Last week the Princess of Asturias attended a series of events during the Prince of Asturias Awards. As always her fashion choices were heavily scrutinised by royal watchers. During the three days of engagements, Letizia choose to wear the designs of royal favourite Felipe Varela.

On arrival in Asturias, Letizia combined a grey shift dress with a black Burberry coat and one of her favourite Burberry bags. image The simple dress was in the classic style which the Princess favours. image Later that evening at a musical concert, Letizia dazzled in a recycled Varela creation of a blue silk blouse worn with a short black skirt which had small blue daisy detailing on the hem. Her towering blue platforms were from Magrit. image On the following day, Letizia choose another plain light grey dress which was worn with a black belt and a favourite pair of suede Magrit platforms. image

At the award cermony in the evening Letizia wore a stunning midnight blue sequin encrusted dress with a simple cardigan. image Letizia accessorised with matching blue Magrit shoes and a clutch bag. image On the final day of engagements the Princess wore a casual tweed jacket from Felipe Varela which she clinched in at the waist with a tiny belt. Unusually the Princess wore flat boots at the event. image

For more information of the Prince of Asturias Awards 2009 go to this thread.

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On Friday 23rd, the 2009 Prince of Asturias Awards took place at Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo, Asturias.

View the image at Casa Real

At 18:25, the Prince and Princess of Asturias arrived at theatre to preside over the ceremony. They were accompanied by Her Majesty Queen Sofia, who always attends the ceremony, and by HRH Princess Alia of Jordan, a special guest who for the first time attended the event. Both watched the ceremony form the royal box.

The Prince and Princess took their seats at the Presidential table along with the President of the Principality of Asturias, Mr. Vicente Alvarez Areces, and the President of the Prince of Asturias Foundation, Mr. Matias Rodriguez Inciarte. The ceremony started with the playing of the national anthem, played by the City of Oviedo Bagpipe Band. After a brief speech by the President of the Foundation; Ismail Kadaré, José Narro, Margaret Chan and Klaus Wowereit gave thanking speeches.

View the image at Casa Real

A special and emotive one, was Ismail Kadaré speech. “During that glacial age when no-one traveled between my country and Spain, a solitary gentleman crossed the impassable frontier as often as he wished, spurning the world’s laws. You know who I am referring to: Don Quixote,” he said.

The award winners left their seats and walked to the President’s table, to be handed the Award by the Prince. Afterward the Prince gave his speech, considered one of his most important speeches of the year, in which he devoted a few words to this year laureates. HRH also give thanks to “the people of Asturias and to others parts of Spain, and event too many from abroad who accompany us to make this day a great celebration of culture and of concord”. Read more…

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This evening the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award grand presentation ceremony will take place. More than a thousand journalists from more than a hundred media stations worldwide are accredited to cover the XXIX Prince of Asturias Awards.

For those interested in watching the whole ceremony, it will be broadcast live on La 1 TV, and the 24 Hour Channel of TVE. Also foreign medias will broadcast it to their countries, the European Association of Public Service Broadcasters, Eurovision, the Television of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Euronews will also broadcast part of the grand presentation ceremony. The Mexican radio channel Grupo Radiocentro will also broadcast from the Campoamor Theatre in their programme “De una a tres”, chaired by journalist Jacobo Zabludovsky.

The Ceremony will start at 6:30pm, but prior that, at 6:15pm TVE will broadcast the departure from Reconquista Hotel of the prize winners and the Prince and Princess of Asturias to Campoamor Theatre, where the Ceremony will take place.

The Prince of Asturias Foundation has conferred its awards since 1981. The principal intention is to acknowledge scientific, technical, cultural, social, and humanitarian work carried out by institutions, individuals, and groups of people whose achievements are exemplary at an international level.

This year the laureates with the 2009 Prince of Asturias awards are:

Norman Foster, Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts

World Health Organization, Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation

David Attenborough, Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences

The National Autonomous University of Mexico, Prince of Asturias for Communication and Humanities

Martin Cooper and Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

Ismail Kadare, Prince of Asturias Award for Letters

Yelena Isinbayeva, Prince of Asturias Award for Sports

The City of Berlin, Prince of Asturias Award for Concord.

For more information please visit this thread

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Click for the image at the Prince of Asturias Awards website

The last of eight 2009 Prince of Asturias Awards was announced today in Oviedo by D. Vicente Álvarez Areces, President of the Jury. It goes to the city of Berlin, capital of Germany, which this year is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall, symbol of Europe’s reunification of Germany, was for decades the worldwide representation of the Cold War.” With this statement the Jury wants to pay tribute to those who lost their lives or their freedom during the war and also to the millions of citizens who, after the Wall fell, have been capable of constructing, on the scars of the division, an open and creative society, a knot of concord in the heart of Germany and in Europe, which contributes to understanding, coexistence, justice, peace and freedom worldwide.

“The peaceful revolution, which on November 1989 led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequently to the reunification of Germany, has captivated millions of people worldwide, contributing significantly towards the reestablishment of the balance between the East and West,” the jury said in its statement.

Berlin’s candidature has received lot of support letters, one of those from a well known German, Michael Schumacher, 2007 Prince of Asturias Award laureate for Sports. He considers Berlin “a symbol for hope and for overcoming frontiers, and what better compliment can there be. It seems that a very special energy is emerging from out of this town since the wall came down. Everybody who feels it is inspired by it.Berlin’s Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the prize is “an extraordinary honor” and that the city would accept it “in the name of the whole country.”

The next stop for the Prince of Asturias Award will be in Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo on October 23, where the beautiful and touching Presentation Ceremony will take place, presided over by the Prince and Princess of Asturias.

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The jury for the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Sports, presided over by Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee from 1980-2001, has bestowed the award to Russian athlete Yelena Isinbaeva. Members of the jury considered Isinbaeva’s life and work “one of those not only examples to others, but who have also reached new heights in man’s quest to surpass himself, and whose efforts have contributed to the advancement, nurturing, promotion or dissemination of sport”.

Click here to read Yelena's Bio

Yelena Isinbaeva was born on 1982 in Volgograd (Russia). She has broken the world pole-vaulting record twenty-seven times, and also has twice been Olympic champion. She was distinguished in 2004 and 2005 as World Athlete of the Year. In 1999, she took her first gold medal at the World Youth Championships in Bydgoszcz (Poland).

“I was very surprised when I received the phone call from Samaranch himself, because I’m a great fan of him. I think he has done a lot for sports. First I was very shocked but then also very honoured because so many important people have received the award before, including my mentor Sergei Bubka, who has also done fantastic achievements for athletics. I will be very pleased to attend in October to receive this worldwide renowned prize. I’m looking forward to it” Yelena said on a statement today.

The presentation ceremony of the Prince of Asturias award will take place on October 23 at Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo, and will be presided over by the Prince and Princess of Asturias.

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Click here to read Ismail Kadare's Biography

 Six of the eight Awards which are presented annually by the Prince of Asturias Foundation have been bestowed already; the awards for sport and concord will be announced in September.

The Award for Letters was officially announced on Wednesday 24 June and goes to Albanian writer Ismail Kadare.

The Jury considers his work to be full of beauty and profound commitment. “Using everyday language which is nonetheless full of lyricism, Ismaíl Kadaré narrates the tragedy of his land, an incessant battleground. Giving life to old myths through new words, he expresses all the grief and dramatic load of conscience. His commitment is rooted in the great literary tradition of the Hellenic world, which he projects onto the contemporary stage as an open condemnation of any form of totalitarianism and in defence of reason.”

In an official statement Ismail Kadare has declared that he is honoured and grateful for having received this award, which he considers is one of most prestigious in the world, as well as for becoming part of a list of eminent writers whom he so much admires.

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 On Wednesday 17 June in Oviedo, the jury of the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research officially announced their decission to bestow the award to Martin Cooper, discover of the the first handheld mobile telephone, and to Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, the man who chose the @ sign to separate local from global e-mails in the mail address.

Click to read the biographies on the two men at the Prince of Asturias Awards website

The jury considers that these two discoveries are among the greatest technological innovations of our time, revolutionizing the way that thousands of millions of people communicate worldwide and contributing decisively to the advancement of knowledge. In particular, they are key elements for achieving the United Nations “Millennium Development Goals” that will enable every citizen on the planet to exercise their right to communicate.

With this Award, the Jury also wishes to recognize the “effort and work of all those people who have contributed to fostering and developing the mobile phone and e-mail services, forms of communication that give rise to a connected world, free from geographical or temporal barriers”.

The Presentation ceremony will take place in the autumm in Oviedo.

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 Today in Oviedo, the jury for the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities has decided to bestow the prize to the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

The UNAM Logo

The jury considers that “throughout the hundred years of its existence, the National Autonomous University of Mexico has been the academic and educational model for numerous generations of students from diverse countries and has provided the Ibero-American sphere with the most eminent intellectuals and scientists.”

The UNAM was established in 1910 as a centre for higher education. In 1929, as a result of internal social reform, the federal Government granted the university its still-current autonomous status, resulting in its present-day name of th National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

3 Nobel Prize winners have studied at the UNAM, as well as 8 of the 10 Mexican Prince of Asturias Award Laureates. Its main campus in Mexico City, which was inaugurated in 1954, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007 for being an example of a modernist monumental complex of the 20th century.

The UNAM has a total of 18 faculties and 4 university schools, as well as 46 institutes and research centres throughout Mexico. It also has foreign campuses in the United States and Canada. The current academic year has a total of 299,688 registered students and 34,835 researchers and teachers.

The Presentation Ceremony will take place in the autumn in Oviedo and it will be presided over by the Prince of Asturias.

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 The British scientist Sir David Attenborough was honoured yesterday in Oviedo with the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences.

Click here to see Image at Sir David official site

The Jury has decided to bestow on him the prize as his work is considered one of the great contributions to the defence of life and the conservation of our planet.

The Jury also considered that “his interest in the problems of our times, his permanent pursuit of excellence and the quality of his research have earned him the acknowledgement of the international academic community as well as making him a figure of great social renown thanks to the dissemination of his work in the major media, especially television”, deserved this prestigious Award.

Sir David was born in London in 1926. He studied at Cambridge University, where he obtained a degree in Natural Science. Since 1952 he has worked for the BBC, and is currently President of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation.
In 1985, he received a knighthood and in 2005 Queen Elizabeth II of England gave him, the Order of Merit.

Tim Kelly, President of National Geographic Global Media who obtained the Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities in 2006, has declared that he is “delighted he has received the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Science in recognition of his contribution toward a better understanding of how the world works”.

The Presentation Ceremony of the Prince of Asturias Award will take place in the autumn in Oviedo.

Click here to read about this year’s Prince of Asturias Awards.

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 The second of the eight Prince of Asturias Awards has been announced today in Oviedo. It goes to the World Health Organization.

Click here to visit the WHO website

The jury, presided over by Antonio Garrigues Walker, has agreed to bestow the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation to the World Health Organization, due to it being considered one of the most respected international institutions “for its efforts towards the coordination and cooperation between countries in health matters. Since its establishment, it has contributed towards the eradication of pandemic diseases such as smallpox, the reduction of cases of poliomyelitis by more than 99%, the prevention and control of infectious diseases such as aids, tuberculosis and malaria; the reduction of child mortality rate; and the detection and management of epidemic outbreaks worldwide.”

WHO was established on the 7th of April 1948, and is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system and is also responsible for providing leadership on global health matters.

The Presentation Ceremony of the Prince of Asturias Award will take place in the autumn in Oviedo.

Click here to read about this year’s Prince of Asturias Awards.

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