Ten winners of the 2008 Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics received their prizes on Wednesday at a ceremony in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.

Guests and honorees join the Swedish royal family at the Nobel banquet in the Blue Hall at Stockholm's City Hall December 10, 2008. Ten winners of the 2008 Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics received their prizes on Wednesday at a ceremony in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. [Xinhua]

American professor Ylichiro Nambu, one of the Nobel Physics Prize winners, is absent from the ceremony for his 87-year-old advanced age. Marcus Storch, chairman of the Board of the Nobel Foundation, sent the "warmest regards" to Nambu in his opening address.

Storch expressed a very warm welcome in his address to the laureates and their families to the ceremony in honor of the laureates and their contributions to science and literature.

Storch emphasized the importance of knowledge and the contributions made by universities. He said the basis of all human development was knowledge and the most important contributions came from universities.

Honorees (1st row) are seen at the Nobel banquet in the Blue Hall at Stockholm's City Hall December 10, 2008. Ten winners of the 2008 Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics received their prizes on Wednesday at a ceremony in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. [Xinhua]

The laureates that attended the ceremony are two Nobel Physics winners Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, three Nobel Chemistry Prize winners Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien, three Nobel Medicine Prize winners Harald zur Hausen, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, Nobel Literature Prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, and Nobel Economics Prize winner Paul Krugman.

They were awarded their Nobel Prizes by the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf before a large audience. Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.2 million US dollars).

The Nobel Prize laureates will also attend a gala banquet a few blocks away at the Stockholm city hall after the ceremony.

Earlier on Wednesday in the Norwegian capital Oslo, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari received the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize at a grand ceremony for "his important efforts to resolve international conflicts on several continents and over more than three decades."

The Nobel Prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out every year on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2008)