Hussein Malla / AP file

U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer is shown at a ceremony transfering national sovereignty to Iraq in Baghdad on June 28, 2004.

Former U.S. diplomat Paul Bremer had shoes thrown at him during a meeting held Wednesday in the British Parliament in an attack reminiscent of the 2008 shoe hurling directed at President George W. Bush.

A video that captured the moment was posted on YouTube.

The incident occurred as Bremer, a former U.S. envoy to Iraq, was giving a speech at a meeting organized by the Henry Jackson Society, a British-based think tank named for the late U.S. senator from Washington state. Bush, who appointed Bremer to his post in Iraq was the target of a similar attack when he visited Baghdad in 2008. Shoe hurling is a traditional Arab gesture of disrespect.

In the latter incident, a man stood up, seemingly to address Bremer, and announced he was delivering two messages, one from Saddam Hussein and one from the Iraqi people.

"This is the first message," the man said, as he threw the first shoe. Bremer can be seen ducking, but he then started laughing, in seeming disbelief.

Seconds later, a second shoe flew across the room, and Bremer stood and tried to catch it -- but failed. "You should improve your aim if you want to do something like that," he said.

As the attacker was removed from the room, he could be heard shouting invectives addressed to Bremer, who he said is responsible for destroying his country.

"If he had done that while Saddam Hussein was alive, he would be a dead man by now," Bremer then said, addressing the crowd -- his composure regained.

From May 2003 to June 2004, Bremer served as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq, which was established following the 2003 invasion.

Jamal Nasrallah / EPA

Thousands of people gather for a demonstration in Amman, Jordan, Friday.

Thousands of people took to the streets in Jordan’s capital Amman on Friday, calling for political reform.

Jordan's King Abdullah on Thursday dissolved the country's pro-government, rubber-stamp parliament, a constitutional move to pave the way for elections expected early next year.

The Islamic Action Front -- Jordan's wing of the Muslim Brotherhood -- and a coalition of tribal and other Islamist groups are pressing the monarch to speed up what they consider to be the slow pace of reform.

A conservative government led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Tarawneh passed an electoral law last July that has angered the country's main Islamist opposition, prompting it to say it will boycott upcoming elections unless its demands for wider representation are met.

Native Jordanians
The electoral law keeps intact a system that marginalizes the representation of Jordanians of Palestinian origin, on whom Islamists rely on for their support, in favor of native Jordanians who keep a tight grip on power and are the backbone of the powerful security forces.

Read more World stories from NBC News

Demonstrators at Friday’s protests chanted, “The people want to reform the regime,” according to BBC News, which estimated the crowd at about 10,000.

Al-Jazeera said witnesses and journalists put the crowd at between 10,000 to 15,000. It reported that a demonstration in support of the king had been cancelled in case it led to an outbreak of unrest.

NBC's Jim Maceda answers questions about the Mideast protests

The royal decree dissolving parliament, which was carried by state media, did not mention a date for the election that will decide the makeup of the 120-member lower house of parliament.

King Abdullah has repeatedly said he wants elections to be held later this year or at the latest early next year.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Paul Hanna / Reuters

An injured protester shouts as she is detained by riot police during clashes between supporters of Spanish coal miners and riot police in Madrid on Wednesday.

MADRID -- Spain announced a 65 billion euro ($79.85 billion) austerity package that includes tax hikes and spending cuts on Wednesday, a day after it won approval from its euro partners for a huge bailout of the country's stricken banks.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told parliament the country's future was at stake as Spain grapples with recession, a bloated deficit and investor wariness of its sovereign debt. He said the nearly $80 billion in savings will be achieved through 2015 by a hike in sales taxes and a series of spending cuts through 2015.

"We are living in a crucial moment which will determine our future and that of our families, that of our youth, of our welfare state," Rajoy said. 

"This is the reality. There is no other and we have to get out of this hole and we have to do it as soon as possible and there is no room for fantasies or off-the cuff improvisations because there is no choice," he added.

Spain's economic crisis turns middle-class families into illegal squatters

Spain's unemployment rate is more than 24 percent overall and 50 percent for young people. 

"What motivates us is the five million people out of work," the BBC News quoted Rajoy as saying.

Wednesday's increases in sales tax include a hike to 21 percent on products and services like clothing, cars, cigarettes and telephone services to 21 percent, and increase to 10 percent on goods such as public transport fares, processed foods and bar and hotel services. The sales tax on basic goods like bread, medicine and books stays at four percent.

The increases were widely expected but go against campaign pledges Rajoy made before he was elected in November and since he came to power.

PhotoBlog: Spanish miners converge on Madrid after long march over cuts

Other measures outlined Wednesday included:

• further cuts in government spending beyond the reductions already outlined in the 2012 budget
• wage cuts for civil servants and members of the national parliament
• further closures of state-owned companies
• tax deductions for homeowners to be scrapped
• a 30 percent cut in the number of town councilors
• changes to unemployment benefits designed to encourage jobless people to seek work quickly.
• 20 percent cut in government subsidies to political parties and labor unions.

Deadline to meet targets extended
On Tuesday, eurozone ministers agreed to grant Spain an extra year until 2014 to reach its deficit reduction targets in exchange for further budget savings and set the parameters of an aid package for Madrid's ailing banks.

The decisions were aimed at preventing the currency area's fourth largest economy, mired in a worsening recession, from needing a full state bailout which would stretch the limits of Europe's rescue fund and plunge it deeper into a debt crisis.

"The Eurogroup supports the recently adopted Commission recommendation to extend the deadline for the correction of the excessive deficit in Spain by one year to 2014," ministers said in a statement.

Emotions run high as eviction leads to protest in northern Spain

No final figure was agreed for aid to ailing Spanish lenders, weighed down by bad debts due to a housing crash and recession, but the EU has set a maximum of 100 billion euros ($123 billion) and some 30 billion euros would be available by the end of July if there was an urgent need.

A final loan agreement will be signed on or around July 20, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker told a news conference.

PhotoBlog: Faces of Spain's economic crisis

In one key decision closely watched by investors, ministers agreed that once a single European banking supervisor is set up next year, Spanish banks could be directly recapitalized from the euro zone rescue fund without requiring a state guarantee.

That fulfils an EU summit mandate to try to break a so-called "doom loop" of mutual dependency between weak banks and over indebted sovereigns, but represented a climb-down for hard-line north European creditor countries.

In a nine-hour marathon meeting ministers of the 17-nation eurozone also settled a series of long-delayed appointments.

As ministers were meeting, a top ECB policymaker warned that Europe's debt crisis was now more acute than the 2008 financial turmoil that felled U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

"The eurozone crisis is now much more profound and more fundamental than at the time of Lehman," ECB Executive Board member Peter Praet told a conference in Lisbon.

The Eurogroup ministers were tasked with fleshing out a bare-bones agreement reached by EU leaders at a summit last month on establishing a European banking supervisor and using the bloc's rescue funds to stabilize bond markets.

But differences persisted between north European countries such as Finland and the Netherlands and southern states led by Italy and Spain.

Msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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AFP - Getty Images

The Egyptian parliament meets in Cairo on Tuesday, after being summoned by new President Mohamed Mursi in an open challenge to the generals who dissolved it last month.

CAIRO – Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament opened a new front in the country's leadership showdown on Tuesday by meeting in defiance of orders that disbanded the chamber last month. The move brought new President Mohammed Morsi in direct conflict with both the powerful military and the highest court. 

The legislators – except for some liberal members of parliament who boycotted the session they considered unconstitutional – passed a decision to refer a previous move declaring 30 percent of parliament illegitimate to a court of appeals.

The session lasted just five minutes, suggesting that lawmakers sought to take more of a symbolic stand, rather than a full-scale backlash, against rulings that invalidated the chamber over apparent irregularities in Egypt's first elections since the fall of Hosni Mubarak 17 months ago. 

Symbolic or not, something very real is at the heart of the parliamentary tussle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military: control of the body tasked with writing Egypt's new constitution. 

The so-called constituent assembly will determine the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government, and the degree to which Islamic law is applied. 

Mohammed Asad / AP

Egyptian lawmakers greet each other at a brief session of Parliament, the first since the country's high court ruled the chamber unconstitutional, in Cairo, Egypt on Tuesday.

In showdown with new president, Egypt's top court says ruling on parliament final

Constituent assemblies have a troubled history in Egypt. The first, which was two-thirds hard-line Islamist, was dissolved when its Christian, secularists, moderate Islamists, liberals and female members withdrew, saying that the body did not represent them.

The second constituent assembly, appointed just three weeks ago, has also been called biased, despite being half Islamist and half secular. But it has continued to meet, albeit fitfully.  

Because the parliament has been dissolved, the validity of the current constituent assembly is also in question and its status will be determined in court on September 4. Morsi has asked parliament to stay on until 60 days after a new constitution is drafted and put to a public referendum, at which time new parliamentary elections would be held. 

Both sides backed down from the brink Tuesday – the military removed most of the security from the parliament building and allowed members of the dissolved legislature to enter the building.

A crowd of around 200 people demonstrated their support for the newly elected president and the Brotherhood on a street in Cairo on Tuesday evening by chanting: "The people and the parliament are one hand" and "only the president has legitimacy."

As Morsi takes symbolic oath, many fear the 'Islamization of Egyptian society

Messages of support for Morsi's move also populated the Muslim Brotherhood's website.

"I support President Mursi's decision to return legislative power to the parliament rather than the military council," renowned writer Alaa al Aswany wrote.  "It is the first step on the right path."

Hamdi Kandil, journalist and commentator asked: "Do the people who reject the reconvening of the parliament want the military council to assume legislative power?"

But the political brinkmanship angered others. 

"It's not right to go against the judiciary. Maybe [Morsi] will decide to release [former President] Mubarak," taxi driver Haitham Mahmoud told NBC News. "Maybe he will decide to ban judges from supervising the polling stations in the next elections. The first three days of his presidency were all Morsi. After that it was all Mohamed Badie [the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood]."

Some feel that Morsi is working for Muslim Brotherhood – which counts for the support of around 5 million out of more than 80 million Egyptians – not the well-being of all his countrymen.

"I don’t like this. He doesn’t respect the law," Samia Hallen, a 45-year-old  business administration teacher, told NBC News. "I am not sure if it is his decision or that of the Muslim Brotherhood. People have a right to be angry with his decision."

Hallen pledged a backlash if Morsi continued on the same confrontational path.

"We will give him 100 days. If we don’t like his performance, we will go back to the street."

NBC News Ayman Mohyeldin, Joanna de Boer and Taha Belal contributed to this report. 

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Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

Supporters of Egypt's Mohamed Morsi cheer with a sign that reads "All of us with your right decision President Morsi" in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Monday.

Updated at 1055 a.m. ET: Egypt's highest court insisted Monday that its ruling that led to the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated parliament was final and binding, setting up a showdown with the country's newly elected president.

The court, which ruled on June 14 that the Islamist-led parliament had been elected based on unconstitutional rules, also said it would review appeals challenging the constitutionality of President Mohammed Morsi's decree.

"We will hear these cases tomorrow (Tuesday)," the court's head, Maher el-Beheiry, told Reuters. 

The announcement on state TV came a day after Morsi recalled the legislators, defying the powerful military's decision to dismiss parliament after the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that a third of its members had been elected illegally.

However, both sides appeared together Monday at a military graduation ceremony. Morsi sat between the head of the armed forces Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Chief-of-Staff Sami Anan. The three sat grim faced for most of the ceremony, but Tantawi and Morsi exchanged a few words while seated on the reviewing stand. 

As Morsi takes symbolic oath, many fear the 'Islamization of Egyptian society

The court's judges made the decision in an emergency meeting even as the speaker of the dissolved legislature, Saad el-Katatni, called for parliament's lower chamber, the People's Assembly, to convene on Tuesday. The court's ruling did not cover parliament's upper chamber, known as the Shura Council, which is largely toothless.   

Both Morsi and el-Katatni are longtime members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has long been at odds with the military and with other Islamists.

The military had been running Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year. But, shortly before the handover to the elected president, the army put some curbs on the presidency and gave itself legislative powers.  

After a little more than a week in office, Morsi's move highlights the power struggle likely to define his term, pitting long repressed Islamists against generals used to calling the shots and an establishment full of Mubarak-era officials.

Fresh legal wrangle
Morsi's move also threatens a fresh legal wrangle over whether Morsi can overrule a decision by the Supreme Constitutional Court to dissolve parliament, creating more uncertainty at a time when the economy is creaking after 17 months of political turmoil.

"President Mohamed Morsi ordered the reconvening of the elected parliament to hold sessions," according to a presidential statement read out by Morsi's aide Yasser Ali.

As Morsi takes symbolic oath, many fear the 'Islamization of Egyptian society'

This was a significant move on the part of Morsi and the Brotherhood, according to Dr. Omar Ashour, a scholar at the Brookings Doha Center and director of the Middle East Politics Graduate Studies Program at the University of Exeter.

"This may end being a game of 'chicken' (to see) who withdraws his decision first," he said in a comment emailed to msnbc.com.

Analysts said they had not expected an easy relationship between the army and the Islamist president, but most believed Morsi would tread cautiously to avoid any swift escalation. The Brotherhood has repeatedly said it does not want confrontation. 

"This is an early conflict. Everyone was expecting this to happen but not now, unless this decision was taken in agreement with the army council, but I doubt this," political analyst Mohamed Khalil said.

Morsi's decree was announced shortly after he received his first official U.S. visitor in the presidential palace, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, whose country gives $1.3 billion of aid to Egypt's military every year.

Burns praised Egypt's progress but said there was more to be done. "It will be critical to see a democratically elected parliament in place and an inclusive process to draft a new constitution that upholds universal rights," Burns said after meeting Morsi and before the decree was issued.

Early vote
After a call for a show of support by the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, with the biggest bloc in parliament, a few hundred people gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square. "We love you Morsi," they chanted, along with "Down with military rule."

Morsi has resigned from both the Brotherhood and its party.

In his decree, Morsi called for an early parliamentary election for a new assembly within 60 days of the nation approving a new constitution, which has still to be drafted.

Post-revolution Egyptians to US: Stay out

That suggested a possible attempt at compromise by indicating the assembly, criticized by some for a poor initial performance and dissolved by court order just months after it was elected, would not serve a full four-year term. 

"The military wanted to dissolve parliament and the Brotherhood doesn't. There has to be somewhere they can meet in the middle or there will be an indefinite stand-off," said Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Doha Center.

"This could be a compromise arrangement for the short term, so the military gets part of what it wanted - a new parliament in coming months - and Islamists can avoid a situation where the military dominates a legislative authority," he said.

The Supreme Constitutional Court called an emergency session on Monday to review the Morsi's move, the court's deputy Maher Sami told the state news agency MENA, signaling there could be a prolonged legal wrangle.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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A Syrian official checks the identification of individuals before they vote in the parliamentary elections at a polling station in Damascus on Monday.

Updated at 11:30 a.m. ET: Polls opened in what Syria's government said were its first multiparty elections in about 50 years on Monday, after renewed fighting between rebels and President Bashar Assad's forces reportedly broke out in an oil-producing part of the country.

The opposition have said the election will change little in a rubber-stamp assembly that has been chosen by the Assad family, backed by the powerful secret police, for the past four decades. 

The voting for Syria's 250 member parliament is unlikely to affect the course of Syria's popular uprising, which began 13 months ago with anti-Assad protests. The regime has violently cracked down on dissent and many in the opposition have armed themselves, pushing the country toward civil war.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and Syrian state TV showed voters lining up and dropping white ballots in large, plastic boxes. Election officials say more than 7,000 candidates are competing seats in the legislature in a country of almost 15 million eligible voters out of a population of 24 million.

The elections are the first under a new constitution, adopted three months ago. The charter for the first time allows the formation of political parties to compete with Assad's ruling Baath party and limits the president to two seven-year terms.

Some members of the opposition remained skeptical.

"Syria's political system remains utterly corrupt and election results will be again determined in advance," opposition activist Bassam Ishaq, who unsuccessfully ran for parliament in 2003 and 2007, told Reuters.  "There are effectively very few seats for independents, and these will go to the highest bidder."

Significant and important members of the opposition were also not able to participate in the elections, Abdulwahab Sayed-Omar, spokesman for British Solidarity for Syria, told msnbc.com.

"Arguably the most prominent political opposition group is the Muslim Brotherhood," he said. "(But) not only is it banned and illegal, but people who support it get the death penalty."

Bashar al-Haraki, a member of opposition Syrian National Council, told the BBC the elections were a "farce which an be added to the regime's masquerade."

While the opposition have dismissed the vote as a sham, authorities say they are fighting foreign-backed terrorists who are bent on sabotaging what state media describe as a reform program that is more advanced than in Western democracies.

Backed by old ally Russia, and with support from Iran's clerical Shiite rulers, Assad, who belongs to Syria's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, has relied on the Alawite-dominated military to try to put down the uprising against his repressive rule. 

Unlike the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, who have been toppled by Arab Spring revolts, Assad has retained enough support among the military and among his Alawite sect, which dominates the army and security apparatus, to withstand the popular revolt. 

Population 'trapped'
Rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked tank positions in the east of the provincial capital Deir al-Zor on Sunday, in response to an army offensive against towns and villages in the tribal area bordering Iraq that has killed tens of people and stopped others reaching supplies and medical care, they said. 

"We do not have a death toll because no one is daring to go into the streets," Ghaith Abdelsalam, an opposition activist who lives near Ghassan Abboud roundabout that has become a flash-point for the fighting in the city, told Reuters. 

"The population has been trapped and anger has been building up," he said, adding the fighting subsided in the morning after erupting overnight. 

The army still has tanks and heavy weapons in cities and towns and rebels are continuing their attacks on military convoys and army roadblocks that have cut off swathes of the country, according to witnesses and opposition sources, both sides in violation of ceasefire being monitored by a U.N. team.

Bold move as Syria leader makes time for chess

Fifty out of a planned total of 300 U.N. observers are now in Syria to monitor the ceasefire declared on April 12, but their presence has not halted 14 months of violence. The United Nations says 9,000 have been killed during the crackdown.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an opposition organisation that documents the violence, said Assad's forces killed three people on Sunday, including Ali Arnous, a young man in the town of Tel north of Damascus. 

A YouTube video showed thousands of people marching at Arnous's funeral, chanting "Raise your head high, father of the martyr," and carrying a huge green Syrian flag from the era before Assad's Baath Party seized power in a 1963 coup. 

A grave containing the bodies of six other people the network said were killed by Assad's forces was discovered in Oram al-Joz, one of dozens of towns and villages in Idlib, which has been overrun by the military in the past few months. 

Footage and accounts by activists are hard to verify conclusively because the government restricts media access. 

Also on Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told Syrian refugees on Sunday that victory for the rebels was not far off and that Assad was "losing blood" by the day. 

Erdogan, who is trying to rally international support against Assad, was met with enthusiastic applause and shouts of "Long live Erodgan" at the Kilis camp on Turkey's border with Syria, which is sheltering 9,000 refugees from the violence. 

"Your victory is not far. We have just one issue: to stop the bloodshed and tears and for the Syrian people's demands to be met," he told the crowd. 

Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report. 

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Soe Than Win / AFP - Getty Images

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi along with other elected members of parliament reads her parliamentary oath at the lower house of parliament during a session in Naypyidaw on Wednesday.

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar -- Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi took a historic oath on Wednesday to join a parliamentary system crafted by the generals who locked her away for much of her long struggle against dictatorship, ushering in a dramatic new political era for Myanmar.

The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner's debut in a parliament stacked with uniformed soldiers could accelerate reforms that have already included the most sweeping changes in the former British colony since a 1962 military coup, including the release of political prisoners and a loosening of strict media controls.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party will occupy too few seats to have any real power in the ruling-party dominated assembly, however, and there are fears the presence of the opposition lawmakers could simply legitimize the regime without any change.

But the new lawmakers are also likely to bring a level of public debate to the legislative body that has never been seen as they prepare for the next general election in 2015.

The solemn swearing-in ceremony took place in the capital, Naypyitaw, which was built by the former army junta. With white roses in her hair, Suu Kyi stood along with several dozen of her party's lawmakers as the speaker the lower house asked them to read the oath.

Speaking briefly to a mob of reporters afterward, Suu Kyi said her focus will be "to carry out our duties within the parliament as we have been carrying out our duties outside the parliament for the last 20 or so years."

'Cautiously optimistic'
The wildly popular daughter of assassinated independence hero Aung San faces the difficulty of managing the expectations of a nation impatient for change and the hopes of Burmese who see her as a sole beacon for democratic freedom.

Aung San Suu Kyi wins parliament seat in historic Myanmar election

It is unclear how rapidly she can deliver on her ambitious campaign promises, including the overhaul of Myanmar's army-drafted constitution, in a legislature dominated by former members of the military junta who ruled for nearly half a century before ceding to a quasi-civilian government last year.

"Only time will tell," she replied when asked by a Reuters reporter of the day's significance, as she waded through a chaotic throng of reporters on her way to the chamber where she took the oath in a shortened 40-minute session.

Later, she told reporters: "I have always been cautiously optimistic about developments. In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic."

Suu Kyi's entry into parliament comes a month after her party's landslide victory in a by-election and two days after backing down in a standoff over the wording of an oath to protect the constitution sworn by all new members of parliament.

The parliamentary session was to have ended on Monday but was extended in part to allow Suu Kyi and fellow members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) to take their seats.

Carnival-like atmosphere in Myanmar ahead of election

Entering the chamber, she at first sat down on her own, near the block reserved for serving military men who have a quarter of the seats under the constitution, and seemed relaxed as other lawmakers greeted her.

She then lined up with colleagues to take the oath, including a pledge to uphold a constitution her party wants to change because it gives the military a leading political role.

Asked if she felt awkward working with the military, she replied, "Not at all, I have tremendous goodwill towards the military. It doesn't in any way bother me to sit with them."

Her comments reflect the dramatic scale of change in the former Burma, given the military's past treatment of Suu Kyi, who was first detained by the army in 1989, and then spent 15 of the next 21 years in detention until her release from house arrest in November 2010.

Myanmar house of fear becomes house of hope

Many lawmakers hope Suu Kyi's parliamentary debut will be a catalyst for further reform by the government of President Thein Sein, a former general who has freed hundreds of political prisoners, legalised trade unions and protests, and started a dialogue with ethnic minority rebels.

"Parliament will be stronger because of her good relationship with the international community," said Khin Maung Yi, a lawmaker from the National Democratic Force party. "We parliamentarians have wanted her in the legislature for a long time ... Many laws have to be changed and amended."

Triumph over tragedy
Suu Kyi's story of triumph over tragedy began in 1988 when she left her family life in Britain to take care of her dying mother in Yangon. She soon found herself thrust into politics as nationwide protests erupted against the military, addressing crowds of thousands before her 1989 arrest.

A year later, her NLD won 392 of 485 house seats in a rare election, which the regime ignored.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 during the first of three stints under house arrest. Even in her brief periods of freedom, she never left Myanmar, afraid the military would not let her return.

Suu Kyi hails 'triumph of the people' after Myanmar election win

She refused to leave to be with British husband Michael Aris, an Oxford University academic, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He died in Britain in 1999.

Four years later she survived an assassination attempt in an attack on her motorcade in which dozens of supporters were killed. This led to another spell in detention ordered by a regime that brutally suppressed dissidents.

But as Myanmar changes, so does Suu Kyi. While her decades of defiance were lauded by the world, her decision to join an imperfect political system has also been saluted by the West, which has started relaxing sanctions.

PhotoBlog: Hillary Clinton embraces Suu Kyi following historic talks

And her campaign promise to amend the constitution could put her on a collision course with the army. Last week the military filled its 25 percent house quota with higher-ranking officers in an apparent attempt to boost its parliamentary clout.

But even some of Suu Kyi's fierce rivals in the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) see her presence as a boon for a parliament with limited powers.

"With Suu Kyi on board, parties will be more diverse, with different perspective and opinions," said Kyaw Soe Lay, a lower house USDP lawmaker. "This works in the interest of those in the parliament."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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