Rangoon - The Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was locked in a stand-off with police yesterday, running short of food and water and preparing to spend another night in her car after being stopped while travelling out of Rangoon. It was the first time the 55-year-old Nobel laureate had tried to leave the capital since another roadside stand-off two years ago, which ended after 13 days when an increasingly poorly and dehydrated Aung Suu Kyi gave up her protest and returned home.
Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern, said Aung Suu Kyi and other NLD officials had been travelling in two vehicles when they were stopped by police on Thursday.