BURMA UPDATE:

Leading poet and comedian Zargana (pictured), has been released from three weeks in detention and is reported to be well but exhausted. Zargana remains under heavy surveillance and is restricted in his movement and activities, as he has been for many years. PEN - the international organisation that supports writers everywhere - understands that fellow comedian U Par Par Lay was also one of many pro-democracy activists reported to have been arrested in the ongoing government crackdown in Burma and is believed to remain in detention. U Par Par Lay was imprisoned from March 1996 to July 2001 for, among other things, scripting and performing comedies that criticised the Burmese authorities.