Beaming with pride at the United Nations winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan then rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and said now "more will be expected of us." 
He specifically mentioned Afghanistan and the tasks ahead, not only massive relief efforts but perhaps building a coalition government in the impoverished central Asian nation. 
On a personal note, Annan, a 63-year-old Ghanaian, said, "It's a wonderful feeling. It's a great recognition for the staff." He then told a news conference, "In the sort of business we are in, usually when you get a call that early in the morning it is something disastrous." 
The decision of the Nobel committee to award the prize to Annan and the United Nations reaffirmed the importance of the world body, created in San Francisco in 1945 on the ashes of World War Two. It suffered through the Cold War, the inability to bring a complete disarmament to Iraq and now has emerged once again as a force on the global stage. 
"All of us who work for the U.N. should be proud today but also be humble, because even more will be expected of us in the future," he told a news conference. 
His wife Nane, a Swedish lawyer and artist, was at his side. "It's wonderful," she said. And in Ghana, his 71-year old sister, Esi Arthur told Reuters: "We're so happy, so very happy. I don't know what to say. We give thanks to God and we ask him to give him even more wisdom." 
President Bush on Thursday embraced for the first time a central role of the United Nations in rebuilding Afghanistan after the ruling Taliban is ousted. American forces are now attempting to root out terrorist groups in Afghanistan, harboring Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States. 
Annan cautiously acknowledged the United Nations may have a role to play but he said the Afghans themselves had to agree to U.N. peacemaking or help to set up a broad-based government, saying it would depend on resources and support. 
But he acknowledged said, "I think when you look around, the United Nations is the only organization that in the past has done the kind of work that may be necessary in Afghanistan -- depending on developments of course." 
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the United Nations and Annan for working for peace throughout the world and said he had brought "new life" to the world body and had fought for human rights and against AIDS and terrorism. 
Annan, who has worked for the world body for three decades, headed peacekeeping operations before he became secretary-general in 1997. The United States helped put him in office after preventing through a veto his predecessor, Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali, from taking a second term. 
Annan was easily elected to a second five-year term months before his first term expires in December, an unprecedented vote of confidence. 
With some 52,000 employees around the globe, some 5,000 of them in the New York headquarters, the United Nations has half a dozen regional branches and scores of field offices. 
In addition to the well-known peacekeeping function, the United Nations has more than 30 affiliated groups or branches to promote respect for human rights, protect the environment, fight disease, forge development and reduce poverty. 
U.N. agencies also define the standards for transport by air and sea, help improve telecommunications, ensure intellectual property rights, coordinate allocation of radio frequencies, and make loans to developing countries. 
The prize is the first for the United Nations as a whole. The U.N. Children's Fund won in 1965, the International Labor Organization in 1969, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in 1954 and 1981, and U.N. peacekeepers in 1988. 
World leaders poured in congratulations, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Perez, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, among others. 
India's U.N. ambassador, Kamalesh Sharma, said the prize made Annan a "real global celebrity, like a rock star." 
"It is a recognition as much of his exceptional leadership as the centrality of the organization which he leads." 
And in Annan's homeland of Ghana, he was praised to his close ties to his country, although he had lived in Europe and the United States for decades. "As a son of Ghana, you've made the whole nation proud," President John Kufor said. 
But Antoine Mugesara, a representative of Rwandan genocide survivors, recalled the "mess" he said Annan had made during the 1994 killings when he was head of U.N. peacekeeping operations. And in Bosnia, survivors of the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serbs in Selenic said they were "appalled" by the Nobel award. 
But South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, noting Annan's efforts in many other parts of the continent said: "It is a delicious irony that the African continent, which is riddled with conflict, would now have five Nobel Peace Prize winners, possibly more than any other continent." 
The four other winners -- all from South Africa -- are former presidents Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk , retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the late Albert Luthuli , a former leader of the now-ruling African National Congress.