The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded here on Friday with former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and Finland's ex-president Martti Ahtisaari the favourites to win the award.
OSLO: The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded here on Friday with former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and Finland's ex-president Martti Ahtisaari the favourites to win the award.
The winner will be announced in the Norwegian capital at 11 am.
Norway's NRK public television reported on Thursday that Evans could be rewarded for his "central role in the reconstruction of Cambodia and Vietnam".
The winner's name is a secret closely guarded by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, but NRK correctly predicted the victory of Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi of Iran in 2003 and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai in 2004.
Evans is chief executive of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based non-governmental organisation which analyses conflicts and recommends how to solve them.
But Ahtisaari is the bookmakers' favourite for his work in brokering a lasting peace deal in the Indonesian province of Aceh last year.
The 69-year-old Finn led talks between the Indonesian government and the former separatist rebels that culminated in an accord ending a three-decade conflict that claimed 15,000 lives.
Ahtisaari had led Namibia towards independence and played a key role in bringing an end to hostilities in Kosovo in 1999.
He has admitted that his mediation role on the future status of Kosovo is unlikely to lead to a negotiated settlement between the Serbian government and Kosovo Albanians.
Norwegian TV report also tipped the Make Poverty History campaign, fronted by Irish rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof, and exiled Chinese politician Rebiya Kadeer, a member of the Turkic-speaking Uighur minority.
Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev and Chechen activist Lidiya Yusupova were also mentioned as contenders among the 191 people and organisations nominated this year.
Analysts and bookmakers are leaning towards Ahtisaari.
"It would be a serious omission not to give an award for the Aceh peace accord," Stein Toennesson, the head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, said on Thursday.
He pointed to the fact that the accord was holding and said it was a textbook example of how to resolve a conflict.
Toennesson said the prize could be shared between Ahtisaari and others involved in establishing peace in Aceh -- which was devastated by the December 2004 tsunami -- such as Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Free Aceh Movement, which gave up its claim for independence.
The Australian betting website centrebet.com makes Ahtisaari and the organisation he fronts, Crisis Management Initiative, the clear favourites at 1.8-1, followed by Yudhoyono at 5-1, GAM (7-1) and Kadeer (8-1).
Last year, the prize, which comes with a 10-million-kronor ($1.37 million) cheque, went to the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA and its Egyptian director general Mohamed ElBaradei.
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