Burma's junta carried out a major military reshuffle today that retired more than a dozen senior leaders, officials said, in an apparent move to prepare for November national elections.

Military-ruled Burma says it will stick with its “road map” to democracy despite the junta’s recent purge of the prime minister who proposed it, but is ducking questions on when pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will go free.

Burma’s military junta released at least 19 political prisoners, including pro-democracy party members, as part of a group of nearly 4,000 inmates it said were wrongly charged by an intelligence agency.

Burma’s ruling military junta today began releasing almost 4,000 prisoners whose detentions were ruled irrelevant or improper.