Skip to main content

Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Liu Xiaobo

Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Liu Xiaobo - The Nobel Peace Prize committee held its award ceremony on Friday with an empty chair for imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, this year’s winner whose case has both sharply focused Western criticism of China’s lack of human rights and unleashed a government crackdown by Beijing on the country’s small group of political activists.

In his keynote address in Oslo, committee chair Thorbjorn Jagland not only called for Liu’s immediate release, but warned of the perils of China continuing to grow as an economic superpower without parallel development of its civil and legal institutions.

“We can to a certain degree say that China with its 1.3 billion people is carrying mankind’s fate on its shoulders,” Jagland said. “If the country proves capable of developing a social market economy with full civil rights, this will have a huge favorable impact on the world. If not, there is a danger of social and economic crises arising in the country, with negative consequences for us all.”

Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Liu Xiaobo

Liu had been taken into custody in December 2008 for his role in drafting a political manifesto known as Charter 08 that called for greater political freedoms in China, many of which are guaranteed by the nation’s own constitution. Then last December, Liu, a 54-year-old former literature professor, was given an 11-year prison sentence for attempting to subvert the state.

The Nobel ceremony, which began with trumpeters heralding the king and queen of Norway, was a very long way from the prison cell in northeast China that Liu is said to now share with five other inmates.

Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Liu Xiaobo
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Best Indoor Exercise

Best Indoor Exercise - There are several indoor exercises you can do to keep in shape. But which are the best? They can be split in to two categories. The first is body weight exercises, meaning you use your own body weight to provide resistance. The second is using some sort of equipment. There are pros and cons to both. The biggest advantage to doing body weight exercises is they can be done anywhere. Whether you're on holiday, travelling for work, or if you just want a quick exercises to do. There are quite a few body weight exercises that can be done. If you wish to work out your abdominal muscles, sit ups or crunches are a good one. Doing pull ups on a door frame will work out your lats and back. Squatting with just your body weight will work out your thighs and calves. There are also indoor exercise machines by the hundreds. There's the traditional treadmill and exercise bikes which can be used indoors. Resistance bands and free-weights are also good ones for indoo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kinect Review

Kinect Review - First presented to the world as Project Natal at E3 2009, Microsoft's Kinect sensor peripheral has since been positioned by the software (and hardware) giant as the next phase of Xbox 360's evolution as a platform. A combination of hardware and software, it's been billed as a means for users to interact with their consoles and play games without using a physical controller, using natural gestures, voice commands and face recognition. I've had a final retail Kinect unit at home for a little over a week now, and have had ample time to put the shiny new gadget through its paces. Is it as magical as expected? Will it transform gaming? Or, more importantly, does it even work? Read on past the break for my in-depth review of this ambitious apparatus. Kinect is a single piece of hardware, yet it incorporates several distinct technologies. There's an infrared emitter that floods your play space with invisible light, paired with a CMOS sensor that then l...
Post a Comment
Read more

'Green Hornet' Star Edward Furlong Jailed

'Green Hornet' Star Edward Furlong Jailed - Troubled former teen star Edward Furlong was thrown in jail Tuesday for allegedly violating a restraining order against his estranged wife, just hours after attending the Hollywood premiere of his new film, “The Green Hornet.” Furlong was arrested during a progress hearing Tuesday morning over the 100-yard, three-year restraining order taken out by Rachael Kneeland, People reported. The “Terminator 2” star was found to have violated the order last month by coming within 50 yards of Kneeland and was booked on $75,000 bail, the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office told news outlets. 'Green Hornet' Star Edward Furlong Jailed The arrest is the latest sad chapter for Furlong since Kneeland filed for divorce in July 2009 after three years of marriage. The pair have a 4-year-old son, Ethan. Soon after their split, Kneeland accused Furlong in court papers of rampant cocaine and other drug use and of making threats against...
Post a Comment
Read more