Oldest laureates absent at Nobel prize festivities

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STOCKHOLM, Dec 8 (AFP): The glittering Nobel prize festivities Monday will be a little less luminous without the presence of literature laureate Doris Lessing of Britain, who at 88 was unable to travel to Stockholm due to ill health.
But the other star of the 2007 Nobel season, former US vice president Al Gore who shared the prize with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), arrived in Oslo Friday.
The prizes for literature, physics, medicine, chemistry and economics are presented each year at a formal ceremony in Stockholm and the peace prize is awarded in Oslo, as tradition dictates on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel.
Also absent due to advanced age this year is economics prize-winner Leonid Hurwicz, who chose not to make the trip given the laureates' hectic schedule, with several days of non-stop lectures, press conferences, parties and events.
At 90, Hurwicz, who shared his prize with two US economists, is the oldest Nobel laureate in history.
Lessing is meanwhile the oldest of the Nobel literature winners.
"Doris Lessing has been ill for some time but had very much hoped to be able to come to Stockholm. Unfortunately her medical advisors have said that she must not travel," the Nobel foundation said in a statement in late November.
At a time when world experts are gathered in Bali to discuss a new climate change pact, Gore is expected to make his voice heard on the climate issue in Oslo.