Dissident has cancer

IMPRISONED Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo has been transferred to a hospital after being diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, authorities and his friends say.

The deteriorating health of China’s best-known political prisoner was immediately met with dismay and anger by the country’s beleaguered community of rights activists and lawyers, who called it a blow to the democracy movement.

Liu, 61, is receiving treatment at a hospital in the northeastern city of Shenyang.