Envoy starts Myanmar mission

Yangon: The UN's new human rights envoy to Myanmar started his first mission to the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation on Monday, four days before the 20th anniversary of brutally crushed democracy protests.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, whose own parents were political prisoners under a military regime in Argentina, arrived in the former Burma late on Sunday and is due to stay until Thursday, eve of the "8-8-88" uprising anniversary. He is expected to meet a number of government officials as well as opposition politicians and leaders of some of Myanmar's many ethnic minority groups.

It is not clear whether he see detained opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in prison or under house arrest continuously for the past five years, and on-and-off for nearly 13 of the past 19 years.