Mandela's spirit present at Nobel ceremony

(AFP) The 2013 Nobel laureates in literature, medicine, chemistry, physics and economics picked up their prizes Tuesday at a ceremony in Stockholm where the late Nelson Mandela's legacy was remembered.

"Nelson Mandela embodied the struggle for freedom, democracy and humanism, and was one of the greatest statesmen of our time," chairman of the board of the Nobel Foundation Carl-Henrik Heldin said in his speech.

The formal event, traditionally held at Stockholm's Concert Hall on the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel in 1896, was not attended by Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, who was at Mandela's memorial service in South Africa.

Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with then South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk in 1993.

Meanwhile, four naked men drew attention to another former Peace Prize laureate, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, when they tried to cross police cordons outside the Stockholm venue in protest over Liu's continued imprisonment in his home country.

Police confirmed the incident and said the four, whose nationalities were not immediately known, had been arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.

Importance to support research

The laureates received their prizes from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf after the speech by Heldin, who highlighted the importance of science and research in times of crisis.

"As a result of the economic problems the world is now experiencing, many countries have chosen to reduce their support for research," he said.

"This is unfortunate. Today, it is more important than ever to continue and even increase support for research, in particular for basic research."

The Nobel literature laureate, 82-year-old Canadian Alice Munro, was unable to attend the ceremony and her daughter Jenny received the prize on her behalf.

Munro, the 13th woman literature laureate, was awarded the Nobel for her short stories focusing on the frailties of the human condition.

Three US academics, Robert Shiller, Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen, picked up the Nobel Economic Prize for research on financial markets, an area of immense real-world implications amid the crises that have rattled the global economy in recent years.

Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo

The Nobel Medicine Prize was handed to another trio of US scientists, one of them German-born.

James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas Suedhof shared the prize for pioneering work on the body's cell transport system, unlocking insights into diabetes, immune disorders and other diseases.

The Chemistry Prize was presented to Martin Karplus, a US-Austrian citizen, Michael Levitt, a US-British citizen, and Arieh Warshel of the United States and Israel for developing computer models to simulate chemical processes, providing a revolutionary tool for drug designers and engineers.

Peter Higgs of Britain and Francois Englert of Belgium received the Physics Prize for theorising a particle - discovered last year after an agonising quest - that explains why the Universe has substance.

The Nobel Prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma, and eight million kronor (890,000 euros).

The laureates were also to be honoured at a formal dinner banquet later in the evening attended by the royal family and some 1,300 guests.

Earlier Tuesday in Oslo, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for its efforts to rid the world of the devastating weapons.