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Taliban detain Turks in eastern Afghanistan

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Apr 222013

Taliban fighters have seized several people from a civilian helicopter which made an emergency landing in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

The Turkish helicopter made an emergency landing on Sunday evening, said Rais Khan Sadeq, the deputy police chief of Logar province, south of Kabul.

“Security forces found the helicopter but the nine people were not in it. They are taken by the Taliban,” Sadeq told the AFP news agency.

“They are Turkish nationals and are nine people including the crew.”

Hamidullah Hamid, governor of Azr district where the helicopter came down, also confirmed nine Turks on board had been seized by the Taliban. Local tribal elders are reportedly working to secure their release.

Hamid said the aircraft, which had came from the eastern city of Khost and was heading for Kabul, belonged to a Turkish company which has a big project in Khost but gave no further details.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul said the force assisted a search by Afghan authorities for a helicopter but gave no details.

A spokesman said it was a civilian aircraft and not part of ISAF.

Nearly 200 killed in Nigeria violence

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Apr 222013

Fighting between Nigeria’s military and the armed group Boko Haram has left at least 185 people dead in a fishing community in the nation’s far northeast, officials said on Sunday.

The fighting in Baga began on Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community on Lake Chad, according to the AP news agency.

By Sunday, when government officials finally felt safe enough to see the destruction, homes, businesses and vehicles were burned throughout the area.

The assault marks a significant escalation in a long-running insurgency in the predominantly Muslim north, where Boko Haram has mounted a coordinated assault on soldiers using military-grade weaponry.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north, has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Islamic law.

Authorities had found and buried at least 185 bodies as of Sunday afternoon, said Lawan Kole, a local government official in Baga. Officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian casualties versus those of soldiers and fighters.

Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition in fires that razed whole sections of the town, residents said.

‘Heavy firepower’

Brigadier General Austin Edokpaye said the Boko Haram fighters used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed housed members of the group.

Edokpaye said they used civilians as human shields during the fighting, implying that soldiers opened fire in neighbourhoods where they knew civilians lived.

“When we reinforced and returned to the scene the terrorists came out with heavy firepower, including [rocket-propelled grenades], which usually has a conflagration effect,” the general said.

However, local residents who spoke to a journalist who accompanied the state officials said soldiers purposefully set the fires during the attack.

‘Picking corpses’

Violence by security forces in the northeast targeting civilians has been widely documented by journalists and human rights activists.

A similar raid in Maiduguri, Borno state’s capital, in October saw soldiers kill at least 30 civilians and set fires across a neighborhood.

On Sunday afternoon, the burned bodies of cattle and goats still filled the streets in Baga. Bullet holes marred burned buildings. Fearful residents of the town had begun packing to leave with their remaining family members before nightfall.

“Everyone has been in the bush since Friday night; we started returning back to town because the governor came to town today,” grocer Bashir Isa said.

“To get food to eat in the town now is a problem because even the markets are burnt. We are still picking corpses of women and children in the bush and creeks.”

Widespread insurgency

The insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, which ended in a military and police crackdown that killed around 700 people. The group’s leader died in police custody in an apparent execution.

Shootings, suicide bombings and other attacks carried out by the group have killed at least 1,548 people before Friday’s attack, according to an AP tally.

Fighters suspected to belong to Boko Haram also have been seen in northern Mali, where heavily armed rebels took power last year in the weeks following a military coup.

Analysts say Boko Haram may get its hands on weapons smuggled out of Libya following its recent civil war.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation’s weak central government has been unable to stop the killings.

Syria activists report massacre near Damascus

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Apr 222013

At least 80 people, including women and children, have been killed in Damascus, according to Syrian activists.

Many were reportedly executed by government forces at a makeshift hospital in the town of Jdeydet al-Fadel, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the UK-based network, said on Sunday.

The report came as the leader of the main Syrian opposition group offered his resignation from the post yet again.

Moaz al-Khatib, president of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), submitted his resignation, a statement on the organisation’s Facebook page announced on Sunday.

The SNC said it would take up the matter at its next meeting, without providing a date.

Khatib, a respected Muslim preacher seen as a uniting figure and moderate, tried to quit his post in March, citing frustration over what he called a lack of international support and constraints imposed on the body itself.

The coalition rejected his resignation then, and he agreed to stay on until his six-month terms ends in May.

Bodies found

Claiming that scores of bodies were found in Jdeydet al-Fadel, in the suburbs of Damascus, the SOHR said it was able to document the names of 80 victims and that the death toll might be much higher.

Opposition fighters pulled out of the town on Saturday because they ran out of ammunition, the SOHR said.

By Sunday morning, government forces had taken full control of the area.

The killings reportedly took place during four days of fighting between government forces and anti-regime fighters.
Violence has also raged in Sunni Muslim areas of the nearby Christian-majority town of Jdeydet Artuz, and in the rebel stronghold of Daraya, the scene of fierce fighting for several months.

The SNC accused the army of staging a “fierce attack” in areas south and west of Damascus.

Jdeydet al-Fadel and other flashpoints are “subjected to a siege and they are deprived of all basic needs for human life”, the SNC said on Saturday.

Since last year, government forces have tried to root out rebels positioned southwest and east of Damascus in an effort to secure the Syrian capital.

In another development, the SNC called on Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from the country, as activists said regime troops supported by the mainly Shia Muslim Lebanese group battled rebels on Sunday for control of a string of villages near the Lebanon-Syria border.

The SNC cautioned that Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria’s civil war could lead to greater risks in the area, and urged the Lebanese government to “adopt the necessary measures to stop the aggression of Hezbollah” and to control the border to “protect civilians in the area”.

Contested town

The SNC statement coincided with a surge in fighting around the contested town of Qusair in Syria’s Homs province, near the frontier with Lebanon.

Over the past two weeks, the Syrian military, supported by a Hezbollah-backed group, has pushed to regain control of the border area.

The region is strategic because it links Damascus with the Mediterranean coastal enclave that is the heartland of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.

The pro-regime fighters are members of the Popular Committees, which were set up last year in Syria with Hezbollah’s backing to protect Syrian villages inhabited by Lebanese Shias, although rebels accuse the fighters of attacking opposition villages in the area and fighting alongside government forces.

The fighting along the border region has flared in recent weeks, and on Saturday government forces captured the villages of Radwaniyeh and Tel al-Nabi Mando.

Regime forces shelled the villages of Abu Houri, Saqarigh, Nahriyeh and Ein al-Tanour in the Qusair region on Sunday, according to the SOHR.

It said at least four rebels were killed in the fighting.

Frantic search for China quake survivors

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Apr 222013

Thousands of rescuers are fighting to thwart a rising death toll as they search earthquake-shattered villages in southwest China for survivors.
Rescue teams battled landslides and collapsed roads to reach isolated parts of Sichuan province on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, in images aired on state broadcaster on Sunday.

Almost 200 people have so far been confirmed dead, with more than 11,000 injured in Saturday’s 6.6 magnitude quake. Almost 1,000 were seriously injured in the quake.

Soldiers searched through the night and day for survivors in villages where houses had been destroyed and treated some of the injured.

China’s new Premier Li Keqiang has rushed to the disaster zone and was shown by CCTV eating breakfast in a tent.

“The rescue effort is our first duty,” he told state media.

Xinhua news agency said more than 17,000 Chinese soldiers, pilots and police had joined the rescue mission and five drones were sent to capture aerial images.

A military vehicle carrying 17 troops headed for the quake area plummeted over a cliff on Saturday, killing one soldier and injuring seven others.

Al Jazeera’s Robert McBride, reporting from Hong Kong, said the suddenness of the earthquake had contrasted with the 2008 one in the same province, which left more than 90,000 people dead or missing.

“People are now watching to see how the new leadership is dealing with this,” McBride said.

“This their first test of how they deal this natural disaster.”

Boulders

The rescue operation was hampered by huge queues of traffic, some stretching back for 20km, that clogged roads into the disaster zone.

It was as if the mountain was alive … Now I have no home to go

Sichuan earthquake survivor

“We really want to go in and help people, but instead we are waiting in traffic,” one relief official said in his car.

Boulders the size of cars littered streets in Lushan county, the epicentre of the earthquake.

More than 1,100 aftershocks have followed since the quake struck Sichuan province on Saturday morning.

Chinese seismologists registered the tremor at 7.0 magnitude while the US Geological Survey gave it as 6.6.

Firefighters helped by sniffer dogs pulled 91 people alive from the rubble, Xinhua said, citing the Ministry of Public Security.

A steady stream of ambulances continued to arrive at Lushan People’s Hospital on Sunday.

Most survivors were taken to tents erected in the grounds surrounding the hospital, where doctors treated the wounded.

Power cut

A 68-year-old woman with a broken arm spoke of the terror she experienced when the earthquake struck.

The earthquake cut off power and water supplies to much of the area, with Longquan villager Sot Yang Yiyun among the many affected.

“Now we don’t have drinking water and power,” Sot said.

“We must wait for the government to come and help us out. Also we want to call for help from other parts of the country.”

Earthquake-prone Japan, which has been mired in tension with China over a high-seas territorial dispute , offered any help that was required.

“Japan is ready to offer its maximum support,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li, according to Japan’s foreign ministry.

China responded that overseas help was not needed but it would contact Tokyo if the situation changed, the ministry said.Thousands of rescuers are fighting to thwart a rising death toll as they search earthquake-shattered villages in southwest China for survivors.

Rescue teams battled landslides and collapsed roads to reach isolated parts of Sichuan province on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, in images aired on state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday.

Almost 200 people have so far been confirmed dead, with more than 11,000 injured in Saturday’s 6.6 magnitude quake. Almost 1,000 were seriously injured in the quake.

Soldiers searched through the night and day for survivors in villages where houses had been destroyed and treated some of the injured.

China’s new Premier Li Keqiang has rushed to the disaster zone and was shown by CCTV eating breakfast in a tent.

“The rescue effort is our first duty,” he told state media.

Xinhua news agency said more than 17,000 Chinese soldiers, pilots and police had joined the rescue mission and five drones were sent to capture aerial images.

A military vehicle carrying 17 troops headed for the quake area plummeted over a cliff on Saturday, killing one soldier and injuring seven others.

“People are now watching to see how the new leadership is dealing with this,” McBride said.

“This their first test of how they deal this natural disaster.”

ACC ITC Kotak Mahindra Hercules Bajaj Ambuja BPCL Tata Steel HDFC Grasim Maruti Suzuki HCL Power Grid Dr. Reddy Cairn SAIL Idea Hindalco BHEL

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Jul 082012

The BSE benchmark Sensex ended in green for the fifth consecutive week on persistent buying mainly in realty, banking and metal counters, on the back of good capital inflows.

Expectations of measures from the government for reviving a slowing economy also boosted the market sentiment.

Continued buying in small-and mid-cap shares by retail investors played a major role in extending the rally. The BSE Mid-Cap index rose by 2.60 per cent, while BSE Small Cap index gained 4.26 per cent, outperforming the Sensex.

The 30-share Sensex rose 91.14 points, or 0.52 per cent, to end the week at 17,521.12. The S&P CNX Nifty of NSE gained 38.05 points, or 0.72 per cent, to settle at 5,316.95.

Sensex has gained 1,555.96 points, or 9.75 per cent, in the last five weeks, while the 50-unit Nifty firmed up by 475.35 points, or 9.82 per cent, in the same period.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have bought shares worth net Rs 4,755.70 crore in July 2012 so far (till July 4).

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also holds the Finance portfolio, said last month that he is chalking out plan for the country’s economic revival.

“Strong FII fund flows and expectations of measures from the government to boost the sagging economy helped the market to remain firm,” said Alex K Mathews, Head-Technical and Derivatives Research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services. Shubham Agarwal, Associate VP and Senior Technical Equities Analyst, Motilal Oswal Securities, said, “Sentiment was positive on hope of FDI limit hike in retail and favourable decision on GAAR issue. However, rupee’s weakness remains a major concern.”

Libya election: High turnout in historic vote

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Jul 082012

Libyans are voting in their first free national election for 60 years.

They are selecting a temporary assembly which will have the task of picking a cabinet and a prime minister.

But voting has been disrupted by unrest in some areas, particularly the east. Officials say 101 of more than 1,500 polling stations were unable to open.

Nevertheless, overall turnout has been described as high, with voters choosing their first government since Col Gaddafi came to power in 1969.

Men and women of all ages have been streaming in at the polling stations throughout Tripoli. At the Noufleen district polling station we’re in, women have turned out with the Libyan flag draped around their shoulders and wearing designer sunglasses. It has been a trouble-free affair at this polling station so far, with just one lone old man turned away because he forgot to bring his ID.

“But you know me!” he said to the election official.

For Libya’s mostly young population, this is an exciting time. You can see it in their wide grins at the polls as they proudly wave their ink-stained fingers. For the elderly, some of whom last voted almost 50 years ago, it is just as important to be here.

I saw an old man with damaged eyesight, who could barely walk, being ushered in by his son. Other voters quickly brought a chair to him so he could rest and then carried him upstairs to vote, chanting “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is great”.

Few Libyans remember their last national vote in 1965, when no political parties were allowed.

Even fewer took part in their country’s first parliamentary elections in February 1952, shortly after independence.

‘Free at last’

Polls opened at 08:00 (06:00 GMT), with reports of queues forming outside polling stations in the capital Tripoli.

“I feel free at last. It’s a feeling I cannot describe: Like a human being,” Asmaddin Arifi told the BBC.

The run-up to Saturday’s vote has been overshadowed by violence and deep regional divisions. An electoral worker died on the eve of the vote when gunmen attacked a helicopter near the eastern city of Benghazi.

A polling station in the city was attacked on Saturday by pro-autonomy activists, who seized electoral papers and ballot boxes.

A BBC Arabic reporter in the city says the security forces did not intervene.

Armed men also stopped voters casting their ballots in the port town of Ras Lanuf.

But the head of the election commission Nuri al-Abbar said that 94% of polling stations across the country had opened normally.

Libyan elections

2.8 million registered voters from around 3-3.5 million eligible (45% women)
2,639 individual candidates (competing for 120 seats in 69 constituencies)
374 party lists from more than 100 political entities (competing for 80 party seats in 20 constituencies)
559 women registered for party seats (44%)
88 women registered for individual seats (3%)

Source: The UN and the Libyan Electoral High Commission (HNEC)

UN Libya envoy Ian Martin said the disruption in the east was unlikely to undermine the credibility of the election.

Many people in eastern Libya are concerned that the oil-rich area will be under-represented in the assembly and marginalised as it was during Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule.

The region has been allotted only 60 seats in the 200-seat assembly, while the west will have 100 seats and the south 40, under the system devised by the outgoing National Transitional Council (NTC).

Election officials acknowledged that the election was imperfect but insisted it was crucial for the vote to go ahead.

“It’s important for the stability of the country,” Salim Ben Tahir from the National Election Commission told the BBC.

“We can do it better in the future but the NTC and the current government are losing legitimacy. People aren’t respecting them any more and things are getting out of hand.”

Oil shutdown

Some former rebels have tried to derail the vote by targeting the oil industry, large parts of which are located in the east.

They have shut down several oil terminals, including those at Brega, Ras Lanouf and Sidra, and a significant part of Libya’s oil exporting capacity has been disrupted.

In an attempt to defuse the situation, the NTC has said the new parliament will no longer be responsible for naming the panel that will draft Libya’s new constitution.

The 60-member committee will be elected in a separate vote at a later date.

Around 2.9 million people are eligible to vote for the 2,600 candidates standing for the new General National Congress, less than a year after Col Gaddafi was toppled after an eight-month uprising.

There are countless political parties taking part in the election but the biggest to emerge so far is the Justice and Construction Party, made up mostly of Muslim Brotherhood members.

Russia flash floods: 100 killed in Krasnodar region

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Jul 082012

Flash floods caused by torrential rain have swept the southern Russian Krasnodar region, killing more than 100 people, officials say.

The floods, the worst there in living memory struck at night, reportedly without warning.

Emergency teams have been sent from Moscow by plane and helicopter. TV pictures showed people scrambling onto their rooftops to escape.

At least 92 people died around the worst-hit town of Krymsk.

Crude oil shipments from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk have suspended.

Russian TV showed thousands of houses in the region nearly completely submerged.

Some users of social media networks in Russia said Krymsk looked liked it was hit “by a tsunami”. Others accused the authorities of not telling the whole truth about the disaster.

At least nine died in Gelendzhik and two in Novorossiysk. Dozens of people are reportedly missing, and there are fears that the death toll will rise further.

The Krasnodar-Novorossiysk motorway was cut, and the transport system in the region is said to have collapsed.

A statement by the Krasnodar regional administration said altogether 13,000 people had been affected by the floods.

‘Something unimaginable’

AFP news agency said President Vladimir Putin was expected to personally inspect the worst-hit areas.

“He will be there soon,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP.

Up to 1,000 rescuers are involved in searching for victims and evacuating survivors.

“The floods were very strong. Even traffic lights were ripped out,” regional police spokesman Igor Zhelyabin told AFP news agency, adding that evacuations were under way.

Regional governor Alexander Tkachev tweeted after flying over the affected area that there was “something unimaginable” going on in Krymsk.

He said, quoted by the Russian Itar-Tass news agency, that “no-one can remember such floods in our history. There was nothing of the kind for the last 70 years”.

Anna Kovalevskaya, who says she has relatives in Krymsk, told the BBC her family was caught unaware by the floods.

“The water started flooding in at 2am [22:00 GMT Friday],” she said.

“People were running out into the streets in their underwear and wrapping their children in blankets. People were only able to save their passports.

“There is no electricity and the shops are shut. Many people have lost everything and are in a state of panic.”

The rains dumped as much as 28cm (11 inches) of water on parts of the Krasnodar region overnight, forcing many residents to take refuge in trees or on house roofs.

Oil pipeline operator Transneft said it had halted crude shipments out of Novorossiysk, but that its infrastructure in the port had been unaffected by the weather.

“Of course, we limited shipments, the port is located in the lower part of town, the whole landslide has moved towards it. As we speak, the rain has started again,” spokesman Vladimir Sidorov told Reuters news agency.

Serena Williams wins fifth singles title in Wimbledon 2012

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Jul 082012

Serena Williams overcame a resurgent Agnieszka Radwanska to clinch a hard-fought 6-1 5-7 6-2 victory and earn her fifth Wimbledon singles title.

The American, a winner in 2002, 2003, 2009 and 2010, had eased through the opener with Radwanska rarely threatening to pierce her defences.

But the Pole regrouped as rain delayed the second set, and clawed back a break before swooping late to win the second.

Match stats

Radwanska		Williams
2	Aces	17
105mph	Fastest serve	120mph
73%	First serves	56%
13	Winners	58
14	Unforced errors	36
2/2	Break points	5/15
13/21	Net pts	20/31

Williams broke twice in the decider to finally kill off Radwanska’s comeback.

It is the 30-year-old’s 14th Grand Slam title and her first since spending almost a year out of action between summer 2010 and 2011 with a leg injury and subsequent pulmonary embolism.

“I can’t even describe it. I almost didn’t make it a few years ago,” she said after her win, referring to her health problems.

“I was in hospital but now I’m here again and it was so worth it. I’m so happy.

“Aggie played so well and that’s why she’s had such a great career and she’s so young.”

Such an absorbing finish seemed highly unlikely as Williams demolished Radwanska in the opening set, raising the fear that her opponent was struggling with a respiratory illness that forced her to call off a news conference on Friday.

The world number three seemed to lack the energy to realise her hopes of countering Williams’s clubbing baseline power with guile and touch.

Career Grand Slam titles in the Open era

Margaret Court (Aus) – 24
Steffi Graf (Ger) – 22
Martina Navratilova (Czh/US) – 18
Serena Williams (US) – 14
Margaret Court (Aus) – 11
Monica Seles (Yug/US) – 9
Billie Jean King (US) – 8
Evonne Goolagong (Aus) – 7
Justine Henin (Bel) – 7
Venus Williams (US) – 7

A brief rain shower appeared to have opposite effects on the pair however, as Radwanska emerged revitalised and Williams’s forehand grew increasingly erratic.

Williams broke to love in the third game with a walloped return winner, but her nerves tightened and Radwanska raised her game just in time to avert a seemingly inevitable straight-sets win.

Radwanska forced break point for the first time in the match to level at 4-4 and the crowd threw their support behind her renaissance.

Suddenly Radwanska’s scurrying and fetching was asking questions and Williams, apparently beset by mental demons, crashed into the net from midcourt to send the match into a decider.

The American had lost only four of the previous 194 Grand Slam matches in which she won the opening set however, and reasserted her authority to protect that record and accelerate away from Radwanska.

Wimbledon 2012: Serena’s winning moment and reaction

Radwanska saw off two break points to hold for a 2-1 lead, but Williams served out in less than a minute in the following game and was not to be denied in the next.

A cute drop shot moved her a double break and 5-2 clear and Williams kept any lingering jitters at bay to serve out before dropping to the turf in delight.

Her victory is the first time the title has been won by a woman over 30 since Martina Navratilova’s triumph in 1990 and restores Victoria Azarenka, the Belarussian she beat in the semi-final, to the world number one spot.

Williams also served a total of 102 aces en route to lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish – more than any other woman has managed in a single Wimbledon campaign.

Garcia Marquez suffering from dementia : brother

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Jul 082012

The brother of Gabriel Garcia Marquez says that the Colombian writer and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature is suffering from dementia.

Jaime Garcia Marquez told students at a lecture in the city of Cartagena that his brother, who is 85, phones him frequently to ask basic questions.

“He has problems with his memory. Sometimes I cry because I feel like I’m losing him,” he said.

He says the author has stopped writing altogether.

The BBC’s Arturo Wallace in Colombia said there have been rumours about Mr Garcia Marquez’ memory problems.

Jaime Garcia Marquez, his younger brother, is the first family member to speak publicly about it.

Invited to talk about his relationship with Gabo, as the writer is affectionately known in Colombia, Jaime said he could not hold back from talking about his illness anymore.

“He is doing well physically, but he has been suffering from dementia for a long time,” he said. “He still has the humour, joy and enthusiasm that he has always had.”

The 1967 masterpiece of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude, begins with the story of a family unable to care for their senile grandfather.

“It is a disease that runs in the family,” said Jaime Garcia Marquez.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez currently lives in Mexico and has not made many public appearances in recent years.

His novels include Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and the The General in His Labyrinth.

He is best known for One Hundred Years of Solitude, which has sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.

Burma students freed after being held over anniversary

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Jul 082012

More than 20 Burmese student leaders detained by the authorities on Friday have been released.

They were held ahead of the anniversary of the suppression of a student movement 50 years ago.

About 300 people met in Rangoon to mark the event despite the detentions and the presence of plain-clothes police.

Activists say the detentions prove that the Burmese military still has repressive tendencies, despite recent reforms.

7 July is the 50th anniversary of the Burmese military’s brutal suppression of student demonstrations, just four months after a coup by Gen Ne Win which began almost five decades of repressive rule.

Dozens were killed – and the following day the student union building at Rangoon University was dynamited.

“Police officials told us that they just wanted to question us in connection with our plans to commemorate the anniversary,” All Burma Students Union Phyo Phyo Aung told the Reuters news agency.

Activists said the detentions were made in several different locations across the country, including five in Rangoon.

Activist Ko Ko Gyi said some of those detained had been released under an amnesty for political prisoners several months ago.

Hundreds of political prisoners have been released in the last year as part of the reforms.

However, Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the National League for Democracy, has said that the students’ detention is another reminder that continued reform in Burma should not be taken for granted.

In 2010 Ms Suu Kyi was released after spending most of the previous two decades under house arrest, and was elected to parliament earlier this year.

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