Prince of Asturias uses his awards to call for a fight against unemployment

Prince of Asturias uses his awards to call for a fight against unemployment
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By h.b. - Oct 26, 2009 - 6:31 AM
The glittering award ceremony was held, as it is every year, in Oviedo

The Prince and Princess of Asturias and Queen Sofía arriving at the Campoamor Theatre - EFE

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

David Attenborough - EFE

comments were supported by José Ramón Narro, the rector of the Universidad Autónoma de México, who said that the recession required a revision of values.

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

Norman Foster - EFE

was garlanded in communications and humanities.

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

Yelena Isinbayeva - EFE

proceedings.

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.

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