Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

A spokesman for the Norwegian Nobel Committee said:

“The Nobel Peace Prize of 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

“The Committee has attached special importance for Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons. Obama has, as President, created a new international climate. International diplomacy has regained a central position with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.

“Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving the most difficult conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has profitably  stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climactic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given his people hope for a better future. His diplomacy has founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

“For 108 years the Norwegian Nobel committee has sought to stimulate precisely the international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman.

“The Committee endorses Obama’s view that now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”