MYANMAR’S pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, recently released from detention, was reunited yesterday with a son she last saw a decade ago.
Kim Aris, 33, who lives in Britain, flew into Rangoon after being granted a visa by the military regime and was greeted by his smiling mother at the airport.
Suu Kyi was freed on November 13 after more than seven years under house arrest.
Aris was finally granted a visa by the military regime after waiting for several weeks in neighbouring Thailand. Just before walking into the airport terminal, smiling Suu Kyi, 65, told reporters: “I am very happy.”

IRELAND’S banks are up for sale, the country’s central bank chief said, as the government seeks to cut them down in size after their reckless lending forced the country to seek an international bailout.
“They are for sale as far as I am concerned,” Patrick Honohan said yesterday. “I have been an advocate for a number of years for small countries to have foreign owners for their banks”.
Dublin has already said it will intensify reform of the banks and surplus activities will have to be discarded.
Analysts said there was limited scope to sell assets and any sales could be at a discount, or require the government to cap potential losses.
Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager warned there will have to be pain in any consolidation.

PRINCE William is to marry his fiancee Kate Middleton on Friday April 29, 2011 at London’s Westminster Abbey, his office said yesterday.
William, son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, announced his engagement to long-term girlfriend Middleton last week after a courtship that lasted nearly a decade.
“We know that the world will be watching on April 29 and the couple are very, very keen indeed that the spectacle should be a classic example of what Britain does best,” Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, William’s private secretary told reporters.

SWITZERLAND looks set to approve the easier expulsion of foreigners who have committed crimes in a referendum on Sunday, the latest sign of growing hostility to immigration in the Alpine state.
Voters are likely to back the automatic deportation of foreigners who have been found guilty of murder, rape and trafficking in drugs or people and other serious offences, with 54 per cent in favour according to a GFS Bern poll.
The initiative was put forward by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which has played on rising fear about immigration in recent years to become the country’s biggest political force.

ON SATURDAY night the police raided three establishments in Larnaca believed to be used as gambling venues. Fifty-seven computers, allegedly used for online gambling, countless decks of cards, chips, dice, cash, cheques and safes were confiscated during the raids, which, according to the police spokesman, had been planned some time ago.
A cynic would say that the season of police raids on suspected gambling establishments had arrived. Every year, round about the same time that Christmas lights go up, the police start to raid suspected gambling clubs. The raids usually continue up to the New Year and then stop until the next festive season, even though the gambling clubs operate all year round.