Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi has been detained continuously since May 2003. There is a worldwide campaign urging her release.

The 1975 anti-subversion law under which she has been confined without trial says detentions of up to five years at a time are permissible for those who could be a threat to public order.

Her house arrest was extended by one year in May this year, an apparent violation of a law that stipulates that no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trial.

But a commentary in June in the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper, which closely reflects government opinion, said detentions are permissible for as long as six years.

Asked if there is any indication if or when the government will hear the appeal at a court, Kyi Win said, “we still don’t know, but we have to be hopeful.”

Suu Kyi, who has been detained for more than 12 of the past 19 years, has been allowed to meet Kyi Win at her lakeside house since August to draft the appeal and the lawyer said he plans to meet her once again this month for further discussions.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. It held elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results after Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory.

“One of her lawyers, U Hla Myo Myint, sent her appeal to the cabinet in Naypyidaw on Thursday. They accepted it and signed the receipt,” Nyan Win, an NLD spokesman told AFP.

“We can say that the way is open for her appeal for her release. It’s still too early to say how things will develop,” he said, adding that he believed an appeal hearing date may soon be set.

Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi approved the final draft of her legal appeal during a meeting with her lawyer Kyi Win in September.

The NLD leader has been confined to her home for most of the past 19 years.

63-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi rarely meets with anyone except her lawyer and doctor, and in August refused a visit from United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari, apparently in protest at the lack of progress he was making on reform in Myanmar.

On September 14, she was given an intravenous drip for malnourishment by her doctor Tin Myo Win after refusing food deliveries for a month.

The junta, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, released 9,000 prisoners, including ten political prisoners last month in an amnesty ahead of elections planned for 2010 – in which Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from contesting.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the military government never allowed it to take office.

Two other leaders of the alliance who had earlier been apprehended by police, Chamlong Srimuang and Chaiwat Sinsuwong, were freed Thursday. All were released on the guarantees of senators in lieu of bail.

Chamlong called on Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to resign and pave the way for an interim administration that would carry out political reform and lead the country out of near paralysis.

The alliance, which has led months of anti-government protests, seeks to roll back Western-style democracy, saying it makes the country susceptible to corruption.

Chamlong rejected calls by some, including former Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, to end the strife through military intervention.

“A military coup will only cause more damage to the country,” Chamlong said.
The alliance had welcomed a military coup in 2006 that ousted then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra after spearheading similar protests against him.

Somchai said he was seeking the advice of prominent figures about what course to take when asked by reporters whether he would resign or dissolve Parliament.

On Tuesday, violent clashes between police and protesters injured 478 people—mostly protesters—including 85 who were hospitalized, according to medical authorities. Three people were killed, including a 45-year-old woman who succumbed to her injuries late Thursday, and a man who died in what appeared to be a related incident.

The alliance continued to roar its defiance of the authorities and challenged them to a showdown. It accuses Somchai of being a proxy for Thaksin, a former
telecommunications billionaire who was ousted for alleged corruption and misuse of power. Somchai is Thaksin’s brother-in-law.

“It is the final war. We cannot lose. If we lose, the country will be gone,” top protest leader Sondhi Limthongkul said Thursday from the grounds of the prime minister’s office compound, which the protesters have occupied since Aug. 26.

The original arrest warrants—with charges of insurrection, stockpiling of weapons and refusing to disperse, inciting a public disturbance and illegal assembly—were issued Aug. 27.

The protest leaders had said they were willing to fight all the charges except insurrection, which carries a possible death sentence.

The protest alliance derides Thailand’s rural majority—who gave landslide election victories to Thaksin and his allies—as susceptible to vote-buying and too poorly educated to responsibly choose their representatives.

It wants Thailand to abandon one-man, one-vote democracy, and instead have a mixed system in which some representatives are chosen by certain professions and social groups. They have not explained exactly how such a system would work or what would make it less susceptible to manipulation.

The current price for a smuggled Honda Dream is around 2 million kyat ($1,700), say sources. A Chinese Kembo motorcycle goes for around 500,000 kyat ($420).

A motorcycle broker in Myawaddy, a Burmese border town opposite the Thai town of Mae Sot, said about 700 motorcycle are driven across the border daily to Moulmein, the capital of Mon State.

The broker, who asked to remain anonymous, said a dealer must pay a total of about 10,000 kyat ($8) in bribes to various authorities in Burma.

He said that from Myawaddy to Moulmein (60 miles) there are about 20 checkpoints manned by either police, the military or armed ethnic groups, such as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army or Karen Peace Force, which have signed ceasefire agreements with the military regime.

In Mae Sai, the Thai border town opposite Tachilek in Shan State, local sources said perhaps a score of motorcycles are smuggled into Burma daily.

About 200 hundred motorcycles are smuggled daily into Burma from China, sources estimated. A resident of Ruili, a Chinese border town, said that before the Olympics in August, about 500 motorbikes were smuggled into Burma daily, but in the run up to the Olympics, border security was tighten and smuggling dropped off.

Burma has no motorcycle industry. Most motorcycles are imported from China, Japan and Thailand. More than 500,000 of the country’s motorcycles are not registered or licensed, according to Rangoon traffic police statistics.

Tay Za’s presence in the Burmese delegation that visited Bangladesh was not mentioned in reports on the trip carried by state-run newspapers.

The delegation reportedly travelled to Bangladesh aboard an aircraft of Tay Za’s company Air Bagan.

Tay Za, who enjoys close business ties with the military regime, plans to transfer control of Htoo Trading Company to his elder son, Phyo Tay Za, according to one source.

The Burmese delegation also discussed with their Bangladesh hosts the purchase of 100,000 tons of rice from Burma, besides energy cooperation, the construction of a trans-border road and the delimitation of maritime boundaries.

A report by the Reuters news agency, quoting a Bangladesh energy official, said the Burmese delegation agreed to supply natural gas to Bangladesh to help it produce fertilizer for use in both countries.

Reuters said Bangladesh will establish a urea-manufacturing factory in its Chittagong region, near the Burma border, with an annual production capacity of 600,000 tonnes, using up to 200 million cubic feet of gas daily.

Tay Za is among a number of Burmese military officials and businessmen on a US sanctions list that freezes any of their US assets.

The sanctions have reportedly hit Tay Za’s businesses, including those with Singapore links—Pavo Trading Pte Ltd, Air Bagan Holdings Pte Ltd and Htoo Wood Products Pte Ltd. Pavo Trading is a sister company of the Htoo group of companies run by Tay Za.

South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan lowered interest rates, joining a series of cuts Wednesday in the US, Europe and China aimed at stabilizing global markets that plunged sharply this week.But lower interest rates alone are unlikely to cure the crisis in confidence, analysts said.

“Short-term selling pressure is still strong,” said Lorraine Tan, director at Standard & Poor’s equity research in Singapore. “I don’t think interest rate cuts alone are going to help improve confidence all that much.”

Investor reaction in Asia to the string of moves mirrored that in the US and Europe: an initial recovery in several markets faded amid deep concerns about the depth of the crisis. Adding to the pressure are financial institutions selling off shares as they try to restore their balance sheets, Tan said.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose more than 1 percent but fell back to close down 0.5 percent to 9,157.49, a five-year low. That followed a 9.4 percent plunge Wednesday, its biggest one-day drop since the 1987 market crash.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 3.6 percent to 15,985.39, while South Korea’s key index rose 0.6 percent after earlier rising as much as 2.9 percent.

Mainland China’s main index fell 0.8 percent as investors continued to unload shares in banks and property firms even after its central bank lowered rates Wednesday evening.

“These are obviously hard times and the global economy is suffering. The market trend is still downward since China isn’t immune to this global financial crisis,” said Peng Yunliang, a strategist at Shanghai Securities.

China’s move came as six other central banks, including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, joined to lower rates to contain the spreading financial crisis.
Japan’s central bank, constrained by already-low rates, said it backed the moves.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average ended a volatile session down 2 percent—disappointing, but a milder decline than in previous days.

Wavering investors in the US were shaken by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s comment Wednesday that it would be several weeks before the government’s US$700 billion financial rescue package makes its first purchases of banks’ troubled mortgage-backed assets.

Joining the worldwide efforts to ease the crisis, Taiwan’s Central Bank reduced its key interest rate for the second time in two weeks. The Taiwan share benchmark nonetheless fell 1.5 percent, to 5,130.71.

“Our economy has come under pressure for a slowdown,” Governor Perng Fai-nan said. “We hope the rate cut can stimulate consumption to spur economic growth.”

In Indonesia, trading on the Jakarta Stock Exchange was canceled Thursday after the benchmark JSX index sank 10.4 percent Wednesday before trading was suspended by late morning. Authorities ordered the market to stay closed, possibly through Friday, following a late night Cabinet meeting.