With a record 199 individuals and organizations nominated for the prize this year, the list of possible laureates is long and varied, featuring such names as Irish U2 rock star Bono, the late pope John Paul II and former US secretary of state Colin Powell.

Many observers however feel this year's prize, which will be announced in Oslo on October 7, will go to a person or a group working to halt nuclear proliferation, and Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs, has been tipped as one of the favorites.

"The more I think about it the better the Nihon Hidankyo sounds," said Gunnar Soerboe, director of the Christian Michelsen Institute, a human rights research group.

The question of nuclear proliferation has been in the international spotlight over the past year, largely due to thorny negotiations in Iran and North Korea.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, which plays a key role in ensuring that nuclear reactors are not used for making weapons of mass destruction, is also on the list of possible candidates.

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

The director of the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo, Stein Toennesson has tipped the pair for the the Peace Prize for several years now, but others have said they lack the experience of personal suffering in their quest for peace and democracy that marked previous prizewinners, such as Wangari Maathai, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi who all served time in prison.

"Since the Committee appears in recent years to be reluctant to give the prize to high-profile politicians, Nihon Hidayanko ... would be a good alternative for a prize aimed at the reduction of weapons of mass destruction" Toennesson told AFP.

The Japanese group has been nominated three times before by the International Peace Bureau, the world's oldest international peace federation, and this year it has been nominated by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization.

Also speaking in favor of this year's Nobel going to Nihon Hidayanko is the fact that Japan last month marked the 60th anniversary since the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Nobel Committee could of course choose to go in a less traditional direction. Last year it broadened the scope of the prize by honoring Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win, and some speculate that the award this year might for the first time go to a rock star like Bono, who has used his influence to campaign for third-world debt relief.

"It would make the Peace Prize more interesting for young people," Asle Sveen, who has written a history of the Nobel Prizes, told AFP.

As tradition dictates, the Nobel Institute never reveals the identities of the candidates, but those entitled to submit nominations for the prize -- including past laureates, members of parliament and cabinet ministers from around the world and some university professors -- are allowed to disclose their suggestions.

Among other nominees that have been revealed are "1,000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005" movement and US President George W. Bush.

Chinese businesswoman and prisoner of conscious Rebiya Kadeer has also been nominated for her work for the rights of the minority Uygur people in China's Xinjiang province, as has British humanitarian organization Oxfam.

The Nobel Peace Prize, which consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor (1.4 million dollars, 1.1 million euros), will be announced next Friday and awarded at a ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Nobel prize founder Alfred Nobel in 1896.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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