<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2995" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY id=role_body
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #004040; FONT-FAMILY: Comic Sans MS"
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV><FONT id=role_document face="Comic Sans MS" color=#004040 size=3>
<DIV>
<DIV class=timestamp>December 10, 2006</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" "><FONT size=4>Yunus Receives Nobel Peace
Prize</FONT> <FONT size=1>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS</FONT></H1>
<H1><B><FONT size=1>Filed at 9:26 a.m. ET</FONT></B></H1>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus accepted the
Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday, saying he hoped the award would inspire ''bold
initiatives'' to fight poverty and eradicate the root causes of terrorism.</P>
<P>Yunus, 66, shared the award with his Grameen Bank for helping people rise
above poverty by giving them microcredit -- small, usually unsecured loans.</P>
<P>''I firmly believe that we can create a poverty free world if we collectively
believe in it,'' Yunus said after accepting the prize at City Hall in Oslo,
Norway. ''The only place you would be able to see poverty is in a poverty
museum.''</P>
<P>The <A title="More articles about Nobel Prizes."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/nobel_prizes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><FONT
color=#000066>Nobel Prizes</FONT></A>, announced in October, are always
presented in Oslo and Stockholm, Sweden, on Dec. 10 to mark the anniversary of
the 1896 death of their creator, Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who
invented dynamite and stipulated the dual ceremonies in his will.</P>
<P>The winners for literature, medicine, physics and economics will receive
their awards later Sunday at a royal ceremony in Stockholm's blue-hued concert
hall. Each award carries a purse of $1.4 million, a diploma and a gold medal.
The first prizes were handed out in 1901.</P>
<P>This year's laureates include a novelist who explored Turkey's clash of
cultures and American scientists who helped cement the big-bang theory of the
universe and broke new ground in genetic research.</P>
<P>Yunus said ending poverty was the best way to fight terrorism.</P>
<P>''We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time,'' he
said. ''I believe putting resources into improving the lives of poor people is a
better strategy than spending it on guns.''</P>
<P>Grameen Bank, set up in 1983, was the first lender to provide microcredit,
giving very small loans to poor Bangladeshis who did not qualify for loans from
conventional banks. No collateral is needed, and repayment is based on an honor
system, with a nearly 100 percent repayment rate.</P>
<P>Yunus said the idea has spread around the world, with similar programs in
almost every country.</P>
<P>Clad in a traditional Bangladeshi sleeveless jacket, Yunus accepted his half
of the $1.4 million prize from awards committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes.</P>
<P>Board member Mosammat Taslima Begum, wearing a traditional dress in red with
a green shawl, accepted the other half of the award on behalf of Grameen bank,
saying she dedicated it to all Bangladeshis.</P>
<P>Mjoes said the award was an outstretched hand to the Islamic world in an era
where Muslims are often demonized because of terrorism.</P>
<P>''The peace prize to Yunus and Grameen Bank is also support for the Muslim
country of Bangladesh, and for the Muslim environments in the world that are
working for dialogue and collaboration,'' Mjoes said</P>
<P>Turkish writer <A title="More articles about Orhan Pamuk."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/orhan_pamuk/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#000066>Orhan Pamuk</FONT></A> won the literature prize for a body of work
that illustrates the struggle to find a balance between East and West.</P>
<P>U.S. researchers have long dominated the science awards, and swept them all
this year for the first time since 1983.</P>
<P>The Nobel Prize in medicine went to Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for
discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes. John C.
Mather and George F. Smoot won the physics prize for work that helped cement the
big-bang theory of how the universe was created.</P>
<P>Roger D. Kornberg won the prize in chemistry for his studies of how cells
take information from genes to produce proteins, a process that could provide
insight into defeating cancer and advancing stem cell research.</P>
<P>Economics winner Edmund S. Phelps was cited for research into the
relationship between inflation and unemployment, giving governments better tools
to formulate economic policy. The economics award is not an original Nobel
Prize, but was created by the Bank of Sweden in 1968.</P>
<P>Pamuk, whose trial last year for ''insulting Turkishness'' made headlines
worldwide, was honored for exploring ''new symbols for the clash and interlacing
of cultures.'' His novels include ''Snow'' and ''My Name Is Red.'' The charges
against Pamuk were eventually dropped.</P>
<P>------</P></DIV></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>