OSLO, Norway (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.
Yunus, 66, shared the award with his Grameen Bank for helping people rise above poverty by giving them microcredit -- small, usually unsecured loans.
"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."
The Nobel Prizes, announced in October, are always presented in Oslo and Stockholm, Sweden, on December 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.
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.
Read full story: Yunus Nobel
Categories: poverty, changemakers, microcredit, microfinance, innovation, social entrepreneurs
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