This year, a record 194 individuals and organizations are in the running for the prestigious prize, and although the list of nominees is traditionally a closely guarded secret, many observers expect the five members of the Nobel Committee to use the 2004 award to hail efforts to halt nuclear arms proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction.

In that respect, ElBaradei and his UN atomic agency, the IAEA, would be the perfect candidates, according to Stein Toennesson, head of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).

"It is about time they are acknowledged for the work they have done, and continue to do, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons," he wrote on his organization's website.

The IAEA and ElBaradei played a vital role in the inspections of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal and the search for his suspected nuclear program, and more recently in the attempts to rein in suspected nuclear activity in North Korea and Iran.

All this with "integrity in light of US pressure," Toennesson noted.

Espen Barth Eide, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, agrees that ElBaradei and the UN atomic agency are likely candidates for the prize.

"The Nobel Committee would be sending a double message to the United States. First, it would be attuned with the US prioritization of the battle against proliferation, but secondly it would remind them that this battle must be carried out using the tool of multilateral cooperation," he told AFP.

The five Nobel "guardians" will hold their final meeting on Tuesday to determine the winner of the Peace Prize, but the laureate will not be announced until 0900 GMT on October 8.

Last year the Nobel Peace Prize, which consists of a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (1.1 million euros, 1.3 million dollars), was awarded to Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the award.

"After the Nobel Peace Prize rewarded human rights work last year, the Nobel Committee could this year reward work that is more closely linked to peace," said Anne Julie Semb, a political science professor at the University of Oslo, adding that she expected ElBaradei and former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to be awarded a joint prize.

Online bookmakers meanwhile are betting on former Czech president Vaclav Havel, who headed the 1989 Velvet Revolution and who served as president until

According to the Australian Internet betting site Centrebet, the ailing former Czech leader is a favourite with five-to-one odds, trailed by the IAEA and ElBaradei with six-to-one odds.

"If Havel were to receive the prize, it would be as an actor in the democratization of Eastern Europe in the 1980s. But that prize has already gone to Lech Walesa," the Polish labor union leader who received the Peace Prize in 1983, Barth Eide said.

Other possible laureates include Israel's nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, released this year after 18 years in prison, Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya and Pope John Paul II, while French President Jacques Chirac figures among the long shots.

The European Union has also been listed among possible winners after it in May this year expanded to include 10 new member nations, "countries that the West was still pointing its nuclear weapons at 15 years ago", Barth Eide noted.

Picking the EU could however be perceived as meddling in Norway's affairs, since the Scandinavian country so far has chosen to remain outside the Union.

As for George W. Bush, the US "war president" who is running for a second term in November, odds of his winning the Peace Prize are currently at 1,001-to-one, tied for last place with Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and John Howard of Australia, as well as former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, currently on trial for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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