Aung San Suu Kyi returns to UK for first time in 24 years

Burmese pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi will begin a four-day visit to the UK today, the first time in 24 years that she has visited the country that was once her home.
The Nobel laureate will meet Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague during her stay, before addressing Parliament on Thursday.
Ms Suu Kyi will spend today, her 67th birthday, in London and Oxford, the city where she lived in the early 1980s with her late husband, academic Michael Aris and their sons Alexander and Kim,
Tomorrow the Burmese opposition leader, who spent much of the last 21 years under house arrest in her native country, will be presented with an honorary degree by Oxford University and is due to address the Oxford Union.
She arrived in the UK last night from the Republic of Ireland, where she met the president, Michael D Higgins, and U2 singer Bono, who presented her with Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience award.
Accepting her award at the Electric Burma concert at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, she said she had found the whole experience “totally unexpected”.
“To receive this award is to remind me that 24 years ago, I took on duties from which I have never been relieved,” said Ms Suu Kyi.
“But you have given me the strength to carry them out. You have shown me that I shall never be alone as I go about my discharge of these duties.”
Other recipients of the Amnesty award include former Irish president Mary Robinson and Nelson Mandela, with whom Ms Suu Kyi has been compared.
She had arrived in Ireland from Norway, where she was presented with her Nobel Peace Prize, 21 years after it was awarded to her in 1991.
Ms Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to care for her dying mother, despite the fact mass demonstrations were breaking out against 25 years of military rule.
She became involved in the uprising and was appointed general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in September 1988, the month after up to 5,000 demonstrators were killed by the military.
Ms Suu Kyi was placed under detention by the military in 1989 and remained under house arrest until July 1995, facing restrictions on her movements when finally released.
Her husband died of prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 53. He had asked Burmese authorities to grant him a visa to visit her one last time, but was refused.
Ms Suu Kyi had chosen not to join her family abroad, fearing she would never be allowed back into Burma if she did so. The last time the couple saw each other was at Christmas in 1995.
She was detained several more times before finally being freed in November 2010.
In by-elections held on April 1 this year she was elected to parliament for the constituency of Kawhmu following a landslide victory.
PA