Liu Xiaobo's Nobel the first since 1936 to go uncollected
(NEWSER) - Clapping solemnly, dignitaries in Norway celebrated Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo with an empty chair. Some 1,000 guests, including ambassadors, royalty, and other VIPs, took their seats in Oslo's modernist City Hall for the two-hour ceremony; about 100 Chinese dissidents in exile and some activists from Hong Kong also attended, reports the AP . The prize can be collected only by the laureate or close family members, but with Liu's wife under house arrest in Beijing, this is the first time a Peace Prize has gone uncollected since Hitler prevented German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky from accepting the award in 1936. More»