Venezuela's opposition leader María Corina Machado has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for "her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy."

The announcement of Machado as winner of the prestigious award came as a surprise after intense speculation that President Trump could be a wildcard winner after negotiating a Gaza ceasefire this week.

But the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Friday that Machado's tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela was "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times."

Machado, who has been barred from running for president and lives in hiding, "keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness" in President Nicolás Maduro's "brutal, a

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