Liu Xiaobo suffers respiratory failure

China's cancer-stricken Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo suffered respiratory failure as his condition worsened yesterday, his hospital said, as Germany offered to host him. The First Hospital of China Medical University in the northeastern city of Shenyang said Liu's family declined to have him put on artificial ventilation, which was necessary "to maintain life". Liu, who has been held since 2008 for "subversion", risks becoming the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who passed away in a hospital under the Nazis in 1938.