Sat, Dec 18, 2010

Nobel price winner Liu Xiaobo in jail

It was recently announced that Liu Xiaobo's family cannot visit him in prison anymore. The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong announced Friday that members of the Liu family could not visit him in prison. A week after the ceremony for the Nobel peace in 2010, which none of his relatives could attend to get and collect the award for him, Liu Xiaobo is deprived of his prison visits at Jinzhou, where he is currently serving a sentence of 11 years.

The information comes from the brother of Mr. Liu, who was forbidden from leaving the country before the ceremony, and who passed the information to the association. Liu's wife, Liu Xia, for her part remains under house arrest. According to the South China Morning Post, she is not even allowed to go out shopping.

Angelina Jolie and UNICEF.

Legendary former host of French news of TF1 channel, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor reported the worst possible news about the world during his carreer as a journalist. Witness of dramas through the reports he broadcasted, the journalist also went on site to report the pain. Now with his new hat as ambassador for the Unicef, he went to Pakistan, a country devastated by floods, to try to help people, especially the children. One million people were displaced, an ordeal that seems endless and he witnessed their trouble.

In July 2010, floods hit Pakistan, affecting 21 million people and depriving 10 million people from their homes. There, not a house had survived. Everything had been destroyed by the flood waters of the Indus. They have lost everything. Even the hope of returning to their village no longer exists. This is what Patrick Poivre d'Arvor reported.

Anger can be seen in the words of the journalist who continued by saying that one fifth of the country was under water, which corresponds to the size of England. Today, much water has withdrawn, even if there are areas still completely flooded. Everything must be rebuilt and the disease threatens disaster.

What is missing in Pakistan? Money, replied simply Patrick Poivre d'Arvor. However, promises are difficult to materialize. It is the first time that Unicef launches an appeal which is only followed by donors at 40% or 50%. In an attempt to understand the weakness of the donations, there are explanations given by the former newscaster. The catastrophe facing Pakistan is sneaky and has nothing spectacular, unlike the tsunami which marked people with powerful images in the midst of Christmas. And then there's the problem Pakistan. A distant and scary land. Moreover, although natural disasters generally mobilize celebrities, Angelina Jolie was the only one to introduce this disturbing message and to go there in person.

In an interview he gave his view of the French News in his presence and without him. I do not watch them, so I'm hardly the one to judge. However, I regret that they don't give more time to international news. It's a shame because it educates people well when they watch what happens elsewhere.

Patrick Poivre d'Arvor also returned to his impertinence, which did make him leave TF1 in July 2008, replaced by Laurence Ferrari: My independence has given a good image to the channels that I served, including TF1. Viewers should not think that a television channel is locked in power because the owner is a friend of that power.