SWEDEN: Bob Geldof and Bono are among the bookmakers' tips to win the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, alongside more orthodox candidates such as campaigners against nuclear arms or a peace broker for Indonesia.
Experts are divided about whether the secretive five-member committee would dare to broaden the scope of the $1.3 million award to honour Geldof or Bono, who have campaigned for years to ease hunger and poverty in Africa.
Last year, the committee won both plaudits and brickbats for awarding the prize for the first time to an environmentalist, Kenya's Wangari Maathai, for leading a campaign to plant millions of trees across Africa.
A total of 199 candidates have been nominated for the 2005 award, which can be split up to three ways. "If the prize branches out to virtually anything that is trendy, it stands to lose the intent that Alfred Nobel had -- to prevent war," said Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor of political science at Oslo University.
"I think there are two acute problems in the world - anti-terror work and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
On the 60th year of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she and many experts say an obvious option is to honour efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
Still, Bono and Geldof have risen from 66-1 to be 7-1 - third joint favourites on an Australian bookmakers' ranking in recent days after a leading Norwegian prize commentator placed them among his favourites. Top of the bookmakers' ranking is former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, at 4-1, for brokering a peace deal between Indonesia and Aceh rebels. - (Reuters)