U.S. President Barack Obama has been selected as the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. U.S. President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between people," says the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The committee attached special importance to Obama's vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons in the prize citation, which was read in Oslo on Friday.
"The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations," the citation said.
The committee attached special importance to Obama's vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons in the prize citation, which was read in Oslo on Friday.
"The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations," the citation said.
Chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, announces the 2009 Peace Prize in Oslo on Friday.The Nobel committee said Obama has created a new climate in international politics that has focused on multilateral diplomacy and an emphasis on the role of the United Nations and other international institutions.
Norwegian Nobel committee chair Thorbjorn Jagland told CNN that the five-member committee had unanimously voted to select Obama as the Nobel laureate.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the citation said.
'World's leading spokesman'
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the Peace Prize.
"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman," the citation said.
The committee endorses Obama's appeal that: "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges," said the citation.
Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award, but many Nobel watchers had believed it was too early to award the president. Obama would have been in the White House for less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline for this year's prize.
A record 205 nominations were received for the prize this year.
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, Chinese dissident Hu Jia, French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and Afghan women's rights activist Simi Samar were considered key contenders for the prize.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Grand gestures a Nobel tradition
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
The committee is famous for making grand symbolic gestures aimed at influencing the world agenda, such as in 1989 when, in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre, the prize went to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari received the award in 2008 for his decades of work trying to build lasting peace in various parts of the world.
The Nobel announcement is the fifth of six awards focusing on medicine, physics, chemistry, economics, literature and the peace prize, which will be announced through Oct. 12.
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