Myanmar frees thousands but opponents stay locked up ****

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YANGON, May 17 (AFP): Myanmar began releasing 17,000 prisoners Tuesday, an official said, in a limited jail-term reduction slammed by critics as it leaves more than 2,000 political prisoners still languishing behind bars. Among those set to be released were some of the intelligence personnel purged after the ousting of former premier and army intelligence chief Khin Nyunt in a power struggle in 2004, the official told AFP. But the vast majority were expected to be common criminals, despite repeated calls on the regime to free the huge numbers of political prisoners, often held under vague laws for double-digit jail terms. Myanmar's President Thein Sein, in a message read on state television on Monday, said that the government was reducing all inmates' sentences by one year and commuting the death penalty to life imprisonment.