Gore rules out presidential bid

Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth was an unlikely box office hit

Former US Vice-President Al Gore has ruled out again making a late entry into the 2008 presidential race.

In an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, he said he would not make a fresh bid for the White House.

Mr Gore told NRK he wanted to focus on his climate change campaigning, which won him a Nobel Peace Prize last week.

Mr Gore, the beaten Democratic candidate in the 2000 election, had repeatedly stated he had no interest in standing again for president.

But a national organisation which has campaigned for him to stand once more for the White House said traffic on its website had surged in the wake of his Nobel triumph.

'Climate crisis'

Mr Gore told NRK it was a "great honour" to be awarded the prize for his climate campaigning.

Asked how it would affect his political future, he replied: "I don't have plans to be a candidate again so I don't really see it in that context at all.

"I'm involved in another kind of campaign. It's a global campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis."

On Tuesday, the Draft Gore organisation said it had gathered 200,000 signatures.

Mr Gore was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The 59-year-old won an Oscar for his 2006 documentary climate change film An Inconvenient Truth.

Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, wife of ex-US president Bill Clinton, is the current Democratic front-runner for 2008.