Aung San Suu Kyi begins UK visit with birthday celebrations

Aung San Suu Kyi is marking her 67th birthday and first outside Burma in more than 20 years at the start of her four-day visit to the UK.

After a roundtable discussion on the rule of law at the London School of Economics (LSE) the audience serenaded the Burmese democracy icon with a rendition of Happy Birthday to You.
Later today she will return to Oxford, where she lived in the early 1980s with her late husband, academic Michael Aris, and their sons Alexander and Kim.
She has spent much of the last 24 years under house arrest but in November 2010 was freed and later elected as an MP under democratic reforms cautiously welcomed by the outside world.
This week Daw Suu Kyi is due to collect an honorary degree at Oxford University before meeting UK prime minister David Cameron and foreign secretary William Hague and addressing both Houses of Parliament on Thursday.
Daw Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to care for her dying mother as mass demonstrations against 25 years of military rule picked up.
She then joined the uprising by founding her National League for Democracy party, which saw its landslide election victory in 1990 ignored by the ruling junta.
During periods of time she was not under house arrest, Daw Suu Kyi was reluctant to leave Burma for fears she would not be allowed to return while her husband was denied a visa to visit her and died of prostate cancer in 1999.
But after being elected as an MP she finally felt secure enough to leave Burma, first travelling to Thailand last month before beginning a European tour in which she collected the Nobel Peace Prize she was unable to collect in 1991.
Responding to a question from a student at this morning's LSE talk, Daw Suu Kyi said: 'During this journey I have found great warmth and support from people all over the world.
'I was surprised and very touched by the warmth with which Thais welcomed me.
'This I have also found in Switzerland, Norway, Ireland and now in the UK.'
Referring to the student who had asked the question, she continued: 'People like you have given me the strength to continue.
'And I suppose I do have a stubborn streak in me.'
Yesterday the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was in Dublin to meet with Irish president Michael D Higgins and to accept Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience award from U2 singer Bono.
Bono, whose award-winning Walk On song was inspired by Daw Suu Kyi and led to the album All That You Can't Leave Behind being banned in Burma, said he was 'starstruck' at meeting the democracy icon.