Another year's detention for Burma's icon

Her supporters risked arrest and beatings to turn up outside her lakeside home in University Avenue, Rangoon, but Burma's military junta refused yesterday to allow the expected release of Aung San Suu Kyi. Instead, the Nobel peace laureate's sentence was extended by a year.

Her latest term of house arrest had just expired and there was strong international pressure for the release of the 60-year-old opposition leader. Diplomats and members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) had been optimistic after Suu Kyi's meeting a week ago with a United Nations official - her first contact with an outsider in more than two years.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan made a direct appeal to junta supremo Than Shwe to free 'The Lady', as she is known.

'I am relying on you, General Than Shwe, to do the right thing,' Annan said on Friday. But Burma's leaders signalled their line was as hard as ever by stepping up security outside her home, where armed police and barricades held back supporters.