Nobel Peace Prize winner is announced

NBC News — Six decades of work advancing peace in Europe won the European Union the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee's chairman announced the award friday in Oslo, Norway. He said the European Union helped transform once war torn Europe into a continent of peace and urged people to carry on such work. The award comes as the European Union is confronting its biggest financial crisis since its creation in the 1950s.

The bloc, which now has 27 member nations, was born of the conviction that closer economic ties would keep long time enemies from turning on each other again. European Parliament President Martin Schulz tweeted he was quote, "deeply touched," the E.U. won the Nobel Prize. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian anti-war activist Leymah Gbowee and democracy activist from Yemen Tawakkul Karman shared last year's prize.