Rocker may bag the Nobel Peace Prize

Anti-nuke advocates - Irish rock singer Bono and Finnish peace mediator Martti Ahtisaari are among the favourites.

Anti-nuclear campaigners, Irish rock singer Bono, and Finnish peace mediator Martti Ahtisaari are among the favourites to win the Nobel Peace prize, which will be awarded on Friday in Oslo.

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The list of candidates, carrying a record 199 names this year, is an extremely well-kept secret, reducing Nobel-watching in the Norwegian capital to mere guesswork ahead of the announcement.

"I would lean slightly towards a prize which goes to efforts against nuclear weapons," Stein Toennesson, director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo said.

Sixty years after the US Air Force dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the Nobel committee could well honour the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization, Nihon Hidankyo, formed in 1956 by Senji Yamaguchi and other survivors of the attacks.

The group's members travel the world to lobby against nuclear weapons and share atomic-bomb experiences and has demanded that the Japanese government provide compensation for nuclear bomb victims.

Other potential laureates within the anti-nuclear proliferation field are US Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn, whose Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme works to dismantle nuclear missiles and submarines to secure fissile materials in the former Soviet Union.

"The most interesting choice would be the Nunn-Lugar programme because it focuses on dismantling, which is an aspect often neglected in anti-nuclear campaigns, but the most likely choice is Nihon Hidankyo because more people can agree on it," said Toennesson.

The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA and its chief Mohamed ElBaradei who play a key role in ensuring that nuclear reactors are not used for making weapons of mass destruction, are also seen as worthy laureates.

Espen Barth Eide, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, said he also expected the Nobel committee to focus on nuclear proliferation which has been in the international spotlight over the past year, largely due to thorny negotiations in Iran and North Korea and failed attempts to revive the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

"I would tip the IAEA and ElBaradei as favourites, followed by the Nunn-Lugar programme", said Barth Eide. "Nihon Hidankyo also needs to be kept in mind, because if they are ever to get the prize, this is the time," he said, in a reference to the old age of Japan's nuclear attack survivors, the Hibakushas.

After last year honouring Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and first environmentalist to win the prize, the Norwegian committee could also choose to broaden the field even more by giving the award to Irish rock stars Bono or Bob Geldof for their "Make Poverty History" campaign.

The singers were behind Live 8, a series of worldwide concerts held ahead of this summer's G7 summit to pressurize rich countries to cancel the debt of the poorest nations.

"To award them the prize would send a very strong message of support for the UN Millennium goals and relay the impatience of poor countries," Toennesson said.

The Millennium goals call for a reduction of worldwide poverty by half before 2015.

Bookies appear to favour former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari who has been involved in the peace processes in the former Yugoslavia and in Northern Ireland, and who mediated this year between the Indonesian government and Aceh rebels, leading to a peace agreement in August.

The odds on Ahtisaari, according to Australian betting site Centrebet, are 3-to-1, on Nihon Hidankyo and Yamaguchi 4.5-to-1, on Nunn-Lugar 6.5-to-1 and Bono and Geldof, 11-to-1.

Other possible choices include non-governmental organizations Oxfam and Save the Children and the Chinese political prisoner Rebiya Kadeer.

The winner will be announced at 11 am on Friday.