Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

US President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, for, "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples". The Nobel Committee stated that his efforts to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons and working for world peace, had won him the priceless accolade.

The Nobel Prize Committee commented that, "his diplomacy is 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," while the BBC reported that the "committee highlighted Mr Obama's efforts to strengthen international bodies and promote nuclear disarmament."

President Obama is the third sitting US President to have won this award after, President Theodore Roosevelt, who won the award in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson who won in 1919.

Born on the 4th August 1961, Barrack Obama is a graduate from Harvard Law School, where he held the presidency of Harvard Law Review. Prior to becoming the first Afro-American President of the US, he held the seat of junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 till the time, he resigned to become the President. Obama is a believer in the Gandhian philosophy and is the author of the bestseller 'Audacity Of Hope'.

According to the the will left behind by Alfred Nobel, the peace prize is awarded "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."

The Nobel laureate will be awarded with a gold medal, diploma and 10m Swedish kronor or USD1.4 million on December 10 at Oslo.