Spain Culture News
Prince of Asturias uses his awards to call for a fight against unemployment
By h.b. - Oct 26, 2009 - 6:31 AM
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The Prince and Princess of Asturias and Queen Sofía arriving at the Campoamor Theatre - EFE
The glittering award ceremony was held, as it is every year, in Oviedo
Don Felipe de Borbón used his speech at the presentation of his Prince of Asturias Awards in the Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo on Friday night to make an impassioned call against unemployment.
The prince said that the loss of a job ‘injured our dignity as human beings, and constituted our main concern’ and called for society to work shoulder to shoulder in a constructive spirit against unemployment by creating new bases for growth. His call came on the same day that the latest unemployment numbers in Spain showed 17.9% out of work.
His
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This year’s ceremony brought together Ismail Kadaré for Literature, Norman Foster for the Arts, David Attenborough for the Social Sciences, Martin Cooper and Raymond S Tomlinson for Scientific Research, and Margaret Chan from the World Health Organisation which picked up the International Cooperation Award. The city of Berlin won the Concordia award and the Universidad Autónoma de México
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Belle of the ball was the sports winner, Russian pole-vaulter, Yelena Isinbayeva, described by the Prince as ‘an extraordinary model and example for youth’.
Queen Sofía and Princess Alia of Jordan, joined the Prince and his wife, Letizia Ortiz, to help preside the
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The Prince also had words in his speech for the Head of the Royal Household, Sabino Fernández Campo, who had been taken ill. The 91 year old died on the following Sunday night at a clinic in Madrid where he had been admitted because of an intestinal infection.
Fernández Campo is well known in Spain thanks to his contribution against the attempted coup here on Feb 23 1981.