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International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wins Nobel Peace Prize 2017 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wins Nobel Peace Prize 2017
(35 minutes later)
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
The group – known by its acronym Ican - was awarded the honour for its work “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”, the committee said.  The group was awarded the honour for its work “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”.
More follows… The Norweigan Nobel Committee said the Geneva-based group – known by its acronym Ican – had helped to fill a “legal gap” that meant nuclear weapons were not subject to the same prohibitions as land mines, cluster munitions and biological and chemical weapons.
  Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, and Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, had been tipped as frontrunners for their role in orchestrating the Iran nuclear deal that saw the middle-eastern country give up its nuclear weapons development in exchange for the lifting of crippling sanctions. 
Pope Francis, Angela Merkel and the American Civil Liberties Union - who is suing Mr Trump over his attempted transgender military ban – were also in the running.
But with the spectre of nuclear war between the US and North Korea looming, the committee said it was rewarding Ican’s efforts to “stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons”.
"Risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time," it said.
The committee also issued a direct plea to Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un and the leaders of other nuclear-armed countries, urging them to "initiate serious negotiations with a view to the gradual, balanced and carefully monitored elimination of the almost 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world".
"It is the firm conviction of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that Ican, more than anyone else, has in the past year given the efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons a new direction and new vigour," the committee added.
As well as receiving plaudits from the highly respected international body, Ican will also be handed $1.1m (£840,000) in prize money.
Pressed about the relevance of the prize since no international measures against nuclear weapons have been reached, committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen replied that "what will not have an impact is being passive".