Chancellor Helmut Kohl , Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payas Sardinas and Ghazi bin Muhammad , a Jordanian advocate of interfaith dialogue . Another organization which could be in with a shot is Memorial , a Russian civil rights group known for its fight for to protect refugees and victims of political persecution and human rights violations in war zones . Apart from the winner , the names of the nominees can not be revealed by the Nobel committee for another 50 years . Last year , Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the prize but could not attend the award ceremony . The political activist and longtime critic of communist rule in China is serving an 11-year prison term for what the Chinese government calls `` inciting subversion of state power . '' U.S. President Barack Obama won for what the committee called `` his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples '' in 2009 . Nobel prizes in literature , chemistry , physics and physiology or medicine were awarded earlier this week . Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday . The Swedish academy said it gave the award to Transtromer `` because
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday morning in Oslo , Norway . A record number of nominations -- 241 -- were received by the Nobel committee this year . Of those , 53 are organizations , including WikiLeaks -- the website founded by Julian Assange that facilitates the publication of classified information . It made headlines for leaking documents and videos related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also released thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables . Among the individuals thought to be strong contenders are several involved in fomenting peaceful uprisings in the Arab world . They include Wael Ghonim , the former Google executive who used social media to jump-start social change in Egypt , Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni , who criticized the regime long before the uprisings began , dispersing information to the outside world , and Israa Abdel Fattah , who helped organize Egypt 's online April 6 Youth Movement in 2008 and played a role again in 2011 . Other favorites are Sima Samar , head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and a trailblazer for women 's rights in Afghanistan , German