Burma voting in landmark election

Burma was today holding a landmark election that was expected to send opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament for her first public office since launching her decades-long struggle against the military-dominated government.

The by-election, to fill a few dozen vacant seats, followed months of surprising reforms by a nominally civilian government that does not relish ceding ground to Ms Suu Kyi, but which must appear more democratic in order to emerge from decades of international isolation that have crippled the country’s economy.