Obama. Nobel Peace Prize announcement

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 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 to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

'Why should Obama be given a peace prize?'

Issam al-Khazraji, a day labourer in Baghdad, said: "He doesn't deserve this prize. All these problems - Iraq, Afghanistan - have not been solved... The man of 'change' hasn't changed anything yet."

Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, said: "It's a joke. How embarrassing for those who awarded it to him, because he's done nothing for peace. What change has he brought in Iraq, the Middle East or Afghanistan?"

Obama is the third senior US Democrat to win the prize this decade after former Vice President Al Gore won in 2007 along with the UN climate panel and Jimmy Carter in 2002.