Suu Kyi to make landmark foreign trip next week

YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) - Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will travel overseas next week for the first time in more than two decades to attend an economic forum in Bangkok, her party said Thursday.

The former political prisoner's plan to leave her homeland for the first time since 1988 is the latest sign of dramatic political change sweeping through the country, where decades of outright military rule ended last year.

"She will go to the World Economic Forum (on East Asia) in Thailand," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the Nobel laureate's National League for Democracy.

The gathering of senior government officials and business leaders from around the region is being held from May 30 to June 1 at a luxury hotel in the Thai capital.

Myanmar President Thein Sein will also attend the event, according to a government official who did not want to be named.

Suu Kyi was released from seven straight years of house arrest in November 2010 and has now been issued with a passport, enabling her to travel abroad for the first time in 24 years.

She also plans to go to Europe where she will address an International Labour Organization conference in Geneva on June 14.

After that she will make a speech in Oslo on June 16 to accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991 for her peaceful struggle for democracy, according to the Nobel Committee.

At the time her British husband Michael Aris, who died in 1999 while she remained imprisoned, and her two sons accepted the Nobel medal on her behalf.

Suu Kyi also intends to travel to Britain, where she lived for years with her family, and has been given the rare honour of addressing the country's parliament on June 21.

The daughter of Myanmar's independence hero General Aung San was thrust into the limelight as protests broke out against the junta while she was visiting her homeland to care for her sick mother in 1988.

The military crushed the demonstrations and in July 1989 placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, 10 months after she helped form the National League for Democracy.

Despite her confinement, the NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta did not recognise the result.

She spent much of the two decades since then locked up in her Yangon home and has not set foot outside Myanmar, fearing that the generals would prevent her from returning.

Now 66, Suu Kyi was released in November 2010 just days after another controversial election won by the military's political allies.

But since then Thein Sein, a former general, has won international praise for releasing hundreds of political prisoners and welcoming Suu Kyi and her party back into mainstream politics.

Myanmar's relations with the international community have improved dramatically since his nominally civilian government took over. Last month Suu Kyi won her first ever seat in parliament in by-elections.

In response the international community has begun to roll back sanctions against the impoverished country, led by the European Union which has suspended all measures except an arms embargo for one year. - Agence France-Presse

View the original article here

Read More

New pressure on Gaddafi on foreign, rebel fronts (Reuters)

NALUT, Libya (Reuters) – Rebels fighting in Libya's western mountains prepared on Thursday for a new offensive against Muammar Gaddafi's troops, raising pressure on the Libyan leader a day after Britain granted diplomatic recognition to the opposition.

With hopes fading of a negotiated settlement, both sides appear prepared for the five-month-old war to grind on into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in August.

The rebels said they were planning to attack the town of Ghezaia near the Tunisian border in the next 48 hours, and a Reuters correspondent saw dozens of heavily armed pickup trucks heading for the nearby rebel-held town of Nalut.

"We are reinforcing the position around Nalut and we will attack Ghezaia tomorrow or the next day for sure. We plan to take it," Omar Fakkan, a rebel commander, told Reuters.

He said that forces from a number of rebel-held towns in the Nafusa Mountains were gathering in Nalut, ready for the attack.

Rebel fighters have taken large swathes of Libya since the start of an uprising to end Gaddafi's 41-year rule, and now control much of the Nafusa mountain range, the northeast of Libya and the western city of Misrata.

Yet they remain poorly armed and are often disorganized. Despite four months of NATO strikes, they have failed to reach the capital Tripoli and appear unlikely to make a breakthrough soon.

Gaddafi has scoffed at the efforts to end his rule and has weathered the now-stalled rebel advance and the NATO air raids on his forces and military infrastructure.

A recent flurry of diplomatic activity has yielded little, with the rebels insisting Gaddafi step down as a first step and his government saying his role is non-negotiable.

United Nations envoy Abdel Elah al-Khatib visited both sides this week with plans for a ceasefire and a power-sharing government that excludes Gaddafi, but to no avail.

Asked about Khatib's proposal, rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said: "We were surprised the day before yesterday that we are taking 10 steps back... and he says to share power with Muammar Gaddafi's regime. This is laughable."

Gaddafi also appeared defiant on Wednesday, urging rebels to lay down their arms or suffer an ugly death.

"We all lead this battle, until victory, until martyrdom," he said in an audio message aired at a pro-Gaddafi rally in Zaltan, 140 km (90 miles) west of his stronghold Tripoli.

RECOGNISING THE REBELS

Ramping up pressure on Gaddafi, Britain expelled his diplomats from London on Wednesday and invited the rebel National Transitional Council to replace them.

Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that Britain now recognized the rebels as Libya's legitimate government and unblocked 91 million pounds ($148.7 million) in frozen assets.

The United States and about 30 other nations have also recognized the opposition, potentially freeing up billions of dollars in frozen funds.

"This decision reflects the National Transitional Council's increasing legitimacy, competence and success in reaching out to Libyans across the country," Hague said in London.

Gaddafi's government said the British move was "illegal and irresponsible" and a "stain on the forehead of Britain."

"We will go to the International Court of Justice and the national courts in Britain, and we will use their justice," said Libya's deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim.

However, the British move won praise from rebels fighting in the western mountains.

"We are encouraged by what Britain has done and there is no way Gaddafi can stay in Libya," said Fakkan.

"The fighting will get much worse now because he will have to fight to survive and the Libyans do not want him."

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Rania El Gamal in Benghazi, Hamid Oul Ahmed in Algiers, Missy Ryan and Lutfi Abu Aun in Tripoli, Mussab Al Khairallah in Misrata; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

View the original article here

Read More