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

Farm dogs maul Irish Tourist

Farm dogs maul Irish Tourist - An Irish tourist who was mauled to death by two dogs while visiting an organic farm in Penang yesterday morning had more than 50 bite wounds and lacerations all over his body. Penang Hospital Forensic Department head Datuk Dr Bhupinder Singh, who performed the post-mortem on Maurice Sullivan (pix), 50, today, said he found the wounds on the victim's head, neck, hands and legs. "The victim had died as a result of severe haemorrhage due to multiple injuries from the dogs' bites," he said, adding that there were no signs that Sullivan suffered any ailment at the time of death. Farm dogs maul Irish Tourist Bhupinder also said both Sullivan's ears and the left side of his face were gnawed off in the incident. One of the ears was recovered from the scene. Bhupinder told reporters this after carrying out the post-mortem which began at 10am. Sullivan was attacked by two mongrels at the farm while taking photographs of the gr...
6 comments
Read more

Man Hits Teen on Plane Over iPhone

Man Hits Teen on Plane Over iPhone - Police say a man on a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas punched a teenager who refused to turn off his iPhone as the plane approached the Boise airport. Officers arrested 68-year-old Russell E. Miller, of Boise, on suspicion of misdemeanor battery Tuesday. He has been released from jail on bond. Witnesses told police the 15-year-old was playing games and listening to music on his cell phone when flight attendants instructed passengers to turn off their electronic devices because the plane was landing. Witnesses told police that when the teen didn't respond, Miller got angry and punched the boy in the arm. Miller says he "tapped" the teen on the shoulder after he refused to turn off the phone. He told the Idaho Statesman that he may have "overreacted," but that he did not punch the teen. Man Hits Teen on Plane Over iPhone
5 comments
Read more

Contactless Debit Cards

Contactless Debit Cards - Contactless debit cards will make their formal debut in Canada next year with the launch of Interac Flash from Acxsys Corp.’s Interac Association, Canada’s national debit network. Interac’s first two Flash issuers are Scotiabank and RBC Royal Bank, which will roll out their first contactless cards next summer. The first acquirer is TD Merchant Services, a unit of Toronto-Dominion Bank. More issuers and acquirers are on the way, an Interac spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News, though no announcements have been made yet. Interac and the banks tested Flash this summer at some high-volume, small-ticket merchants in downtown Toronto. The spokesperson expects national merchants will be making formal announcements about acceptance. “There’s a lot of excitement in the merchant community,” she says. “Merchants are looking for that faster throughput.” In a statement, the Retail Council of Canada endorsed the new card. “Interac Flash is a welcome and needed ...
Post a Comment
Read more