Italian footballer Roberto Baggio honoured with peace award for Burma democracy efforts
Italian football star Roberto Baggio is this year's winner of a special award bestowed annually by Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Baggio, 43, the FIFA player of the year in 1993, was chosen today for the Peace Summit Award 2010 for his long-term efforts for charities.
They include pressing for the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's detained pro-democracy leader and Peace laureate.
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Peace work: Italian footballer Roberto Baggio, left, will receive a Peace Summit Award for his work supporting Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
Baggio is better-known for his footballing achievements for Italy, and also for the penalty he missed in the 1994 World Cup final.
But he has also helped fund hospitals, including raising money to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake and fighting bird flu, as well as supporting the work of the United Nations.
This year's meeting of laureates, set to start on Friday, is in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where the U.S. atomic bomb ****** 140,000 people in 1945, ending World War II.
The laureates will also be giving a special award to the representatives of the bomb victims,'to honour all those who have witnessed and endured the tragic consequences of nuclear bombardments and war, warning with their unbearable suffering present and future generations,' the group said in a statement.
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Superstar: Baggio, a former World Player of the Year, in action during his playing days for Italy
Past winners of the Peace Summit Award include British musician Peter Gabriel, American actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle, and Italian comedian and director Roberto Benigni.
Hopes for nuclear non-proliferation and pacifism are strong in Hiroshima. And the peace meeting this year will focus on nuclear disarmament, organisers say.
President Barack Obama, last year's Peace Prize winner, was invited but is not attending.
Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa of Poland, former South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk and East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta are scheduled to attend.
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