Tue Oct 2, 11:23 PM ET

YANGON, Myanmar - A U.N. envoy remained tightlipped Wednesday about his meetings with Myanmar's junta chief and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, a highly watched mission that followed the regime's deadly crackdown on democracy protesters.

An eery quiet prevailed in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, where the junta has continued with a strong show of force. Military vehicles patrolled the streets overnight blaring warnings from loudspeakers that soldiers were searching for protesters: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!"

Ibrahim Gambari was in Singapore Wednesday after his four-day trip to Myanmar. He and the junta's reclusive leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe sat in the same room together Tuesday for more than an hour in the remote capital of Naypyitaw. But neither side issued any comment that could satisfy the world's hopes for a halt to the junta's harsh crackdown on protesters.

After meeting the generals, Gambari flew to Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained Nobel laureate who has come to symbolize the yearning for democracy in Myanmar. It was his second meeting in three days with Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

The United Nations released photos of a grim-faced Gambari and an equally somber Suu Kyi shaking hands at Myanmar's State Guest house.

On Wednesday, Gambari was scheduled to meet Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, whose country currently chairs the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has expressed revulsion at the junta's violent suppression of demonstrators.

As he headed to the meeting, Gambari avoided reporters by leaving his Singapore hotel through the basement.

Gambari is expected to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council on Friday on the outcome of his trip, diplomats said.

While the military government has said only 10 people were killed, dissident groups say up to 200 protesters were slain and 6,000 detained in the crackdown.

Foreign governments have urged the junta to free Suu Kyi as well as the detainees, who include thousands of Buddhist monks who led the protests.

In Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Myanmar's actions and urged an immediate investigation of the situation.

The 47-nation council said Tuesday it "strongly deplores continued violent repression of peaceful demonstrators in Myanmar, including through beatings, killings, arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances."

Swedish diplomat Johan Hallenborg, who witnessed last week's crackdown, told the council the Myanmar government was arresting monks and civilians "under the most terrifying circumstances" and was "trying to instill complete and utter fear in yet another generation of citizens."

In Myanmar's main city of Yangon, residents launched a new form of dissent, switching off their lights and TV sets for 15 minutes during the nightly government newscast starting at 8 p.m.

The "silent protest" began Monday and continued Tuesday, even when state television showed pictures of the Gambari-Than Shwe meeting, which included Deputy Senior Gen. Maung Aye, the No. 2 leader, and two other top generals.

CNN on Tuesday broadcast video footage of the crackdown it said was smuggled out of Myanmar that showed security forces with night sticks chasing protesters through the streets, beating some they caught. Some protesters were shown bloodied, laying in the street or alongside buildings. The video also showed the forces corralling dozens of protesters in what appeared to be an effort to make arrests.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, and the current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a much larger pro-democracy movement in which at least 3,000 people were killed. The generals called elections in 1990 but refused to give up power when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won.

Simmering anger against the junta exploded in mid-August after it raised fuel prices as much as 500 percent, a crushing burden in the impoverished nation. The marches soon grew into pro-democracy demonstrations led by the revered monks.

Among those killed when troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators last week in Yangon was Japanese television cameraman Kenji Nagai of the APF news agency.

On Tuesday, the head of APF, Toru Yamaji, laid white chrysanthemums at the site where Nagai was gunned down and then he knelt and prayed.

In Japan, the Foreign Ministry said Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka met with officials in Myanmar this week to protest the journalist's death and call for an end to the crackdown.

"I did tell them (Myanmar officials) what we had to say. I think we had sincere talks," Yabunaka, told reporters as he returned to Japan early Wednesday, without elaborating.

Thousands of monks were still in detention, reportedly held in makeshift prisons around Yangon. It was clear, however, that the people were still looking to them to lead the democracy protests.

In the town of Bago, residents began refusing to donate food to the Kha Khat Waing monastery because the abbot blocked 1,020 monks from joining the democracy protests.

Soldiers erected barbed wire around the monastery, 40 miles northeast of Yangon, to prevent angry villagers from attacking the monks.

"If the monks fear the soldiers, the people will buy sarongs and powder for them to wear," a monastery guide told a visitor Tuesday, referring to items used only by women.

Residents in the second-largest city of Mandalay were equally angry at the abbot of the Masoe Yeain monastery.

"People have come to believe that the junta has sort of bought off the abbots of major monasteries to prevent junior monks from protesting," a resident told The Associated Press by telephone.

At a Buddhist shrine in downtown Yangon, Burmese men in traditional clothes prayed and touched their foreheads on the ground. Two dozen soldiers patrolled outside but there were no barricades along the street.

"I don't believe the protests have been totally crushed," said Kin, a 29-year-old language teacher in Yangon whose father and brother joined the 1988 protests. "We are a prayerful people. ... The monks' influence can't be written off."

She noted how much the junta's crackdown in 1988 still affects Myanmar's democracy movement, saying that many protest leaders arrested then are still missing.

"There is hope, but we fear to hope," she said. "We still dream of rearing our children in a country where everybody would have equal chances at opportunities ... I hope Gambari and the ASEAN can help us."

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, last week issued its harshest condemnation of the junta, calling the crackdown "repulsive."

Tue Oct 2, 11:22 PM ET

YANGON - Myanmar's junta arrested more people under the cover of darkness on Wednesday despite a crescendo of international outrage during a keenly watched U.N. mission to bring an end to a bloody crackdown on protests.

At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Yangon, the former Burma's biggest city and centre of monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship, witnesses said.

In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest shrine in devoutly Buddhist Myanmar and starting point for last week's rallies, only a 13-year-old girl remained. Her parents had been taken in the middle of the night, she said.

There was no word on where the prisoners were being taken or how many they would join. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the United Nations' human rights envoy for Myanmar, said in Geneva the number of those detained was now in the thousands.

The crackdown continued despite faint signs of progress by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his mission to persuade junta chief Than Shwe to relax his iron grip and open talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he met twice.

U.N. sources said Gambari expected to return in early November to Myanmar, whose generals rarely heed outside pressure and equally rarely grant U.N. officials permission to visit.

Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, was due to meet Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday before heading back to New York after a four-day stay in Myanmar, half of it spent waiting to see Senior General Than Shwe.

There was no word, however, on whether the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Singapore is the current chairman, was willing to act against Myanmar, brought into the group a decade ago in hopes of coaxing it into democratic reform.

So far, ASEAN's policy of "constructive engagement" has worked no better than Western sanctions and last week's bloody crackdown in at which at least 10 people died prompted a rare expression of "revulsion" from the 10-member group.

"VIOLENT REPRESSION"

China, the closest thing the generals have to an ally, has said it was worried by the crackdown and called for restraint.

The junta insists it dealt with the protests, which at their height filled five city blocks, with "the least force possible" and said only 10 people were killed in the restoration of order.

Western governments and human rights groups say the toll is probably far higher, and the passing of time is not reducing the level of international outrage.

In Geneva on Tuesday, the U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the junta's "violent repression" and called on the generals to allow its investigator to visit for the first time in four years.

"Light must absolutely be shed on what happened," Pinheiro told the council, which adopted a resolution deploring beatings, killings and detentions. Myanmar said the hearing was being used by "powerful countries for political exploitation."

In Washington, the Senate and House of Congress passed resolutions loaded with passionate language to condemn the crackdown, which included raids on monasteries and hauling off hundreds of Buddhist monks.

However, the junta appears to believe it has beaten the biggest challenge to its power in nearly 20 years, which began with small marches against shock fuel price rises in August and swelled after troops fired over the heads of a group of monks.

It has re-opened the Shwedagon and Sule pagoda, the end point of the mass protest marches, after cordoning off a wide area around them and sending soldiers to virtually every street corner of Yangon, preventing any protest crowds from coalescing.

It is also sending gangs through homes looking for monks in hiding, a series of a sweeping raids that western diplomats say are creating a climate of terror.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which won an election landslide in 1990 only to be denied power by the army, said 160 of its members and other activists had been detained.

Myanmar, one of Asia's brightest prospects and the world's largest rice exporter when it won independence from Britain in 1948, is now one of the region's poorest countries despite an abundance of timber, gems, oil and natural gas.

It is also a big source of opium, the raw material of heroin, as well as amphetamines, smuggled logs and gems.

Tue Oct 2, 6:19 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday took a wait-and-see approach to a UN special envoy's visit to Myanmar after a deadly crackdown on protests there and said it looked forward to his report.

Asked whether Washington was satisfied that the envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, had been able to meet with everyone he had hoped during the trip, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "It sounds like it."

"The first reports are that he did get to meet with several of the people that he wanted to meet with. But we won't know fully until he's able to return to the United Nations and report to the Security Council," said Perino.

Gambari was expected to do so on Thursday or Friday, White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said after the envoy met with Myanmar's top general and with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, wrapping up efforts to halt a crackdown on anti-government protests.

Earlier, Perino had incorrectly said that the diplomat was expected to report back "later today."

Gambari had waited for days to see the reclusive military supremo in order to express global outrage after his regime put down demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, leaving at least 13 dead and more than 1,000 arrested.

After meeting Than Shwe in the remote capital Naypyidaw, Gambari made a brief surprise visit to Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he also saw on Sunday, in the main city of Yangon before heading to Singapore, UN officials said.

After landing in the city-state he was whisked away from waiting reporters and did not immediately comment.

Gambari's high-level talks came as activists struggled to assess the scope of the crackdown -- for which the junta said it was not to blame -- and to find hundreds of dissidents, monks and civilians who were arrested or are missing.

UN and junta officials told AFP that at least 1,000 people have been detained at the Government Technical Institute campus in Yangon.

"Since there are some journalists who are there able to report out, we would hope that those numbers are accurate. But it is possible that the numbers are higher and we would have a lot of concern about that," said Perino.

The US House of Representatives meanwhile voted by 413 votes to two on Tuesday for a resolution calling for the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, and an immediate halt to attacks against civilians by the junta.

It also called on China to pressure Myanmar's generals and for the UN Security Council to act on the crisis.

A similar resolution passed the Senate on Monday.

Last week, the Bush administration slapped visa bans on more than 30 members of the Myanmar junta and their families, in addition to a punishing range of already enforced economic sanctions.

Tue Oct 2, 5:09 PM ET

BANGKOK - A Los Angeles academic may have been a driving force behind the move by Myanmar's 19-year-old dictatorship to shut down Internet access after bloggers posted images of soldiers killing civilians.

The images included footage of a Japanese photographer for the Agence France Presse shot dead at point-blank range by a soldier chasing demonstrators.

Civilians and Buddhist monks began peaceful protests in August against a steep surprise fuel price hike in Yangon, also known as Rangoon, the capital of the country formerly known as Burma.

The government has since admitted responsibility for the death of the journalist Kenji Nagai.

A video of Nagai's killing on September 27 was sent to Ryan McMillen, a professor of history at Santa Monica College, who then uploaded it to the I-Reporter service on CNN.com.

"The feeling of being just the conduit for a video of this power and importance -- a video which so starkly shows the depravity to which men will sink when compelled by a fascist state to follow orders -- was, truthfully, a feeling of power in itself," said McMillen, who was contacted by a CNN producer seeking permission to use the footage within five minutes of his post.

After the evidence leaked out, the already tightly restricted Internet was shut down to all in Myanmar but those few with a satellite connection by the junta that in 1989 jailed pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time.

Suu Kyi was elected as a pro-democracy president in a free election in 1990, then rejailed and kept in house arrest almost nonstop ever since.

In September, Irawaddy.com, a Web site concentrating on Myanmar-related news, got 30 million hits, almost three times its normal viewership, as Web surfers flooded to see the 1,000-plus images of the current conflict site editor Aung Zaw had posted.

"It's clear that the government views the Internet as an enemy," said Zaw, a Burmese refugee who has produced a print version of Irawaddy from Thailand since 1993. Last week, the Web site collapsed under a virus he claims was sent by the junta.

The plight of the Burmese people has spread via the Web as far as Hollywood, where in August, before the demonstrations began, comedian Jim Carrey recorded an impassioned video about Suu Kyi on YouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site. Since its August 27 upload, more than 300,000 people have watched Carrey's plea.

Suu Kyi, now imprisoned again, won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Tue Oct 2, 3:56 PM ET

YANGON, Myanmar - A growing number of citizens in Myanmar's largest city are shutting off the government-run nightly newscast, trying to send the subtle message to authorities that they are tired of listening to their propaganda, residents said Tuesday.

Most are switching off the news for the first 15 minutes of the hour-long broadcast, while some also are shutting off all the lights in their homes.

It was unclear how many people participated in the protest, which spread by word of mouth.

"This is the least dangerous anti-government activity that I can take," said a resident of Yangon taking part in the protest that began Monday. "By doing this, I am showing that I am not listening to what the government is saying," the woman said, refusing to give her name for fear of government reprisal.

With the streets cleared of protesters, the Internet down and many residents too fearful to go out, turning off the government news appears to be one of the few avenues left to express opposition to the regime.

Authorities last week cracked down on tens of thousands of protesters, gunning down at least nine demonstrators and a Japanese journalist. They also detained thousands including many monks who were spearheading the demonstrations that began Aug. 19. They slapped a curfew on Yangon and banned groups of more than five from gathering.

They have also taken to the airwaves each night around 8 p.m. local time, using the hour-long newscasts to criticize the protests as a campaign by Western governments and external dissidents to destabilize the country. They have also repeatedly shown mass, pro-government rallies to counter the impact of the demonstrations.

All electronic media and daily newspapers inside the country are controlled by the government, and privately owned magazines operate under tight censorship. There are only two news channels, both run by the government.

While the average citizen must endure the staid, government news, more prosperous ones long ago turned to Radio Free Asia or the British Broadcasting Corp. for an accurate depiction of events in the country. Others also count on the Internet, which was shut down after protesters effectively used it for weeks to publicize the growing protest and subsequent crackdown.

Tue Oct 2, 2:42 PM ET

YANGON - A UN special envoy on Tuesday met with Myanmar's top general Than Shwe and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, wrapping up a mission aimed at halting a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests.

Ibrahim Gambari had waited for days to see the reclusive military supremo to express global outrage after his regime put down demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, leaving at least 13 dead and more than 1,000 arrested.

After meeting Than Shwe in the remote capital Naypyidaw, Gambari made a brief surprise visit to Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he also saw on Sunday, in the main city of Yangon before heading to Singapore, UN officials said.

After landing in the city-state he was whisked away from waiting reporters and did not immediately comment.

Gambari's high-level talks came as the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva condemned the crackdown.

The council "strongly deplores the continued violent repression of peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar ... and urges the government of Myanmar to exercise utmost restraint and to desist from further violence against peaceful protestors," according to the text of the approved resolution.

The motion also called for the immediate release of those detained during the protests and of other political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Gambari's visit came as activists struggled to assess the scope of the crackdown -- for which the junta said it was not to blame -- and to find hundreds of dissidents, monks and civilians who were arrested or are missing.

UN and junta officials told AFP that at least 1,000 people have been detained at the Government Technical Institute campus in Yangon.

Tony Banbury, Asia regional director for the UN World Food Programme, said he was concerned at reports that the detainees, including some 500 monks, were now being moved to another location, heightening fears for their wellbeing.

A Myanmar official talking on condition of anonymity said that up to 1,700 people had been detained at the campus, including about 200 women and at least one child, a novice monk believed to be 10 years old.

They were being kept inside a windowless warehouse, where the monks have been disrobed and many of them were refusing to eat, he added.

Some have simply refused to accept food from the military, or rejected it because the food arrives in the afternoon when monks are barred by religious oath from eating, the official said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer described the security sweep as "brutal" and said the number of dead was "substantially higher" than the 13 confirmed so far.

"We think that at least 30 have been killed, about 1,400 people have been arrested," he told reporters. "This is a brutal regime and we've seen it at work over the last few days."

The demonstrations were the biggest challenge in nearly two decades to the regime, which has ruled for 45 years and stifles any sign of dissent.

But speaking at the United Nations in New York, Foreign Minister Nyan Win blamed the unrest on political "opportunists" and insisted the junta was not responsible for the violence.

He said the security forces had shown "utmost restraint" in handling the protests, which began in mid-August following a huge fuel price increase but escalated last week after monks joined the movement, bringing 100,000 people into the streets for several days in a row.

People, cars and buses were returning to the streets of Yangon on Tuesday, as citizens tried to attend to their jobs and businesses, but the atmosphere remained tense and significant monasteries continued to be blockaded.

"We have to work for our living so we came downtown to do our jobs today," said one woman, a carpark attendant.

Although the security presence had dropped off and a dusk-till-dawn curfew had eased, soldiers were still stationed at the main rallying points of last week's protests, including City Hall and two key pagodas.

Meanwhile, Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka held talks in Naypyidaw with top military officials to demand answers over the death of a Japanese journalist gunned down while covering the protests.

In a sombre ceremony attended by his employer and two diplomats from the Japanese embassy, prayers were said and flowers were offered Tuesday at the scene of Kenji Nagai's death.

Tue Oct 2, 2:03 PM ET

BANGKOK, Thailand - The old soldier who leads Myanmar is called "the bulldog" — for good reason.

Pro-democracy demonstrators by the thousands may be willing to sacrifice themselves in the streets but stand little chance of success unless they — or other forces — can oust a jowly, high school dropout with delusions of royal grandeur from his post of virtually absolute power.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe has shown no willingness to step down as head of the ruling junta, compromise with protesters, or listen to international calls for reform in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

After snubbing special U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari for three days, Than Shwe finally met him Tuesday. That came only after his foreign minister told the United Nations that change "cannot be imposed from outside."

"The very fate of Burma is linked to Than Shwe, whose manic, xenophobic and superstitious character bode ill for a country that needs to pull itself into the 21st century and into the international community of democratic nations," says the Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based news magazine that maintains a "Than Shwe Watch" column.

Although there is continuing speculation about rivalries within the top military ranks, Than Shwe (pronounced tawn shway) wields near-absolute control over one of the world's largest armies, a 400,000-strong force that turned its guns on university students, brutally beat Buddhist monks, and hauled thousands away to unknown incarceration sites.

The 74-year-old junta leader has remained publicly silent throughout the crisis, sequestering himself in his remote, bunker-like capital, filtering news from the demonstrations and the outside world through the narrow prism of more than a half-century of military service.

"As long as he is No. 1, things probably will not change. He is very, very stubborn, and he doesn't see the problem being with his council but with the demonstrators," says Donald M. Seekins, a Myanmar scholar at Japan's Meio University.

Naypyitaw (pronounced NAY'-pee-daw), or "Royal City," is the new capital deep in the countryside that Than Shwe ordered built in a bizarre act laden with royal pretensions.

Numerous, but unconfirmed, stories have circulated about the portly, bemedaled Than Shwe acting like a king and his daughters ordering military officers to treat them as royalty. Diplomats say some members of his family and possibly even Than Shwe himself are also locked into corrupt dealings with rich businessmen, a common practice among the military elite.

It also is rumored that the very mention of Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced ahng sahn soo chee), the detained opposition leader who has become an international icon for democracy, is said to throw him into spasms of anger.

One of the few glimpses into his life came last year when a video surfaced depicting the extravagant wedding of one of his daughters, further fueling deep-rooted hatred of the military among the population in one of the world's poorest countries.

The leaked video showed his daughter, Thandar Shwe, wearing a staggering collection of diamond encrusted jewelry and extravagant clothing as the normally grim-faced junta members sat on gold-trimmed chairs and enjoyed a five-tiered wedding cake and champagne.

The Irrawaddy said the wedding cost $300,000 and the bridal couple received wedding gifts worth $50 million.

Than Shwe's early years were hardly so glittering.

Born in the central part of the country during the days of British colonial rule, he did not finish high school and worked as a postal clerk before joining the army at the age of 20.

It is not uncommon for ordinary people in Myanmar not to finish high school. But among its elite, many are highly educated, with university and postgraduate degrees.

The young officer served for a time in the army's psychological warfare department, and in 1962 helped Gen. Ne Win stage a coup against a democratic government that ushered in 45 years of continuous military control.

Rising through the ranks, he was posted to the country's frontier areas where the government has waged a brutal campaign against ethnic minority rebels — a campaign that continues to this day.

Along the way, he developed a reputation as an inward looking hard-liner, and later as an adept political manipulator who trusted few and tolerated no rivals.

To insure loyalty of the officer corps, he ordered that the salaries of battalion commanders be raised tenfold.

In 1992, four years after the military gunned down thousands in a failed pro-democracy uprising, Than Shwe emerged as the chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, the country's 12-member ruling body.

When the council's intelligence chief, Gen. Khin Nyunt, began to accumulate considerable power, Than Shwe in 2004 had him placed under house arrest and imprisoned or purged hundreds of his followers.

Khin Nyunt, a relatively flexible, sophisticated man who had initiated a dialogue with Suu Kyi, was regarded by some as a hope for at least some change in Myanmar.

"I met Gen. Than Shwe three times and found that he is a strongman with a great deal of self-confidence," said Thailand's former army chief, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin. "He has a strong belief that he has been doing the best for his country, so I think it will be hard to change anything in Myanmar despite the pressure from all over."

Two exit scenarios are touted: that one of his rivals, possibly the junta's No. 2 man, Senior Gen. Maung Aye (pronounced mawng ay), will overthrow him, or that nature will take its course. Than Shwe suffers from hypertension, diabetes and possibly intestinal cancer.

Tue Oct 2, 12:01 PM ET

GENEVA - Top human rights officials on Tuesday attacked Myanmar's crackdown on peaceful protests at a special UN rights council session on the unrest.

The European Union has tabled a resolution urging the 47-member UN Human Rights Council to "condemn the continued violent repression of peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar."

It also calls for the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

However China and non-aligned members of the council could oppose the resolution, stressing the need for dialogue with Myanmar's military rulers.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour said that Myanmar's leaders should not be allowed to escape international scrutiny.

"The shocking response ... is only the most recent manifestation of the repression of fundamental rights and freedoms that has taken place for nearly 20 years in Myanmar," she said.

"The Myanmar authorities should no longer expect that the self-imposed isolation will shield them from accountability.

"As the protestors become invisible, our concern only increases," Arbour said.

Protests erupted in mid-August after a massive hike in the price of fuel, but escalated two weeks ago when Buddhist monks emerged to lead the movement and drew up to 100,000 people onto the streets.

The protests have abated in recent days following last week's bloody clashes, but UN and regime officials told AFP on Tuesday that over 1,000 people remain detained at a campus in the main city of Yangon.

Speaking at the session in Geneva, Myanmar's ambassador U Nyunt Swe said the protests had sought to overthrow the regime and had been stoked by outside interests, but that the government had managed to restore calm.

"The government has firm evidence that these protests were being helped both financially and materially by internal and external anti-government elements," he said.

"As all are aware, things have calmed down. We are able to bring normalisation to the situation," he added.

Amnesty International welcomed the council's session but insisted the members must hold their nerve and strongly condemn the crackdown.

"We're concerned by certain governments, the Russians and others, (seeking) to water down the resolution," Judit Arenas, an official with the rights group told AFP.

"Now is not the time for consensus building," she added.

Russia's ambassador to the council did strike a more moderate tone, saying that Myanmar's problems should be solved by peaceful dialogue and democratic changes without any pressure from outside.

The humanitarian situation is far from catastrophic in the country, he added.

The UN's special rapporteur to Myanmar meanwhile condemned the crackdown on demonstrators and the fate of those detained by the security forces.

"We are deeply concerned by the fate of thousands of peaceful demonstrators who have been arrested," Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told the session.

Myanmar has been the focus of a flurry of diplomatic activity since a government crackdown on anti-regime protests turned bloody last week with at least 13 people reported killed.

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Myanmar's junta leader Than Shwe in the nation's capital Tuesday, as the military regime insisted it was not to blame for the crackdown.

China, a key trading power and importer of gas from Myanmar, has refused to take sides in the unrest so far, and Premier Wen Jiabao called Saturday on "all parties" to exercise restraint and seek stability "through peaceful means".

Tue Oct 2, 10:17 AM ET

RUILI, China - His country was in the midst of a bloody crackdown, but Myanmar businessman U Aung Kyi had something else on his mind.

"I'm buying a motorcycle. I'm getting a motorcycle," chanted the grinning man in his 50s as he shuffled through this city on the mountainous China-Myanmar border, his wife a few steps behind in a brown sarong and orange flip flops.

Even as Myanmar's military government suppresses pro-democracy demonstrators, a steady stream of shoppers and traders flows from the Southeast Asian nation into Ruili. U Aung Kyi was preparing to drive his new motorcycle back home the same day he bought it.

People from both sides of the border knew about the ongoing clampdown unfolding in Myanmar's major cities several hours to the south. Chinese merchants complained the crisis had thinned the normal swarms of Myanmar customers over the past week, though few expect it would hurt business in the long-term.

"It's just Myanmar's affairs. It won't affect us as long as we stay out of it. We just want to do business," jade dealer Zhang Huiyou, a Shanghai native with a shop in Ruili, said as he sipped tea at a cafe with three of his Myanmar suppliers who sat quietly and chain-smoked.

Many have hopes that China, Myanmar's biggest trading partner, can be an outside catalyst to forcing change on the ruling junta and ushering in reforms. But China — along with India and Russia, who have been competing for Myanmar's bountiful oil and gas resources — do not seem prepared to go beyond words in dealing with the junta.

Even if China were willing to use its economic might to influence the junta, some say it wouldn't be enough.

"Much of the trade empowers the regime, it doesn't go to the people," said Derek Mitchell, an Asia expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Achieving political reform through economic engagement "takes a long time. The feeling is that Burma doesn't have that kind of time," he said, referring to Myanmar by another name it is known by.

Mitchell said that method would only be viable if there was an indication that the ruling junta were looking for ways to alleviate the crushing poverty in the country. On the contrary, "there seems to be very little interest on the part of junta," he said.

In Ruili, meanwhile, the business of Chinese-Myanmar relations is just business. Ruili (pronounced RAY-LEE) is China's busiest trading post with Myanmar and offers a vantage point that shows how commerce dominates relations between economically booming China and its impoverished but resource-rich neighbor.

Myanmar stokes the red-hot Chinese market, sending timber, gems, minerals, oil and other raw materials. Trucks rumble northward from Ruili past rice fields and up curvy mountain roads in Yunnan province, dodging farmers leading lumbering water buffalos.

Chinese consumer goods flood Myanmar's limping economy. The two-story shop fronts that line Ruili's streets are stocked with everything from needle-nose pliers, scooter parts and plastic wash basins to ink-jet computer printers, mobile phones and knockoff golf bags emblazoned with the Callaway and Taylormade brand names.

The brisk trade — some of it illegal — helped China leap over Thailand two years ago to become Myanmar's No. 1 trading partner. Two-way trade hit $1.46 billion last year and was on track to go much higher, soaring more than 35 percent in the first eight months this year compared with the same period in 2006, according to China's Commerce Ministry.

"We're completely dependent on China for almost everything. Everything we buy is from China and practically everything we sell goes to China," said Frank Ah Si, a Myanmar tour guide.

Though Chinese have stopped going on day trips across the border since the recent troubles began, Ah Si said he is busy leading groups of Chinese businessmen to Yangon, Mandalay and other large cities.

"They keep going. They don't care what the situation is like. Recently, most of the groups are in the minerals business," he said.

Just 25 years ago, Ruili was an isolated outpost — a victim of Burma's military dictator's isolationist policies and Beijing's support for Burmese communist insurgents. More pragmatic policies by China's reformist leaders sought to promote border trade, and by the 1990s, the gush of commerce quickly transformed Ruili into a wild frontier party town.

At Ruili's busy Jiegao border checkpoint, women in conical straw hats hawk postcards and crisp bank notes from Myanmar, while a group of five transsexuals from Thailand dressed in white and red low-cut gowns pose with Chinese tourists for a fee. In between snapshots, they discreetly proposition visitors for oral sex. Patriotic music blares from two large stereo speakers.

Ruili, however, is more of a neat shopping town. Its roads are lined with palm trees and arches that light up in neon at night. The city center features a huge strip mall with more than 80 shops selling nothing but jade and other jewelry from Myanmar. Shop signs in Ruili use both China's angular characters and Myanmar's round, loopy script.

Last year, 4.36 million people and 386,000 vehicles passed through Ruili's border crossings carrying about 475,000 metric tons of cargo, according to the Yunnan provincial government.

Motorcycles are among the hottest-selling item in Ruili. Most of the Myanmar customers buy the cheapest Chinese-made scooters for about $425 and sell them back home for about $530, said a scooter dealer who would only give her surname, Zhang, because her boss would not let her speak to reporters.

"See that guy, he comes here everyday and buys a motorcycle," Zhang said, pointing to a Myanmar man driving off her lot dressed in a longyi, the traditional sarong-like skirt worn by Myanmar men.

Some Chinese said the decline and chaos in Myanmar made them feel proud of the way China has been able to preserve stability and economic growth.

Dong Yuehe, 60, said he's an ethnic Chinese who was born in Myanmar, served in the country's military and moved to China after he retired. He said he was disgusted with the graft and stagnation in Myanmar. The subject was part of a lively discussion at a snack shop between Dong and his friends as they smoked unfiltered Myanmar cigarettes from a long gurgling water pipe made from a tin tube.

"Myanmar's government is too corrupt and lazy," Dong said, shaking his head. "It should be a well-off country. It's got everything: gems, jade, minerals, timber. But they don't want to bother with it."

Tue Oct 2, 8:33 AM ET

BRUSSELS - French oil giant Total on Tuesday faced a renewed Belgian probe into its alleged support of Myanmar's military regime as authorities reopened an investigation into the firm.

Belgium authorities are reopening a case brought by Myanmar refugees that Total was involved in crimes against humanity in their country, the refugees' lawyer said.

Four refugees accuse the company of having used forced labour provided by the military regime to build a gas pipeline, according to lawyer Alexis Deswaef.

Authorities are also to reopen an investigation into possible crimes against humanity targetting the regime, he said.

In a consortium with the Myanmar's national oil company and US group Unocal, now part of Chevron, Total built a pipeline in the 1990s to transport gas from fields in Myanmar to Thai power plants in neighbouring Thailand.

The four refugees accuse Total of having provided logistic and financial support in the 1990s to the military junta, which they hold responsable for forced labour, deportations murder, arbitrary executions and torture.

Total has also faced legal action in France against its labour practices in Myanmar, where it has operated since 1992.

But last year the group was cleared of charges in France that it relied on forced labour to build the 1.2-billion-dollar (848-billion-euro) gas pipeline after an out-of-court settlement with the alleged victims caused the prosecution's case to collapse.

Deswaef said that the refugees had "refused the fat compensation Total was ready to pay them as it already did with other victims in France and Myanmar in exchange for calling off their cases."

In Paris, Total declined to comment on the Belgian case other than by saying it had "taken note" that it had been reopened.

While the case is closed in France, it has continued to simmer in Belgium.

Belgium's constitutional court ruled in 2005 that the refugees' complaint, lodged in 2002, could be pursued, but last March another court ruled that the case should be dropped as the refugees were not Belgian.

But in a new ruling, the constitutional court said that a recognized refugee enjoys the same rights as a Belgian citizen and that a special Belgian law to rule on cases outside Belgium was applicable.

The Belgian justice ministry therefore ordered prosecutors to reopen the case.

The complaints target Total, its former chief Thierry Desmarest who was head of exploration and production at the time, as well as the company's former country director Herve Madeo.

The Myanmar military junta has been quelling protests over the past two weeks, killing at least 13 people and arresting hundreds. The recent unrest in the country has focused attention anew on foreign investments.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned on Tuesday that Total, France's biggest company, would not be exempt from new sanctions targeting Myanmar's ruling junta.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week urged French businesses including Total to freeze their investments in Myanmar, but stopped short of calling for a pullout.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Myanmar made systematic use of forced labour in the 1990s to build roads and military camps and little had been done to halt the practice.

Tue Oct 2, 6:06 AM ET

YANGON - UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari has held a second meeting with Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, just hours after his talks with the nation's junta leader, a Myanmar official said Tuesday.

The two met at a military guesthouse in Yangon, the same place where Gambari met with the Nobel Peace Prize winner for more than an hour on Sunday, the official said.

The 15-minute meeting came immediately upon Gambari's return from Myanmar's remote capital Naypyidaw, where he held talks with junta chief, Than Shwe.

After talking with Aung San Suu Kyi, the envoy headed to the airport in Yangon, where he was expected to board a flight to Singapore, witnesses said.

Gambari had waited for days to see the reclusive Senior General Than Shwe and express global outrage after security forces put down protests led by Buddhist monks, leaving at least 13 dead and more than 1,000 arrested.

Tue Oct 2, 4:27 AM ET

BANGKOK - Chinese, Indian and other firms operating in Myanmar, which has mounted a violent crackdown on protests, must ensure they do not contribute to or benefit from rights abuses, a watchdog said Tuesday.

The repression of pro-democracy rallies has swung the spotlight on companies doing business with the military regime, and Amnesty International has urged the UN Security Council to impose an immediate arms embargo.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on companies involved in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to use their influence on the military regime to end abuses.

"Companies doing business in Burma argue their presence is constructive and will benefit the Burmese people, but they have yet to condemn the government's abuses against its own citizens," said spokesman Arvind Ganesan.

"Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement," he said.

HRW said companies should urge the military regime to halt a bloody crackdown on mass protests that erupted in mid-August, release all political prisoners, and open a real dialogue with opposition and ethnic groups.

It said the campaign of repression launched last week "has led to many deaths, enforced disappearances and mass arbitrary arrests."

"If the situation does not improve, companies should be prepared to reconsider their operations in the country," it said.

London-based Amnesty said Monday that China has been the main source of arms for the Myanmar security forces, followed by India, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine and other countries, and called on them in particular to stop weapons supplies.

"The UN arms embargo should cover the direct and indirect supply of military and security equipment, munitions and expertise, including transfers claimed to be 'non-lethal,'" it said, urging the UN Security Council "to impose a comprehensive mandatory arms embargo on Myanmar."

Despite international condemnation of the regime's brutal tactics during its 45 years in power, multinational firms are vying for the country's rich natural resources, throwing an economic lifeline to the ruling generals.

HRW said there is no transparency about how much the government receives in oil and gas payments, or about how the funds are spent, although it was clear the military receives the lion's share while health and education gets a pittance.

US energy giant Chevron, France's Total, China National Petroleum Corporation and Thai exploration firm PTTEP are among companies giving much-needed income to Myanmar, defying activists' calls to pull out.

Japan's Nippon Oil Corp., South Korean's Daewoo International, Malaysia's state-run energy firm Petronas, as well as two Indian power giants, Gail India and Oil and Natural Gas Corp., are also jockeying for billion-dollar contracts.

HRW said the Myanmar regime has greatly expanded investment in the oil and natural gas industry in recent years, apparently to compensate for economic mismanagement and military spending, which have drained treasury coffers.

Sales of natural gas now account for the single largest source of revenue to Myanmar's government, with gas responsible for half of the country's exports in 2006, it said.

The UN's independent human rights expert, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, has called on the UN Human Rights Council to act to seek access to Myanmar, rather than just striking rhetorical poses.

The 47-member Council is holding a special session in Geneva on Tuesday to discuss the human rights situation in Myanmar.

Tue Oct 2, 2:58 AM ET

YANGON - U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari was due to meet Myanmar junta supremo Than Shwe on Tuesday to try to persuade him to end a crackdown on the biggest democracy protests in 20 years and talk to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

But despite agreeing to see Gambari, the generals appear deaf to the international calls for restraint, posting troops and police across Yangon and dispatching pro-junta gangs to raid homes in search of monks and dissidents on the run.

"They are going from apartment to apartment, shaking things inside, threatening the people. You have a climate of terror all over the city," a Bangkok-based Myanmar expert with many friends in Yangon said.

U.S. charge d'affaires Shari Villarosa told Reuters by telephone from Yangon that arrests continued unabated.

"We have heard that arrests are continuing at night, like at two o'clock in the morning. We've heard it's the military. I don't who is doing it, but people are going around in the middle of the night and taking people away," she said.

"People are terrified. This government keeps power through fear and intimidation and they are trying to intimidate people to stay off the streets."

Gambari flew to the former Burma's new jungle capital to convey international outrage at last week's crushing of monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening poverty.

After three days in the country, during which he met three minister-generals and Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, Gambari was told he would be able to meet Senior General Than Shwe on Tuesday, the United Nations said in New York.

His precise whereabouts, however, were a mystery. "We have no idea where he is at the moment," a U.N. official said in Yangon.

SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY HOPES

The U.N. Security Council, which endorsed the former Nigerian foreign minister's emergency visit, is hoping the mission will kick start some sort of dialogue between the junta -- the latest face of 45 years of military rule -- and Suu Kyi.

After Than Shwe, Gambari was expected to have a second meeting with the 62-year-old Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said, kindling hopes of some sort of "shuttle diplomacy."

"He should be able to set up a structure for further talks that will involve all aspects, especially on how to get all the parties in Myanmar to talk together," said Razali Ismail, Gambari's predecessor as U.N. point man on Myanmar.

"If he can get that agreement, it will be a significant achievement," Razali told Reuters.

State media say 10 people were killed when troops opened fire last week to clear protesters from the streets of Yangon, the former capital and main city, although Western governments say the toll is likely to be far higher.

In truth, nobody knows how many died in the crackdown, which many feared would descend into a repeat of 1988, a nationwide uprising crushed over several months with the loss an estimated 3,000 lives.

"I don't think even the generals have any idea what the real death toll is at the moment," a Hong Kong-based Myanmar human rights expert said.

Buddhist monks say six of their brethren were killed in clashes with security forces and night raids on monasteries in Yangon, in which hundreds of monks were carted off. Many were kicked and beaten, people in the neighborhoods said.

One shocking picture of the body of a maroon-robed man -- almost certainly a monk -- lying in a ditch is on dissident news Web sites and there are unconfirmed reports of monks caged at a technical institute in north Yangon going on hunger strike.

"POLITICAL OPPORTUNISTS"

At the United Nations, Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win, accused "political opportunists" of trying to create a showdown with foreign help so that they could exploit the ensuing chaos.

In a speech to the annual General Assembly, he said "normalcy" had returned and urged the international community to refrain from measures he said would add fuel to the fire.

In a sign the junta was confident it had squeezed the life out of the uprising, barbed-wire barricades have been removed from Yangon's Shwedagon and Sule Pagodas, the focal points of last week's monk-led mass protests.

However, soldiers remain at street corners to prevent even small crowds of demonstrators assembling. Government security men are searching bags for cameras, and the Internet, through which images of the crackdown have reached the world, remained cut.

The streets were almost empty of monks collecting their morning alms, witnesses said. The only ones out were very old or in their young teens.

One of the poorest countries in Asia, Myanmar was once the world's largest rice exporter and has an abundance of timber, gems, oil and natural gas but has suffered from decades of isolation and control by the military.

The protests began with small marches against fuel price rises in mid-August but intensified when soldiers shot over the heads of protesting monks, causing monasteries to mobilize.

Tue Oct 2, 1:20 AM ET

NEW DELHI - India has urged Myanmar's military regime to launch a probe into its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests, the foreign ministry said, as New Delhi expressed its concern at the situation.

The message was passed on at a meeting between Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Myanmar counterpart U Nyan Win on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Monday, the ministry said in a statement.

Mukherjee "expressed the hope that the process of national reconciliation and political reform, initiated by the government of Myanmar, would be taken forward expeditiously," it said.

The Indian minister "suggested that the (Myanmar) government could consider undertaking an inquiry into recent incidents and the use of force."

Myanmar also figured in Mukherjee's meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday, the foreign ministry said.

Last week, Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon met UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari ahead of the latter's visit to Myanmar.

"These meetings took place in context of India's continuing engagement on these issues," the foreign ministry added.

The statement came amid mounting international criticism of New Delhi's low-key reaction to the authoritarian regime's brutal suppression of the month-long protests.

New Delhi had last week expressed "concern" and urged dialogue to resolve differences.

Analysts say India is walking a diplomatic tightrope, balancing energy and strategic concerns with a commitment to democracy.

India, which rolled out the red carpet for military strongman Than Shwe in a 2004 visit, was until the mid-1990s a staunch supporter of pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

New Delhi kept the military junta at arm's length after the 1988 crackdown on democracy protests, but changed track when it decided its security interests in the northeast were in jeopardy.

Since India began engaging the Myanmar generals, both sides have cooperated in flushing out northeastern rebels along the joint border.

India is also vying with China and other Asian countries for a share of Myanmar's vast energy resources -- triggering accusations of weakening US and European economic sanctions.