Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari has won the Nobel Peace Prize for a long career of peace mediation work.

His highlights include an accord between Indonesia and rebels in its Aceh province in 2005.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee chose Mr Ahtisaari to receive the $1.4 million (£826,979) prize from a field of 197 candidates, "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts".

Mr Ahtisaari, who was Finland's president from 1994 to 2000, has had a diplomatic career stretching from Africa to the Balkans and has been a favourite to win for years.

He was tipped as the least controversial of the candidates, with the Nobel Committee opting to avoid stepping on any toes in China or Russia by choosing either Chinese dissident Hu Jia or Chechen human rights lawyer Lidiya Yusupova.

Leader of the nobel Committee, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, first made the announcement in Norwegian, then in English.

The prize will be handed over in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel who created the awards.