Nobel Medicine Prize Kicks Off Awards Centenary

October 9, 2001 - 0:0
STOCKHOLM The Nobel Prize for Medicine will be presented here Monday, kicking off the awards' 100th anniversary which will culminate Friday with the announcement of the Peace Prize winner in the presence of laureates of yesteryear.

The Nobel prizes were first handed out in 1901, in line with the last will and testament of Swedish inventor and scholar Alfred Nobel, who created the prizes for "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind".

According to an AFP report, to mark the centennial, this year's Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo on December 10 is to be attended by most of the living past recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, including Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama and Shimon Peres.

The physics prize will be awarded on Tuesday followed by the chemistry and economy prizes the following day.

No date has been announced for the much-coveted literature prize which is traditionally awarded on a Thursday.

French poet Yves Bonnefoy, American writers Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates and South Africa's Jm Coetzee are among the main candidates being touted for the literature prize which was first awarded in 1901 to French poet Sully Prudhomme, a fact which has boosted conjecture that the prize may go back to a French poet this year.

The United Nations Organization, and its Ghanain Secretary General Kofi Annan are among the favorites for the Nobel Peace Prize among 136 people and organizations nominated.

The peace prize was also first awarded in 1901, under the terms of the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite

In his will, written in 1895, Nobel decreed that the bulk of his estate, derived mainly from his invention of dynamite in 1866, should be invested in "safe securities".

As a result, after Nobel died in 1896, some 31.5 million Swedish kronor, about 1.5 billion kronor (141 million dollars) in today's currency, were used to create the Nobel foundation.

The Nobel Prize for Economics, the only award not included in Nobel's will, is funded by the Swedish Central Bank, which created the prize at its tercentenary in 1968.

All of the Nobel prizes are awarded in Stockholm, with the exception of the peace prize, which is awarded in Oslo by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

In his will, Alfred Nobel left instructions for the peace prize to be awarded in Oslo, wanting to include Norway in his initiative as it was joined with Sweden in a union until 1905.

In addition to receiving a diploma and a Nobel medal, this year's laureates will also walk away with the prize of 10 million Swedish kronor (one million dollars, euros) to be shared if received by more than one winner.

The laureates will receive their prizes, as tradition dictates, at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel in San Remo, Italy, in 1896.