Zangkong ah Piteknu Kikhahta!

[Zomi Dimocrat]

Aung San Suu Kyi supporters gather at the National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon for her expected release Photograph: Khin Maung Win/AP

11.24am: The BBC reports that Aung San Suu Kyi has briefly adressed the crowd and will speak at greater length tomorrow at midday local time. She has now gone back inside her house. It is unclear what her movements will be for the rest of the day.

11.09am: The BBC's Adam Mynott says Aung San Suu Kyi has been released. She is standing on a box outside her house, waving at the crowd, trying to quieten them so she can speak.

Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty said: "While Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release is certainly welcome, it only marks the end of an unfair sentence that was illegally extended, and is by no means a concession on the part of the authorities.

"The fact remains that authorities should never have arrested her or the many other prisoners of conscience in Burma in the first place, locking them out of the political process."

He said it was now important the authorities ensured her security and "put an end to the ongoing injustice of political imprisonment in the country".

10.53am: The AFP news agency says there are unconfirmed reports that Aung San Suu Kyi has been released. AP says government officials have read a release order to her. PA reports that barricades outside her house have been removed.

The BBC's Adam Mynott says the riot police have left and hundreds of people have surged forward outside the gates. He says there are reports that the pro-democracy leader will adress the crowd later today.

10.43am: Three car officials have entered the compound where she is under house arrest, AP reports.

Reuters reports there are around 1,000 people gathered near the pro-democracy leader's home, many chanting "Release Aung San Suu Kyi" and "Long live Aung San Suu Kyi".

A government source told the news agency she would likely be released late in the day, but the comment could not be officially confirmed.

Reuters suggests that freeing Aung San Suu Kyi could be a bid by the ruling junta to seek some international legitimacy.

Such a move would be the first step towards a review of Western sanctions on the resource-rich country, the largest in mainland Southeast Asia and labelled by rights groups as one of the world's most corrupt and oppressive.
Freeing the charismatic 65-year-old leader could also divert some attention from an election widely dismissed as a sham to cement military power under a facade of democracy.
"The regime needs to create some breathing space urgently," said a retired Burmese academic, who asked not to be identified.
"They may do that by releasing her and might think it will help improve an image tarnished by electoral fraud."

10.07am: There are unconfirmed reports on Twitter of further activity at Aung San Suu Kyi's house. Poster BURMA2010 writes: "Something brewing. NLD believes visitors to be allowed into the compound within the next hour. First the doctor, NLD CEC and then diplomats."

While we're awaiting further news, you can have a look through a gallery of the pro-democracy leader's life and another showing private photographs of her as a young bride-to-be, mother and house... that belonged to her late husband, Michael Aris. There's also a timeline and a profile of her, which describes how she has become "an icon, a universal symbol of courage, endurance and peaceful res...

9.55am: Good morning, hundreds of supporters of Burma's long-detained pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, have gathered outside her house for a second day, ahead of her expected release. Her latest term of house arrest officially ends today, and there has been a flurry of reported activity near her Rangoon home and a series of reports saying Burma's military rulers have sanctioned her freedom.

In his latest report for the Guardian, Jack Davies reports that Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday chose one last night of imprisonment so ... He said the 65-year-old was told mid-afternoon Burma time yesterday that she was free to leave the two-storey lakeside villa which the junta had made her prison for most of this decade. However, attached to her release, the military sought to impose strict conditions, understood to be restrictions on where she could travel within Burma, and with whom she could meet.

He writes: "It was rumoured that Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's best-known democracy advocate and a Nobel peace laureate, demanded an unconditional release and insisted on negotiating her unfettered freedom with military officials before she would set foot outside her door."

Today there has so far been no formal statement from Burma's ruling generals on Aung San Suu Kyi's release, but her lawyer Nyan Win told reporters earlier today: "Nothing has happened so far, but her house arrest expires today."

To remind you all: Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in elections in 1990 which were promptly ignored by the junta. She has subsequently been detained for 15 of the last 21 years.

The first elections since then took place on Sunday but were widely labelled a sham by outside observers. The NLD refused to take part and has now been ordered by the military to disband. The junta-dominated Union Solidarity and Development party looks set to take almost all the seats in both houses of parliament. Among the new MPs is Thein Sein, the current prime minister, who stepped down from the military to stand