Doctors treating jailed Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo has stopped using cancer-fighting drugs so as not to overwhelm his severely weakened liver, raising concerns that China's most prominent political prisoner is critically ill.

A blind legal activist who fled house arrest in rural China is under the protection of American officials and top-level talks are taking place between the countries about his fate, a human rights group said today.

ONE of China’s most prominent prisoners of conscience, Hu Jia, returned home yesterday after completing a jail term for subversion, but looked likely to be muzzled along with other top dissidents.

A Russian investigative journalist shot dead last year, a Sudanese human rights lawyer and two prominent Chinese human rights activists have been shortlisted for the European Union's human rights award for 2007, officials said today.