"The leader of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has given a wide ranging interview to the BBC?s Fergal Keane... We met in the cavernous interior of the foreign affairs ministry where the old regime once plotted its campaigns against international sanctions and isolation. On the walls are the portraits of past Burmese leaders, beginning with her father General Aung San, assassinated on the eve of independence in 1947, and continuing into the era of thuggish military rule, face after forgotten face for whom nobody had ever voted in a democratic election. The new leader, elected with an overwhelming popular mandate, arrived surrounded by civil servants and guarded by police, fresh from meetings and with many more planned later in the day. Her interview with me was the first this year and a rare encounter with the media..."