Trump has a new battle on his hands to win Nobel Prize

Ending a war in 24 hours is tricky — as self-proclaimed peacemaker Donald Trump is discovering. Even four months isn’t a long time when the conflict you've offered to help resolve involves a maniacal head of a nuclear-armed, mafia state determined to take over a plucky democratic neighbour. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's refusal to wave a white flag presents a serious obstacle not only to Trump’s peace plans, but more importantly to his hopes of a Nobel Prize — an award that the narcissist in the Oval Office desperately wants and thinks he deserves.

- Michael Day, The Independent

For Trump, the global gong would be the ultimate recognition. It would make him only the fifth US president to ever win one. His nemesis, Barack Obama, had been in power for less than eight months when he was awarded his, in 2009; his acceptance speech came days after he had sent an additional 30,000 US troops into Afghanistan and launched drone attacks on Pakistan, all part of his expansion of the War on Terror. In Trump's bid to be the one to bring peace to Ukraine and Russia, he has a rival. There is now another US citizen of the world in the running. Step forward, Pope Leo XIV. There are already signs that Leo wants to use his new-found global influence in conflict resolution. This week, it emerged that

the Pope has told Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni of his desire for the Vatican to host the next round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.