Evening Edition

Speaking at her party headquarters in Yangon, where she met senior regional members for the first time in years, she told the BBC she was sure democracy would eventually come to her country, although she did not know when.

“I think we also have to try to make this thing happen… Velvet revolution sounds a little strange in the context of the military, but a non-violent revolution. Let’s put it that way,” the 65-year-old said.

The 65-year-old spent several hours at her National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in meetings with regional party members, ending her first day back at work in years with a trip to a Yangon monastery.

Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest on Saturday, less than a week after a controversial election that cemented the junta’s decades-long grip on power but was widely criticised by democracy activists and Western leaders as a sham.

Brussels and Dublin both insisted there were no formal talks despite persistent reports that Ireland was facing pressure to ask for help from a special European Union fund set up after the Greek debt crisis six months ago.

But with fears also mounting over the public finances in Greece and Portugal, Ireland said for the first time that it was in contact with international partners over its problems.

Greece’s Socialist government faced a week of tough talks with its benefactors and although bolstered by sweeping successes in local elections on Sunday, the outlook is still overshadowed by gloom on the economic front.

The Eurostat statistics agency issued its final revision of Greece’s accounts for the past four years, triggering a new forecast by Athens that its public deficit in 2010 would reach 9.4 percent of output, well above the 8.1-percent target.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled what he called a “convergent” modern messaging system that “handles messages seamlessly across all the ways you want to communicate” in a single inbox.

The messaging service blends online chat, text messages and other real-time conversation tools with traditional email, which Zuckerberg said had lost favor for being too slow for young Internet users.

Less than a month after the emergence of Haiti’s first cholera outbreak in half a century, the confirmed number of fatalities is at 917 and rising by more than 50 each day on average.

At least 27 deaths have been recorded in the teeming capital Port-au-Prince, including its largest slum Cite Soleil.

White-robed pilgrims struggled after sunset to track back from Arafat, site of the Prophet Mohammed’s last sermon, to their first stop in Muzdalifah, while buses bursting with pilgrims stood at a standstill amid huge crowds of people.

On Tuesday, the Eid al-Adha or Feast of Sacrifice, pilgrims perform the symbolic “stoning of the devil” at Mina, a ritual marked in the past by deadly stampedes before the Saudi authorities expanded the site to several levels.

The Japanese icon, who clinched double breaststroke gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was widely expected to win over 100m here but faded badly to finish fourth behind teammate Ryo Tateishi.

It was a stunning upset for Kitajima, who was attempting to win the 100-200m double for the third straight Asiad.

The Nobel laureate and daughter of the country’s independence hero was released on Saturday after seven years in detention but many are concerned her freedom could be short-lived if the country’s oppressive army rulers decide to wield their power.

“I’m very worried about her security,” said Soe Myint, a taxi driver in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.

On his way back from a 10-day trip to Asia, Obama looked ahead to a dinner he will host on Thursday with leaders of both parties and said he believed opposition Republicans would “engage constructively.”

“There are going to be some disagreements. There may be some need for compromise,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington.

South Korea became the first Asian and non-G8 host of the summit of the world’s 20 largest industrialized and emerged economies, winning praise for hosting a trouble-free event.

While last week’s summit failed to produce very much in the way of concrete targets to address ongoing disputes over global exchange rates, it did herald a shift from the old order to the new — whose camp South Korea belongs.

How could a lone natural gas trader in Houston dupe some of the world’s biggest energy companies for eight years, despite a veritable forest of red flags? After all, the overhaul of trading rules and credit practices in the wake of Enron’s collapse was supposed to make it tougher, if not impossible, to perpetuate such a fraud.

In September, FBI agents raided Roqumore’s suburban Houston home, searching for evidence she scammed at least 11 energy companies. Among the stacks of paperwork seized from the ornate 3,000-square-foot house were bank records for trading firms Roqumore is accused of using to dupe companies including Occidental Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Coral Energy Resources, Hess Corp and privately-held commodities giant Cargill.

In surveys of results of nearly 8 months of experiments in their Large Hadron Collider (LHC), they also say they may be able to determine by the end of 2011 whether the mystery Higgs particle, or boson, exists.

Guido Tonelli, spokesman for one of the CERN specialist teams monitoring operations in the vast, subterranean LHC, said probing for extra dimensions — besides length, breadth, height and time — would become easier as the energy of the proton collisions in it is increased in 2011.

BHP, conceding defeat for the third straight time on a major proposed merger or acquisition, signaled with its revived $4.2 billion share buyback that it had limited opportunities for other big buys.

The world’s largest miner’s shareholders are eager to hear what further growth prospects the company will chase with its cash pile when BHP Chief Executive Marius Kloppers fronts the group’s annual meeting in Australia on Tuesday.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the secretive, one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, issued a statement just four days before NATO leaders will gather for a summit in Lisbon where Afghanistan will be the top of the agenda.

Violence across Afghanistan was already at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 but a dramatic increase in attacks in the past four days will be a sobering message for NATO leaders.

NATO states have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, but 150,000 U.S.-led troops have failed to stem a widening Taliban insurgency and more than 2,200 have been killed.

The Afghan mission has been the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s largest combat role in its 61-year history and the first outside the region it was created to defend. It has also prompted the biggest questions about its future.

“There are 30 to 40 bodies some weeks,” said morgue worker Miraj Mohsin. “When just one member of a party is killed, I know the other will respond and there could be many more deaths.”

He held up a tag attached to a victim of Karachi’s notorious targeted killings, often blamed on workers from rival political parties.

Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for colleagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left even before they said no, and the rare proceeding – only the second for this type of hearing in two decades – went on without him.

An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late Monday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members agreed.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, in line to become speaker when the new Republican-led Congress convenes in January, told GOP newcomers Sunday evening that they may spend their next two years doing just two things: stopping what he called “job-killing policies” and the “spending binge.”

“The American people are sick and tired of the ‘Washington knows best’ mentality. All the power in this town is on loan from the people,” he told the group, which he noted includes seven farmers, six physicians, three car dealers, two funeral home directors, a former FBI agent, a pizzeria owner, an NFL lineman, and an airline pilot.

Earmarking is the longtime Washington practice in which lawmakers insert money for home-state projects like road and bridge work into spending bills. Critics say that peppering most spending bills with hundreds or even thousands of such projects creates a go-along-get-along mindset that ensures that Washington spending goes unchecked.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has long defended the practice, said he’s now heeding the message that voters sent in midterm elections that swept Democrats from power in the House. He said he can’t accuse Democrats of ignoring the wishes of the American people and then be guilty of the same thing.

There were at least 80 threats to kill or harm administrative law judges or staff over the past year – an 18 percent increase over the previous reporting period, according to data collected by the Social Security Administration.

The data was released to the Association of Administrative Law Judges and made available to The Associated Press.

On Monday, an international team of scientists opened his tomb in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague’s Old Town Square, where Brahe has been buried since 1601. After eight hours of work, they lifted from the tomb a tin box like a child’s coffin in which Brahe’s remains were placed after the only previous exhumation, in 1901.

Brahe’s extraordinarily accurate stellar and planetary observations, which helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy, are well documented but the circumstances surrounding his death at age 54 are murky.

“The main point is to get Mars exploration moving,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor who co-authored an article that seriously proposes what sounds like a preposterous idea.

At least one moon-walking astronaut was not impressed.

The official said the British engine-maker would take off faulty engines and replace them with new ones. It will then fix the leaking part and swap the engine back again.

The official, who has been briefed by Rolls-Royce and some of the affected airlines, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Rolls-Royce declined to comment.

The white-robed pilgrims began their ascent at dawn, covering the Mountain of Mercy at Arafat in an endless sea of white as their chants of “Labyek Allah” – or “Here I am, God, answering your calling” – reverberated.

The climb is one of the cornerstones of the pilgrimage, which is required from every able-bodied Muslim at least once in his life. It is the site where Islam’s Prophet Muhammad delivered his farewell sermon, and Muslims believe on this day the doors of heaven open to answer prayers and grant forgiveness.

Bucyrus makes surface mining equipment used for coal, copper, iron ore, oil sands and other minerals.

With a grinding economic recovery ongoing in the West, global companies like Caterpillar Inc. have driven further into China, India and Brazil, where the appetite for raw materials used in construction and mining are strong.

Suu Kyi was released over the weekend from 7 1/2 years in detention. On Sunday, she told thousands of wildly cheering supporters at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy that she would continue to fight for human rights and the rule of law in the military-controlled nation.

The 65-year-old Nobel Peace laureate must balance the expectations of the country’s pro-democracy movement with the realities of freedom that could be withdrawn any time by the regime. Although her party is officially dissolved, it has continued operating with the same structure. But without official recognition, it is in legal limbo, leaving it – and her – vulnerable to government crackdowns.

The deal is likely to be sealed at a two-day NATO summit starting Friday in Lisbon, Portugal, officials say, as part of what the alliance calls its new “strategic concept” – the first overhaul of its basic mission since 1999.

The summit will include Obama and leaders of the 27 other member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will join a separate NATO-Russia session on Saturday.

These and other proposals will be on the agenda this week as federal officials begin seeking ideas for expanding the Americans with Disabilities Act. Twenty years after the law was adopted, the government wants to move the regulations beyond wheelchair ramps and accessible elevators into cyberspace and personal technology.

The updated regulations could mean sweeping changes across many industries and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Indicted for murder more than four decades after the fatal shooting, James Bonard Fowler, 77, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months in jail.

It was a mixed victory for civil rights era prosecutions. The prosecutor and Jackson family members did not get the murder conviction they sought, but the jail time and an apology from Fowler seemed to help close a painful chapter in U.S. history.

The American Civil Liberties Union believes the lawsuit is the first in the country over a school’s ban on the $4 bracelets, which are designed to raise breast-cancer awareness among young people. The rubber jewelry has become wildly popular among students, prompting bans across the country.

School officials in Easton argue that the slogan is distracting and demeaning, and that some staff feel it trivializes a serious illness.

Thirty presidents received more than $1 million in pay and benefits in 2008, according to an analysis of federal tax forms by The Chronicle of Higher Education. More than 1 in 5 chief executives at the 448 institutions surveyed topped $600,000.

Most of the pay packages were negotiated before the full force of the recession. But even if the numbers dip slightly in next year’s survey, executive pay is expected to keep climbing over the long term as colleges compete for top talent. And schools are rewarding executives while raising tuition, exposing themselves to criticism.

Both examples of improbable longevity were on display at the San Francisco Opera this weekend. On Friday night, Placido Domingo – a few months shy of 70 – gave his final performance in the title role of Franco Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.” One night later, Karita Mattila sang the second of six performances of Leos Janacek’s “The Makropulos Case,” about a mysterious diva who has lived more than 300 years.

“Cyrano,” adapted from the play by Edmond Rostand, tells of a poet with a grotesque nose who is secretly in love with the fair Roxanne but uses his gifts to help the handsome Christian win her heart. Christian is killed in battle, and only years later, when Cyrano himself is mortally wounded, does he reveal his feelings.