Burma's Suu Kyi Plans First Trip Since Release

Reuters reports:

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will next week travel outside her home city for the first time since her release from a seven-year stint of house arrest last November, a spokesman for her former party said.

Suu Kyi plans to join her son, Kim, on a four-day pilgrimage from July 4 to Bagan, an ancient city about 700 km (435 miles) north of Yangon, where she has spent the past eight years.

"The purpose of the trip is purely religious," Han Tha Myint, a spokesmen for Suu Kyi's now defunct National League for Democracy Party (NLD), said on Thursday, adding she would travel by plane.

Suu Kyi, 66, was expected to go on a series of one-day trips outside Yangon next week, prompting concerns by her supporters about her personal safety. Several government-run newspapers carried commentaries on Wednesday warning of "chaos and riots" if Suu Kyi went ahead.