Hannah Stern, Executive Director of the prestigious Nobel Foundation, announced her resignation on Friday, days after the winners of this year's Nobel Prizes were announced.
The foundation said, in a statement, that the Swedish journalist and media director (57 years old) will step down from her position, for “personal and health” reasons.
“It has been a wonderful journey to develop the activities of the Nobel Foundation and contribute to ensuring that the Nobel Prizes reach people all over the world,” Stern said.
She added: “I feel proud of what we have achieved together, and of highly qualified colleagues in various fields related to the Nobel Prize.”
Stern took over the management of the institution in early 2025. Before that, she was the head of the Swedish public broadcaster SVT.
The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 to manage the legacy of Swedish industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896).
Pope Leo
The pictures showed the 71-year-old Pope, who was born in Chicago, standing in front of an altar in a hospital room in Rome, wearing a green priestly robe.
The Pope appeared to be in good condition, and next to him was his private secretary, Peruvian priest Edgard Remaiconia, according to Agence France-Presse.
The Vatican's media office stated that the Pope held the Mass in the presence of the medical and nursing staff at Gemili Hospital, in addition to people who were present at the place outside of their working hours, and they were also joined by police officers.
He added that the Pope expressed his thanks to all workers, including doctors, nurses, and service employees, for their dedication to work, their closeness to people, and their concern for human weakness, especially for the care, concern, and treatment he personally received in recent days.
The Pope is expected to preside over the traditional “Angelus” prayer on Sunday, but a source in the Vatican did not clarify whether the prayer would be held from inside the hospital or from the Vatican.
The Pope is accustomed to performing the “Angelus” prayer every Sunday from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square, in front of crowds in the square.
On Tuesday, Pope Leo was admitted to Gemelli Hospital in Rome, located north of the Vatican, where he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his right lung.
Doctors stated that he is recovering normally, but continued tests will determine the next course of treatment for him.
His doctors reported on Thursday that a chest x-ray showed “good recovery of the lung that was operated on.”
On Friday, they reported that the tests showed “a continuous improvement in his general condition,” noting that he was now practicing his “usual daily activities completely independently.”
The results of tests that will determine whether the cancer has spread have not yet appeared. A source in the Vatican said, “(The Pope’s) morale is good, and this is clear. His recovery is also going well, as evidenced by the fact that the Pope was able to hold Mass.”
The office did not provide any information about the possible date for the Pope’s release from the hospital, merely repeating what the doctor had previously mentioned in that his recovery would take about a week.
If the Pope prayed the “Angelus” from the window of Gemelli Hospital, it would not be a precedent in the history of the Catholic Church.
On February 6, 2005, Pope John Paul II, who was 84 years old at the time, looked out of the hospital window while recovering from respiratory problems resulting from influenza, while one of his aides recited the Evangelization prayer standing next to him.
Pope Francis also performed the same prayer from the hospital window on July 11, 2021. He was also 84 years old at the time, after undergoing colon surgery. On that day, he said to the gathered crowds: “I am happy that I was able to adhere to the time of Sunday’s Angelus prayer, even from here.”
On Friday, the Vatican published a group of drawings and letters sent by children in the hospital, in addition to a letter from an 18-year-old young woman in which she wrote, “We will live better days.”
A seven-year-old boy named Angelo, who was transferred to the 10th floor of Gemili Hospital 36 days ago, where he underwent head surgery, wrote: “Mom and I pray for you every night. I hope you'll get better soon".
The Europeans dispersed over all the issues that were on the table at the European Summit on Thursday and Friday, and their differences deepened over basic topics, such as immigration and the budget that will determine the Union’s policies during the next seven years, but the war in Ukraine reunited them around a unified position to continue providing military, financial, and logistical support to Kiev, and to perpetuate the rift between Washington and Brussels, in approaching the most dangerous crisis facing the European continent since the end of World War II.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the undisputed star of this summit, as he arrived in the Belgian capital on Thursday evening, and held what he described as excellent talks with the Belgian Prime Minister about the frozen Russian financial assets in the EU countries, most of which are in Belgian banks, which the European foreign policy official, Kayak Allas, said on Friday afternoon that they “should not be returned to Russia, before Ukraine obtains from them the compensation it deserves as a result of the devastation caused by the Russian attacks on it.”
On the second day of the summit, the Ukrainian president was a guest during the morning session, and the European leaders received him with remarkable warmth and long applause, as if they felt an urgent need to show a unified position after the series of deep disagreements that characterized most of the recent meetings. Their warmth, and the subsequent positions issued by the foreign policy official and the President of the Council, were a clear response to the American position, the insufficiency of which was confirmed by President Donald Trump’s statements, in which he called for searching for an alternative to the presidency of Ukraine, and held Zelensky responsible for not reaching a solution to end it.
As for the controversial issue that consumed most of the discussion that took place on Thursday at the summit, it was the Union’s budget for the period 2028-2034, which will determine the major political headlines in the coming years, in which deep disagreements emerged over it, manifested in the fierce confrontation between the group of “frugal” countries led by Germany and calling for a significant reduction in the proposal prepared by the Commission, and the group of “Friends of Solidarity” led by Spain and Italy, and demanding the allocation of more resources to face the next stage.
There is no clearer indication of the depth of the differences over this multi-year financial framework than the statements of Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson, who said: “Frankly, we are not in a rush to reach an agreement, and the Swedish citizen is not an ATM for the European Union.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez responded by saying: “This proposal is not sufficient at all.”
What increases the complexity of this file, and hinders its resolution before the end of the year, is that the coming year is an election year par excellence in many member states, which makes the discussion about all politically sensitive files directed primarily for internal consumption.
This financial framework is considered a declaration of political priorities, specifying where and how financial resources will be spent in the next seven years. The proposal drawn up by the Commission includes a significant reduction in some of the main traditional chapters, such as the Common Agricultural Policy and the Solidarity Policy, and increases in some chapters that have become new priorities due to the current geopolitical circumstances, such as defense and security, and enhancing competitive capabilities to help European institutions in the race in which the United States and China are leading, and far ahead of the European Union countries.
The current rotating presidency held by Ireland has been trying for months to push for a final agreement on this financial framework, even though it will only enter into force at the beginning of 2028. The stated technical reason behind this rush is that the framework has repercussions on the infrastructure and administrations that will implement it when it enters into force, and they need time to prepare for it. But there is an undeclared political reason, which is that France is heading towards presidential and legislative elections next April, and it is no secret to anyone that if the extreme right reaches the Elysee or takes control of the majority in the National Assembly, it will not be easy at all to reach an agreement, not to mention the elections also scheduled in Poland, Italy and Finland, where countries will not back down from their declared positions for fear of losing votes.
The other controversial dish on the summit table was immigration, which has become the main headline of most election campaigns in member states, and is a candidate for more polarization, consumption, and bidding at the doorsteps of the elections, especially after the events that took place in the Spanish city of Ceuta this summer. Although member states recently expressed their willingness to stand in solidarity with Spain, contrary to what happened at the beginning of the Ceuta events, they did not hold back in their criticism of the Spanish Prime Minister and his immigration policy, and the decision to regularize the status of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, which some countries consider the motive that attracted thousands of young Moroccans who flocked to Ceuta this summer.
This did not prevent Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Danish counterpart from asking Sancer to reconsider the decision to regularize the status of illegal immigrants, which the Spanish Prime Minister strongly rejected in the press conference he held after the summit.
But Sanchez, who came to the summit prepared for this confrontation, refuted all the accusations leveled against him with figures and statements issued by the Commission’s agencies, whose president, von der Leyen, said that the influx of tens of thousands of migrants to Ceuta did not affect European immigration policy, and that illegal flows declined last year by 55 percent, and by a third since the beginning of this year.
