Lugar up for Nobel Prize

OSLO, Norway -- Late speculation ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize to be announced Friday swung heavily toward an award recognizing anti-nuclear efforts on the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.\nFavorites among a record 199 nominees included anti-nuclear campaigners such as Sen. Richard Lugar and former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, and Japan's Nihon Hidankyo, the international confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers.\nFinnish peace mediator Martti Ahtisaari also ranked high, while the buzz surrounding Bono of Irish rock band U2 and Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof faded.\nThe Norwegian awards committee, which does not say who was nominated, announces its decision in Oslo at about 4 a.m. EST. Committee Secretary Geir Lundestad said the committee is more secretive, after two leaks before the announcement.\nIn both cases, the committee called the winner, then word got out to the media ahead of the official announcement. "We've sealed the hatches," Lundestad said.\nWith no hints to go on, Nobel watchers make educated and often incorrect guesses. The winner, such as last year's laureate Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist, can come as a complete surprise.\nStein Toennesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, said his favorites are Lugar and Nunn for their program to rid the former Soviet Union of nuclear weapons, but that the Japanese anti-nuclear campaigners also have a good chance.\nA nuclear-related prize would recall the 1945 bombings of Japan, and come at a time of world concern about Iran's nuclear program.\nToennesson has begun to doubt his own No. 3 guess, Ahtisaari, because the Indonesian peace deal was only signed in August, six months after the strictly enforced Feb. 1 nomination deadline.\nThe early nomination deadline can lead to a year's delay in what seems like an obvious prize.\nThe peace prize is the fourth Nobel announced this week. The economics prize is to be announced Monday, while no date has been set for the literature award.\nEach prize includes a medal, diploma and a cash award of $1.3 million.