Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai has warned that the earth faces a litany of threats as she received this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaking at ceremonies in Oslo, Norway, the 64-year-old environmental activist said the threats included disease, deforestation, and war. She urged a shift in human thinking and urged leaders, especially in Africa, to enshrine justice, democracy and peace to save the planet.
She also singled out the case of her predecessor as Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, and urged the Burmese government to release her from more than a year of house arrest.
Ms. Maathai is the first African woman and the 12th member of her sex to receive the prize since it was first awarded in 1901.
The other Nobel awards for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics will be awarded later today (Friday) in Stockholm, Sweden.