The ugly face of the Red Dragon

Liu Xiaobo was named the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in October. He is to receive his prize in Oslo (Norway) in Decemeber. However, the Chinese regime will not let him come to Oslo to accept it since he is a political prisoner. Furthermore, the Red Dragon has today showed us its ugly face, as Cui Tian-kai, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, has warned other countries that plan to be represented at the ceremony. Cui threatens the rest of the world by stating that countries having representation at the ceremony will have to face the consequences. 

"This Nobel Peace Prize is highly politicized. The choice before some European countries and others is clear and simple: do they want to be part of the political game to challenge China's judicial system or do they want to develop a true friendly relationship with the Chinese government and people in a responsible manner?" says Cui.

This kind of bullying is of course unacceptable and I do hope all democratic countries will do what is right, and face these consequences, or call the bluff. It is important to show the Chinese government that these undemocratic actions are not tolerated in a democratic society.

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The Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is likely to be announced soon in the middle of October. Who will win is as always unclear, but some nominees are known. One is rather unusual, but yet somewhat fitting, the Internet. It has been nominated as "a weapon of mass-construction". Although, it would be a decent laureate, I feel it is somewhat missing the point; the Internet is just a tool, the progress must be made by people.

Another nominee is Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and Memorial, a  human rights group she works with. Gannushkina and Memorial mainly works for the right of migrant workers and has been a critic of the Kremlin. 

Liu Xiaobo is a third known nominee, he is branded as a dissident by the Chinese government and is currently in jail. He is an advocate of democracy and demanded reforms in the manifesto Charta -08. He was convicted behind closed doors for challenging the ruling powers. This is controversial for the Chinese government, and threats of damaged relations between Norway and China have been brought forward to the Norwegian commitee.

To me the second two nominees are excellent, championing the fight against corruption, democracy and human rights. In total there are roughly 200 nominees. Soon we will know who wins the prize, it may sound a bit tacky but in a sense we are all winners thanks to these remarkable individuals.

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Graphene

Today it has been announced that Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 for their remarkable experiments with graphene. Graphene is compound consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms (bonded as seen in the image above). It can be described as large polyaromatic planar molecule. Graphene has several interesting properties, for example:

• It is the thinnest and strongest compound. It has a breaking strength 200 times higher than steel.
• It conducts electricity just as well as copper
• It does not let gasmolecules pass

Graphene is expected to be an important compound in development of new and improved transistors and other electronics applications. Furthermore, it is expected to be useful in the new field of spintronics.

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