224,854 miles (361,867 kilometers) away from Earth, about 14,046 miles (22,604 kilometers) closer than its average distance. The closest supermoon of the year occurred on August 30, when the moon was just 221,954 miles (357,200 kilometers) away from Earth.

September’s full moon was expected to appear about 5% bigger and 13% brighter than the average full moon, according to NASA.

Some astronomers say the phenomenon occurs when the moon is within 90% of perigee — its closest approach to Earth in orbit.

The name harvest moon is a nod to the season of gathering because the event occurs close to the beginning of fall, or the autumnal equinox, which fell this year on September 23. Typically, this time of year is when many crops peak in the Northern Hemisphere, and the bright moon once helped farmers work into the evening to harvest their bounty ahead of the first frost, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Other monikers for September’s full moon across different indigenous tribes include the corn maker moon from the Abenaki tribe, the moon of the brown leaves from the Lakota people and autumn moon from the Passamaquoddy tribe.

Other harvest-celebrating traditions around this time include the Korean festival of Chuseok and the Japanese Buddhist holiday of Higan, both of which also celebrate the remembrance of ancestors, according to Royal Museums Greenwich.

Many people associate the harvest moon with being orange in color as it begins to rise, but the same could be said of all full moons. The hue is due to the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere near the horizon, which is greater than when the full moon is overhead, according to EarthSky.

Several planets are also currently visible in the night sky, according to The Planetary Society. Gold-tinged Saturn and bright Jupiter rise in the east and appear high in the later hours, while Venus (one of the brightest objects visible in the night sky) shines before dawn. Meanwhile, Mercury dances low along the eastern horizon before dawn.

Full moons and supermoons

Here are the full moons remaining in 2023, according to the Farmers’ Almanac:

● October 28: Hunter’s moon

● November 27: Beaver moon

● December 26: Cold moon

Lunar and solar eclipses

People across North, Central and South America will be able to see an annular solar eclipse on October 14. During the event, also called the “Ring of Fire,” the moon will pass between the sun and Earth at or near its farthest point from Earth. The moon will appear smaller than the sun and encircled by a glowing halo.

To avoid damage to the eyes while looking at the phenomenon, viewers should wear eclipse glasses.

A partial lunar eclipse will also take place on October 28. Only part of the moon will pass into shadow as the sun, Earth and moon will not completely align. This partial eclipse will be viewable in Europe, Asia, Australia, parts of North America and much of South Africa.

Meteor showers

Each of the remaining meteor showers expected to peak this year will be most visible from late evening until dawn in areas without light pollution. Here are the events’ peak dates:

● Draconids: October 8

● Orionids: October 20-21

● Southern Taurids: November 4-5

● Northern Taurids: November 11-12

● Leonids: November 17-18

● Geminids: December 13-14

● Ursids: December 21-22

Almost five months since Arab states extended an olive branch to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, there are signs that some key architects of the initiative may be growing skeptical about his commitment to the agreement.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi this week said that trafficking of the addictive amphetamine Captagon from Syria to Jordan has only increased after normalization talks that led to Assad’s return to the Arab League in May.

Syria was kicked out of the Arab League in 2011, following a brutal crackdown by the regime on opposition forces that sought to unseat Assad.

Jordan was one of the biggest proponents of its rehabilitation, being one of the main victims of Syria’s drug trade, but it feels now that the regime is either unwilling or unable to clamp down on the trade.

“Jordan is fighting on the border to make sure drugs do not get into the country,” the king was cited as saying last week by Al-Monitor. “Bashar (al-Assad) does not want a conflict with Jordan… I don’t know if he is fully in control.”

One of the key demands Arab states made of Syria in exchange for rehabilitation is that Assad help crackdown on trade in Captagon. The vast majority of its global supply in the $57 billion Captagon industry is believed to come from Syria, with neighboring countries and the Gulf region being its primary destination.

The trade has turned Syria into a narco-state that has allowed the Assad regime to replenish its coffers after years of war and sanctions and given it enormous leverage over its neighbors, and has been partly responsible for bringing them to the negotiating table with Assad.

In another possible sign of Arab disgruntlement with Assad, the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported this month that the Arab ministerial committee tasked with overseeing Syria-Arab normalization froze its meetings with Damascus due to a lack of response to the roadmap drawn up to normalize Arab-Syrian ties.

Emile Hokayem, director of regional security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London said it’s no surprise that Syria’s reintegration efforts hit a wall.

In an interview with Sky News Arabia last month, the Syrian leader appeared confident and suggested that he was in no hurry to reconcile with neighbors until they changed. He blamed the lack of progress on normalization with Arab nations on the incompetence of Arab politics. Arabs, he said, are good at “optics” but not “implementation.”

Drug trafficking worsens with war, Assad said, and so the responsibility of the Captagon problem in Syria falls on the “countries that contributed to the chaos in Syria, and not the Syrian state.” He added that it was Syria, and not its Arab neighbors, that proposed to resolve the drug crisis as it is “mutually beneficial” to do so.

Experts have said that the process for Syria’s rehabilitation has been flawed.

“The problem is that there isn’t actually a mechanism for accountability in terms of the normalization initiative,” said HA Hellyer, scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Booming Captagon trade

The Captagon trade is booming, Jordan says, with traffickers using increasingly advanced technology to smuggle the amphetamine out of Syria and into neighboring countries.

“The Syrians promised to work on that challenge with us, but the situation on the ground continues to be extremely challenging,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi said. “We see an increase in the number of operations and accordingly, we’re doing what we have to do.”

Safadi described the Captagon trade as a “highly organized operation,” where drug traffickers “have access to very advanced technology” including drones and night vision. For every two or three busts, Safadi said, another two or three make it through the border.

Jordan, which shares a 378-kilometer-long border with Syria, sees instability with its neighbor as detrimental to its own national security.

Gulf states and Jordan routinely report drug busts, with massive amounts of the drug found in everything from building panels to baklava shipments.

This month, the United Arab Emirates said it foiled an attempt to smuggle 13 tons of Captagon – worth more than $1 billion – hidden in a shipment of doors and decorative building panels. Jordan’s armed forces routinely shoot down drones flying in from Syria and carrying amphetamines.

Experts say that both ends of the Arab-Syria normalization pact are failing to meet each other’s expectations. Assad may not have found a powerful enough incentive to give up his lucrative drug trade. And what he wants may prove difficult to deliver.

“What Assad always wanted was not something that the Arab states could or would offer: unconditioned political support, massive financial assistance, as well as Arab pressure to lift Western sanctions,” Hokayem said.

Arab states may now find themselves backed into a corner.

“Their margin of maneuver is limited,” Hokayem said. “Direct, straightforward coercion is off the table, and several countries don’t care enough to spend effort and political capital on Syria,” he said, adding that Assad’s stubborn politics may even lead “some countries to simply cave.”

Suicide bombings ripped through two religious ceremonies in Pakistan Friday, killing at least 56 people and injuring dozens more as worshipers celebrated the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, according to police and local officials.

Hours later, a separate blast took place during Friday prayers at a mosque near Peshaway City in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least four people and injuring 11. The explosion caused the roof of the mosque to collapse, but it was not clear how many people remained inside.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for either of the explosions, which struck during a restive period in Pakistan, as it has weathered a surge of militant attacks in the buildup to general elections being held in January.

The first blast, in Mastung, occurred around midday local time. A video shared by a local resident showed dozens of people gathering to mark the birth of the Prophet Mohammad, before a large explosion tore through the procession.

The critically injured were transferred to hospitals in the regional capital of Quetta, while others were treated at the local hospital in Mastung, he said.

Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar strongly condemned the blast.

“The Prime Minister expressed his condolences to the families of those who died in the blast,” a statement from his office said. “Prime Minister’s prayers for forgiveness for the deceased and patience for the families.”

The shockwaves from the blast have been felt far from Mastung. Police in Karachi – some 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the site of the first explosion – were put on “high alert” in the wake of the attack, a statement from the inspector general said.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area, has witnessed a spate of attacks in recent months, fueled by a decades-long insurgency by separatists who demand independence from the country, angered by what they say is the state’s monopoly and exploitation of the region’s mineral resources.

Last month, an attack on Chinese engineers in Balochistan was thwarted by Pakistan’s military, leaving two militants dead and the Chinese workers unharmed, according to police.

In March this year, at least nine police officers were killed and 11 others injured in a suspected suicide blast.

The second blast, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, occurred just hours later. Local police said two men on bikes had started shooting at their officers outside the Hangu mosque, before targeting the building with explosives.

The US ambassador to Pakistan, Donald Blome, condemned the deadly blasts Friday. “The Pakistani people deserve to gather and celebrate their faith without the fear of terror attacks like the ones today in Balochistan and KP,” Blome said in a statement posted by the US embassy on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Some of the most brilliant minds in science will be catapulted from academic obscurity next week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiology are announced.

The honors, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, represent the pinnacle of scientific achievement, celebrating transformative breakthroughs that are often decades in the making.

In addition to the huge publicity, the prizes also draw their share of flak, sometimes triggering controversy and resentment over who gets chosen and who is left out, said Martin Rees, British cosmologist and physicist and former president of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific society.

Rees said one challenge for the Nobel committees is the increasingly collaborative nature of most scientific research. The image of the lone genius having a eureka moment is long gone, if it ever truly existed. Additionally, discoveries can be made simultaneously by different teams.

However, the Nobel selection committees, according to the rules laid down by Alfred Nobel in 1895, can only honor up to three people per prize. This requirement can prove to be a headache, Rees said.

“It may be a project where several people have done work in parallel, and they single out some and not others. It may be that there’s a team, and it’s not obvious that the ones they’ve singled from the team are the dominant figures,” said Rees, who is the UK’s astronomer royal and author of “If Science Is to Save Us.”

For example, the 2017 Nobel in physics recognized the detection of gravitational waves — “ripples” in space generated by colliding black holes 1 billion or more light-years away. The key papers reporting this discovery had almost 1,000 authors, Rees noted. However, only three were rewarded the prize — Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne.

Similarly, one often discussed candidate for the medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize is the mapping of the human genome, a transformative project that was only fully completed in 2022 and involved hundreds of people.

David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, who identifies “Nobel worthy” individuals by analyzing how often fellow scientists cite their key scientific papers throughout the years, agrees that the three-person rule is a constraint.  

“It really has become a huge transformation in science that it’s more and more team science — huge groups tackling more difficult problems, international collaborative networks,” Pendlebury said. “This rule of three does seem to be an impediment if they wanted to recognize a team.”

The rule that a prize can only be awarded to three people comes from the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, which is responsible for fulfilling the intentions of Nobel’s will, according to the Nobel Prize website. Peter Brzezinski, the secretary of the committee for the Nobel chemistry prize, said there were no plans to change the rule. However, he said that the committee follows a detailed process once the nominations have been made by the end of January.

“We start the process by asking a number of experts from around the world to write reports describing the field in which the discovery has been made, to outline the main discoveries in this field and also to mention individuals who have made the most important contributions,” he explained via email.

“We read all relevant literature, attend conferences and write reports also within the committee,” Brzezinski added. “With time, we often succeed in identifying a limited number of scientists who have made the discovery. If this is not possible, we are not able to propose a Prize to the Academy.”

Retrospective view

The Nobel committees typically single out work that happened decades earlier — a retrospective view that’s often needed given that it can take time for the significance of some scientific research to become clear.

The Nobels also focus on three scientific disciplines, as designated in the will of Alfred Nobel. Fields including mathematics, computer science, earth and climate science and oceanography are excluded.

Even within the fields of chemistry, physics and medicine and physiology, just five areas out of 114 different scientific subdisciplines account for more than half of Nobel Prizes awarded from 1995 to 2017, according to one 2020 study. These are particle physics, atomic physics, cell biology, neuroscience and molecular chemistry.

Rees, however, noted that taking the long view and giving greater recognition to certain fields can, at times, make the Nobel committees seem out of touch with the scientific priorities of the day.

One example is artificial intelligence, or AI, which is transforming people’s lives at an unprecedented pace.

Two hot names in the field are Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, the Google DeepMind inventors of AlphaFold — an AI program that decodes the 3D structures of proteins from amino acid sequences. They won the $250,000 Lasker Prize this year and the Breakthrough Prize a year earlier.

Since their key paper was published just over two years ago, it has been cited more than 8,500 times, Pendlebury said.

“That is, in my experience, just incredible in terms of the speed at which the citations have accrued, so obviously, it’s a huge, important intellectual discovery,” said Pendlebury, who has been compiling his list of “citation laureates” since 2002.

The Nobel committees have on occasion awarded accolades to recent breakthroughs — such as when the chemistry prize went to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna in 2020, less than 10 years after their key 2012 paper on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique — but Pendlebury thinks a Nobel Prize for AI this year is still a long shot.

He said the Nobel Prize committees, at least for science prizes, are “innately conservative.”  

Diversity

Other criticism leveled at the Nobel Prizes includes the lack of diversity among winners. More female scientists have gotten the call from Stockholm in recent years, but it’s been a trickle rather than a torrent.

Last year, Carolyn Bertozzi, who won the chemistry prize, was the only female winner of a science prize. There were no female science recipients in 2021 or in 2019, when the Nobel committee asked nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and field. Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez shared the physics prize in 2020, the same year as Doudna and Charpentier’s chemistry win.

Pendlebury said he believes lack of diversity on the Nobel stage is essentially a pipeline problem.

“They’re looking at work typically published 20 or 30 years ago, when the number of women in science at elite levels was not as much as it is today,” he said. “And so I think as time goes forward, you see more and more women being selected.”

Others point to the issue as more evidence of systemic bias in science, with women already less likely to be given credit or named as lead author on scientific papers.

“There are several women who made Nobel-level contributions to science, contributions for which male colleagues were awarded, but they were not,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Henry Charles Lea Professor of the history of science and an affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. “These examples prove that even when there were qualified women, they were systematically passed over.”

Rees attributes the diversity problem to a lack of transparency. The Nobel short list is secret, as are the nominators, and documents revealing the details of the selection process are sealed from public view for 50 years.   

Of course, these flaws and gaps only matter because the Nobels are far better known than other science prizes, Rees added. He prefers so-called challenge prizes, such as the XPrize, which incentivize future efforts to tackle an important problem, rather than rewarding past success.

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday and the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Prize for literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Thursday and Friday, respectively.

The US State Department has condemned the jailing of one of Vietnam’s most prominent environmental activists for tax fraud in a ruling human rights activists claimed was a “total sham.”

Hoang Thi Minh Hong, 51, who has led environmental campaigns in the communist country for at least a decade, was sentenced to three years in prison by a court in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday for evading about $280,000 in taxes, according to her lawyer Nguyen Van Tu.

In a statement, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States was “deeply concerned” by her imprisonment and reiterated calls for Vietnam to “release all those unjustly detained” and to “respect the right to freedoms of expression and association.”

“NGO leaders like Hoang Thi Minh Hong play a vital role in tackling global challenges, proposing sustainable solutions in the global fight against the climate crisis, and combating wildlife and timber trafficking,” Miller said.

Vietnam’s opaque legal system has come under increased criticism from Western observers this year, even as the Southeast Asian country draws closer to the United States.

In April during a visit to Hanoi, a delegation of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee of Human Rights expressed “great concern at the worsening human rights situation in the country” calling for the release of “political prisoners” including NGO leaders, journalists and environmental activists, according to Reuters.

The court’s ruling also comes just weeks after US President Joe Biden’s first state visit to Vietnam, in which he elevated diplomatic relations between the two countries – a hugely significant move given Washington’s complicated history with Hanoi.

“Vietnam and the United States are critical partners at what I would argue is a very critical time,” Biden said at the time, referencing climate change. “I’m not saying that to be polite. I’m saying it because I mean it from the bottom of my heart.”

‘Total sham’

Hong was the director of CHANGE, an environmental advocacy group she started in 2013 that “addressed problems of climate change, pollution, and endangered wildlife in Vietnam,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

She was also one of 12 international activists who received a grant in 2018 from the first Obama Foundation Scholars Program at Columbia University, HRW said.

Hong “dedicated herself to educating and organizing young leaders in the effort for a greener world,” according to a bio page on the foundation’s website.

The importance of her cause has been underlined by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which lists Vietnam as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change.

“Typhoons, floods, droughts and landslides frequently threaten a high proportion of the country’s 96 million people and economic assets concentrated along its long, densely populated, coast,” USAID says on its website.

Rights groups said Hong’s trial, which lasted half a day, was the latest example of Vietnam’s government “weaponizing the law for the purpose of political persecution.”

“This verdict is a self inflicted wound on Vietnam’s ability to tackle one of the most seismic issues of our time,” Amnesty International said, adding Hong is the fifth prominent environmentalist to be accused of tax evasion in Vietnam in the past two years.

Ben Swanton, co director of The 88 Project, which advocates for human rights in Vietnam, called her trial “a total sham.”

“This is yet another example of the law being weaponized for the purpose of political persecution,” he said.

Asked last week if she will run to become the United Nations’ next Secretary General, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados gave a thumbs up, smiled, and walked away. Unofficially, however, UN insiders say she’s a likely front-runner.

The 2026 selection process is still far off, but talk of who is best-positioned to win the powerful job has already begun.

Historically, there has been a geographical rotation for the position, so it seems likely the next UN leader will be from the Latin America and the Caribbean region – and many advocates say it is time for a female candidate, after 78 years of only male leaders.

In the hallways and backrooms of the United Nations headquarters in New York, Mottley is one of several names being floated as likely contenders. Two sources said former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos – a Nobel peace Prize laureate – will launch a campaign soon, though a representative for Santos denies it.

Among others, Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is also a recurring name in discussions of who might succeed current UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as are Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary; Rebeca Grynspan, a high-level UN official and former vice president of Costa Rica; and Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, a former president of the UN General Assembly and former minister of Ecuador.

But it is the charismatic and outspoken Mottley whose name often generates the most excitement. Though Mottley has not yet said she will run, one UN diplomat said “I would jump up and down” with excitement if she did.

Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a neighboring island, said she would have his vote if she chose to campaign.

“I think she would make a great Secretary-General,” he said, “Whatever she does, I will support her.”

Could Mottley run?

Mottley became prime minister of Barbados in 2018 and won a second term in a landslide election four years later.

Internationally, she has been noticed for cutting her country’s post-colonial ties to the British monarchy, and for her powerful rhetoric on slavery reparations, climate change, and the need to reform global financial institutions through the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral banks.

Mottley does not mince her words when it comes to big powers, either. In her address to the General Assembly in last week, she asked: “How is it possible for Chevron and the European Union to access the oil and gas of Venezuela, but the people of the Carribean cannot access it at the 35 percent discount offered by the people of Venezuela?”

In 2022, Mottley spearheaded the Bridgetown Initiative, a political plan to reform the global financial architecture and development finance to be more equitable, particularly in the face of climate crisis. The initiative would change the way money is loaned to developing countries and set up a special emergency fund for climate disasters.

In April, Mottley also joined forces with current UN chief Guterres and announced a revamping of her venture, called Bridgetown 2.0, putting forward six development priorities for development finance that will be discussed on the world stage at the annual meeting of the IMF-World Bank group in October, COP28 in November and the Summit of the Future in 2024.

Many diplomats in New York City and outside said they believe in Mottley’s potential to represent issues affecting the developing world as leader of the UN – but also in her capacity to bring her unique style of leadership to the role.

”I don’t think I recall another leader in recent history other than Obama that had the attention of the international community like she does,” a UN diplomat said.

Still, some warn that that she is taking political risks. Considering the initiative significantly challenges the status quo for international finance, UN expert Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group says that Mottley has to carefully plan her next steps.

Other observers point out that trying to upend existing systems risks angering at least one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, who hold a final word on the Secretary-General selection process.

Mottley’s office did not respond to multiple interview requests.

Fighting for a woman at the helm

The UN’s next Secretary General would take office in January 2027. Is four years too early to start talking about who the next leader of the organization will be? For some, it’s a necessary discussion to have for an institution that is at its turning point, as it grapples with criticism and geopolitical paralysis in the powerful Security Council.

“I don’t think it’s early at all,” Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, said, “It’s very important to start discussing that because I think it’s also very much a question of what the future should look like for the UN and the Security Council.”

Valtonen and others also say that the time for the organization to have its first woman leader was yesterday. “This position should very much be merit-based,” she said, “but I think it’d be very remarkable if again, it’s not a woman who is chosen.”

The selection process has long been secretive, but opened up a bit in 2016. To be considered, candidates need to first be nominated by a country, usually their own, and then recommended by the Security Council to the General Assembly.

During the last selection process in 2016, a group of countries pledged to only bring forward women candidates – an initiative is currently being revived for the next selection process. In 2016, thirteen candidates ran, seven of whom were women. But Guterres – a Portuguese diplomat long considered the frontrunner for the role – was ultimately elected.

“There’s always lots of men that want to run,” said Ben Donaldson, head of campaigns at the United Nations Association of the United Kingdom.

This year, he said, “I’m hoping the message is coming through loud and clear from the majority of states and from civil society that no state should be putting forward male candidates. We are all working to increase the stigma around this, hopefully we can nip it in the bud.”

Susana Malcorra, a former candidate in the 2016 Secretary General elections, and cofounder and president of advocacy group Global Women Leaders Voices, is also working to make sure the political pressure will bring female candidates forward in the next cycle.

“It’s not so much about talking about a Julie or Anne, or Mary, it is more about talking about a Madame Secretary General as a general proposition, and then making sure that we pave the way to get there,” she said.

But not everyone agrees with the effort.

Dennis Francis, the president of the 78th UN General Assembly who is from Trinidad and Tobago, doesn’t believe men should refrain from running. “I believe that men should run next time around as I believe women should run in their numbers,” he said.

“Because what I would want to happen is for a woman to win in those circumstances, not from a field of women. That would be the wrong message.”

And with the powerful Security Council is already frozen on a number of issues since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine its members ultimately finding a consensus on any single candidate.

”All I have to say is grab your popcorn,” Julia Maciel, a diplomat from Paraguay, said.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he will meet the national army and police chiefs on Friday to combat a surge in gang violence, as the country reels from record shooting deaths this month.

“Tomorrow I will meet the national police chief and the commander in chief to see how the defense force can help the police in their work against the criminal gangs,” Kristersson said in an address to the nation on Thursday.

“I hope all parties in the Swedish parliament can come together in support of those strong and pattern-breaking actions that need to be taken.”

The Scandinavian nation has been rocked by a record number of shootings this month, amid a spread of gang violence from larger urban areas to smaller towns, Reuters reported.

There were 11 gun killings in September, making it the deadliest month since December 2019. Police said about 30,000 people in Sweden are directly involved with or have links to gang crime, according to the news agency.

Children and innocent people are affected by the serious violence, Kristersson added.

“I can’t emphasize enough how serious the situation is. Sweden has never seen anything like it, no other country in Europe is experiencing anything like this,” the Swedish prime minister said.

“We will hunt the gangs, and we will defeat the gangs. We will take them to court. If they’re Swedish citizens they will be locked up for a long time in prison and if they are foreign citizens, they will also be expelled.”