OK, but who will be freed?

State-run media in Myanmar said today that 6,300 prisoners would be released in an amnesty and a new official human rights body urged the country’s president in an open letter to free what it called “prisoners of conscience,” a term for the political prisoners whose release has been a central demand of Western nations. The announcement in the official media did not mention prisoners of conscience, and general amnesties in the past have failed to include significant numbers of an estimated 2,100 political prisoners being held. News services, citing Myanmar state television and radio, said the releases would begin tomorrow. Given Myanmar's poor human rights record over the years, I bet they're only planning to release about 30 or 40 prisoners of conscience, with the balance being made up of common criminals. It's time Myanmar had an Arab Spring cleaning. In other news, a judge has ruled that former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose stupid "wraparound braid" hairstyle I mentioned in April last year, criminally exceeded her powers when she signed a gas deal with Russia in 2009.