Lennon Ono peace grants awarded

John Lennon married artist Yoko Ono in 1969

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono is to award two $50,000 (£27,000) peace grants on the late Beatle's birthday.

Ono is to present the awards to the global medical group Medecins Sans Frontieres and rights campaigners the Center for Constitutional Rights.

They worked "selflessly and tirelessly towards establishing a more peaceful planet", Ono told Reuters news agency.

The Lennon Ono Grant for Peace was established in 2002. Lennon, murdered in 1980, would have been 66 on Monday.

The grants are to be presented at Hofdi House, Reykjavik, the famous site of a summit in 1986 between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ono said the organisations being honoured "look beyond today's conflicts and destruction and envision a positive future for your society".

Previous grant recipients include Mordechai Vanunu, the scientist jailed for 18 years in Israel for revealing nuclear secrets, and Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh.