The Recipients of this year's Right Livelihood Awards (often referred to as the 'Alternative Nobel Prizes') were speaking at a press conference in the Foreign Office Press Room in Stockholm on Thursday morning 6 December 9:30 CET.

Christopher Weeramantry (Sri Lanka), a world-renowned legal scholar and former judge at the International Court of Justice, said: "We need to resolve the mutual lack of understanding between the worlds of Islam and Christianity. There is a total unawareness on each side of the richness and inspirational value of the other and in fact a tendency, born of ignorance, to deride the other."

Dekha Ibrahim Abdi (Kenya), who has engaged in effective peace work and conflict resolution between Muslims and Christians, said: "The participation in a peace process is not about the mathematics of numbers and percentages in relation to who is in majority or minority. It is about plurality, diversity, participation and ownership of all affected by the conflict ..."

Percy Schmeiser (Canada), who together with his wife Louise fights against Monsanto's abusive marketing practices, said: "It is our opinion that the full ramifications of allowing patents on plants and other life forms have not been fully examined. But governments from around the world have bowed to the pressure of big multinational corporations who have requested patents on life forms."
 
Dipal Barua, Managing Director of Grameen Shakti (Bangladesh), which has installed more than 120,000 solar home systems in rural Bangladesh, said: "It is a fact that the future belongs to Renewable Energy Technologies. But unless this technology can reach the millions of rural people who suffer most from the energy crisis, it will not reach its full potential, and neither will the economic and social problems of the world be solved."


More information on the 2007 Laureates can be found at:
http://www.rightlivelihood.org

The Right Livelihood Awards will be presented in the Swedish Parliament on Friday 7 December at 18:00 CET. Speakers:
- Birgitta Sellén, Deputy Speaker of the Swedish Parliament
- Peter Nobel, member of the Right Livelihood Award's Advisory Council
- Jakob von Uexkull, Founder of the Award
- The Laureates, introduced by Members of Parliament

A number of seats will be available for the press. Please call us if you would like to attend.

A live signal from the Parliament is expected to be offered via the Eurovision network between 17:00 and 18:00 GMT (18:00 to 19:00 CET).

There will be a webcast on the website of the Swedish Parliament: http://ripa.riksdagen.se/ripa.fcgi?op=live&stream=live3

To arrange an interview, even radio or TV, please contact us:

RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARD FOUNDATION
PO Box 15072, 104 65 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 70 20 339, Fax: +46 8 70 20 338
press @ rightlivelihood.org