The military authorities in Burma have released pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi earlier today. The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner (honoured in 1991) has been detained under house arrest for 15 years of the past 21 years.
Aung San Suu Kyi helped set up the National League for Democracy (NLD) party which won the 1990 general election despite her arrest a year earlier. But the military, which rules the Southeast Asian nation since 1962, refused to relinquish power.
Military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won the country’s first election in 20 years last Sunday. The ballot was widely condemned though.
Read more about Aung San Suu Kyi on BBC (news) and Wikipedia (bio).
