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OSLO, Norway (AP) – The United Nations and its Secretary-General Kofi Annan won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.”
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard woke Annan and told him the news shortly after 5 a.m. Friday morning. Speaking on CNN, Eckhard called the award “a vote of confidence in our common future.”
“Since the end of the cold war, the U.N. has been able to move toward its full potential in the peace and security area,” Eckhard said.
Annan, born in 1938 in Ghana, became U.N. secretary-general in 1997. He has been praised for his character, moral leadership, his efforts to stop civil wars in Africa and elsewhere and his efforts to combat AIDS.
He was the first leader to be elected from the ranks of United Nations staff. He was the head of U.N. peacekeeping operations when he was tapped for the top job after the United States lobbied to prevent his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, from taking a second term.
In an unprecedented vote of confidence, Annan was unanimously re-elected to a second five-year term by the 189 U.N. member states in June, six months before his first term expires on Dec. 31.
Source: GhanaWeb
