Burma announced it would release another 5,000 prisoners and a senior official said today a top dissident who was democracy icon Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's closest aide will also be free before long.
But Ms Suu Kyi herself remains under house arrest with no sign she will be released any time soon.
"It is learnt that 5,311 prisoners will be released from various prisons effective November 25 in the second batch, and total number of the prisoners, including 3,937 released in the first batch on November 19th, will be 9,248," state television and radio said today.
The announcement came shortly after Deputy Foreign Minister Mr Kyaw Thu saidreports that the promised release of the nearly 4,000 prisoners which began last week was fizzling out were wrong.
Part of the problem for the perceived slowness of the releases - with relatives complaining only a couple of dozen dissidents had been freed - was the time it took to bring prisoners to Yangon from jails around the country, he said.
"Most have already been sent to Yangon and then they will be formally released," he said in an exclusive interview in the capital of the former Burma. He declined to say exactly when they would be freed.
But Mr Kyaw Thu said in an interview he did not know when Ms Suu Kyi would be released from house arrest at her lakeside villa in Yangon, where she is without a telephone and requires permission to receive visitors.