The awesome Suu Kyi

In their show trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese military thugs allowed this scene to appear on the state-controlled television. Suu Kyi (that's pronounced, more or less, Soo Chee) is greeting one of the foreign diplomats who attended the trial on Wednesday--and who stood up when she entered the room, as did several Burmese policewomen before they realized what they were doing. (As of Thursday, however, the thugs had closed the courtroom again to spectators.)

'She exuded a type of aura which can be described as moving, quite awe-inspiring,' said Joselito Chad Jacinto of the Philippines. Suu Kyi has needed that quality since she fell afoul of the generals in 1990 by winning control of the government an an election that was promptly nullified. Likely she will continue to need it in the years to come. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford