The U.S. Senate has confirmed President Barack Obama's nominee, Samantha Power, as ambassador to the United Nations.
President Obama's selection was approved by the senators by a vote of 87-10, according to the Voice of America.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez Thursday described Samantha Power, the 43-year-old former journalist and National Security Council staff expert as "a tireless defender of human rights."
Power is a winner of the highest literary award -the 2003 Pulitzer Prize- for a book in which she described Washington's response to human rights crisis as "timid."
Recently, she has called the U.N. failure to end the ongoing human crisis in Syria "a disgrace that history will judge harshly."
Susan Rice is being replaced by Power as ambassador to the United Nations and Rice is now the national security advisor under President Obama.
When Rice was ambassador to the United Nations, her mission was to ensure the success of the world's common security and prosperity as well as protect and promote universal values and human rights.
According to the United Nations, "Under Ambassador Rice's leadership, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations has helped win the stiffest UN sanctions ever against Iran and North Korea, unprecedented action to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials, support for life-saving interventions around the world."
