Wed Oct 3, 7:23 PM ET

YANGON - Troops in Myanmar hauled away truckloads of people on Wednesday after the departure of a U.N. envoy trying to end a ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy rallies that has sparked international outrage.

In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the holiest shrine in the Buddhist nation and a focal point of last week's monk-led marches, only a 13-year-old girl remained.

Her parents were taken, she said. "They warned us not to run away as they might be back," she said after people from rows of shophouses were ordered into the street in the middle of the night.

Witnesses said at least eight truckloads of prisoners were taken from central Yangon, the former Burma's biggest city, where crowds of up to 100,000 people had protested against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship.

A staff member of the U.N. Development Fund, her husband, brother-in-law and driver were among those arrested, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said in New York. The United Nations was appealing to Myanmar's U.N. mission to secure her release.

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

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would meet Gambari on Thursday, then on Friday discuss with the 15 members of the Security Council how to address human rights violations in the Southeast Asian country.

"That is one of the top concerns of the international community," Ban said. Asked about Gambari's four-day mission, Ban replied: "You cannot call it always a success."

China, the closest the junta has to a friend, has made rare public calls for restraint but rules out supporting any U.N. sanctions against Myanmar. Russia, like China a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, also opposes sanctions.

Singapore, the current chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), said it "was encouraged by the access and cooperation" given by the junta to Gambari.

The envoy was in Singapore on his way back to New York but is likely to say nothing in public before he briefs Ban.

U.S. first lady Laura Bush, who has been an outspoken supporter of human rights in Myanmar, called on the junta to step aside.

"The United States believes it is time for General Than Shwe and the junta to step aside, and to make way for a unified Burma governed by legitimate leaders," she said in a letter to the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee on Wednesday.

The protests -- the biggest challenge to the junta since it killed an estimated 3,000 people while crushing an uprising in 1988 -- began with small marches against fuel price rises in August and swelled after troops fired over the heads of monks.

ENTRENCHED

Gambari had been "assured" of another visit to Myanmar in November, Ban said.

But there were no signs how his mission and international pressure might change the policies of a junta which seldom heeds outside pressure, has endured years of sanctions by Western governments and rarely admits U.N. officials.

"The top leadership is so entrenched in their views that it's not going to help," said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at Georgetown University in Washington. "They will say they are on the road to democracy and so what do you want anyway?"

The first step of the junta's "seven-step road to democracy" was completed in September with the end of an on-off, 14-year national convention which produced guidelines for a constitution that critics say will entrench military rule and exclude Suu Kyi from office.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate, said Washington and its allies must continue to press other members of the U.N. Security Council for "a strong resolution against the Burmese regime."

John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saw little chance of action by the Security Council, but said much more could be done to "debilitate Burma's ability to participate in international financial markets."

"We need to get ASEAN and the European Union on board with this and then China will have to decide whether it wants to pay the price in the bilateral relationship with the United States for continuing to condone Burma's activities," Bolton said.

CLIMATE OF TERROR

The junta says the instability was met with "the least force possible" and that Yangon and other cities had returned to normal. It says 10 people were killed and describes reports of much higher tolls and atrocities as a "skyful of lies."

In Brussels, EU ambassadors agreed to toughen existing sanctions against Myanmar and look at trade bans on its key timber, metals and gems sectors, officials and diplomats said.

"There was full agreement on reinforcing existing measures," one diplomat said of the decision, which will be sent to EU foreign ministers for approval in mid-October. "On the second measures, a number of member states took the view it should be done only after further information was obtained."

The junta appears to believe it has suppressed the uprising, with barricades around the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas lifted and an overnight curfew eased by two hours.

Eighty monks and 149 women believed to be nuns swept up in widespread raids were released. Five local journalists, one working for Japan's Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, were also freed.

A heavy armed presence remained on the streets of Yangon and Mandalay, the second city, witnesses said. The junta was also sending gangs through homes looking for monks in hiding, raids Western diplomats say are creating a climate of terror.

Wed Oct 3, 5:49 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that his special envoy delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders about their bloody crackdown on democracy activists, but added that he couldn't call the trip "a success."

Ban said he would meet with the U.N. Security Council on Friday to discuss what to do about human rights abuses in Myanmar, calling the situation there a top international concern.

"We will discuss closely with the Security Council members what action to take in the future," he said.

Ban didn't say if he had specific steps in mind. But China, which as a permanent member of the council can veto its actions, is a close ally of Myanmar's government.

Special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was scheduled to sit down with Ban on Thursday to report on his four-day trip to the Southeast Asian nation, where troops quelled mass protests with gunfire last week and continued to round up suspected activists.

Asked about Gambari's visit, Ban said, "You cannot call it a success."

But, he added, "I was relatively relieved that he was first of all able to meet with leaders of the Myanmar government as well as Madame Aung San Suu Kyi," the opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate who is under house arrest.

Gambari urged the junta's leaders to stop repressing peaceful protesters, release detainees, move toward real democratic reform, respect human rights and reconcile with their political opponents, the U.N. spokesman's office said.

In discussing the situation in Myanmar, Ban singled out the strong statement sent to the junta by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar.

ASEAN expressed "revulsion" at the crackdown on peaceful protesters and strongly urged the military regime "to exercise utmost restraint and seek a political solution."

Wed Oct 3, 5:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The U.S. is pushing China, India and Japan to use their influence and increase pressure on Myanmar's military leaders after a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, a diplomat said Wednesday.

Lawmakers want the Bush administration and other countries to do more. They specifically criticized China, Myanmar's top trading partner, for not taking a stronger stand.

Scot Marciel, a deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, told a Senate subcommittee that the junta's violent response to the demonstrations has reinforced the administration's commitment to see democracy restored.

"We're working to turn the international outrage into increased pressure on the regime," he said, by pressing Myanmar's Asian neighbors and others to do more.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has vast oil and gas deposits that are coveted by its neighbors and by large companies around the world. India and China, reluctant to criticize the junta in the past, are seen as crucial to pressuring the government into accepting international demands.

Marciel said that while China is worried about the situation inside Myanmar, it has not yet shown a willingness to go beyond calls for restraint. He said an important test would be China's reaction when the matter comes before the U.N. Security Council.

The crisis began Aug. 19 with rallies against a fuel price increase and escalated when Buddhist monks joined in, drawing world attention.

The government says 10 people were killed in the crackdown, but dissident groups put the toll at about 200. They say some 6,000 people have been arrested, including thousands of monks.

The U.S. has responded by imposing new penalties on the junta's leaders.

But Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the punishments will not work without action by Myanmar's neighbors, especially China. "The killing has to stop, and China needs to make it clear that it's unacceptable," Kerry said.

The Senate's Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said none of Mynanmar's neighbors seems "to have much interest in applying the real pressure that would bring a change."

He added, "Their attitude largely seems to be that it would be bad for business to side with protesters."

Wed Oct 3, 5:33 PM ET

YANGON, Myanmar - After crushing the democracy uprising with guns, Myanmar's junta stepped up its campaign to intimidate citizens Wednesday, sending troops to drag people from their homes in the middle of the night and letting others know they were marked for retribution.

"We have photographs! We are going to make arrests!" soldiers yelled from loudspeakers on military vehicles that patrolled the streets in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city

People living near the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's most revered shrine and a flash point of unrest during the protests, reported that security forces swept through several dozen homes about 3 a.m., taking away many men and even some women for questioning.

A U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law and driver were among those detained, the U.N. agency said.

Dozens of Buddhist monks jammed Yangon's main train station after being ordered to vacate their monasteries — centers of the anti-government demonstrations — and told to go back to their hometowns and villages.

It was not clear who ordered them out. Older abbots in charge of monasteries are seen as tied to the ruling military junta, while younger monks are more sympathetic to the democracy movement.

"People are terrified," said Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Myanmar. "People have been unhappy for a long time. Since the events of last week, there's now the unhappiness combined with anger, and fear."

In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would meet with the Security Council on Friday to discuss possible actions for addressing human rights abuses in Myanmar, calling the situation here a top international concern.

Ban said his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders during a four-day visit to this Southeast Asian nation, but added that he could not call the trip "a success." The junta has not commented on Gambari's visit.

Gambari called on the regime to stop repression of peaceful protests, release detainees and move more credibly toward democratic reform, the U.N. spokesman's office said.

Anti-junta demonstrations broke out in mid-August over a fuel price hike, then ballooned when monks took the lead last month. But the military crushed the protests a week ago with bullets, tear gas and clubs. The government said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained.

New video broadcast on CNN showed police and soldiers rounding up demonstrators and beating them before loading them on trucks. In one view, about six young men squat on the street, hands on their heads, cringing. One in a red shirt — the color adopted by the protest movement — is singled out for particular abuse.

The video also showed a man lying on the ground, his shirt bloodied, while another man looked around frantically as he tried to help him.

The footage appeared to have been made three or four days ago in downtown Yangon.

Villarosa said her staff had found up to 15 monasteries completely empty during visits in recent days. Others were barricaded by the military and declared off-limits to outsiders.

"There is a significantly reduced number of monks on the streets. Where are the monks? What has happened to them?" she said.

The atmosphere remained tense, but Yangon inched back toward a normal routine Wednesday. Traffic returned and street vendors braved the rain to offer flowers and food to people praying at the main pagoda. Some shops reopened.

While troops rounded up people in Yangon, some arrested protesters were let go elsewhere. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway, said authorities freed 90 of some 400 monks who were detained in Kachin state's capital, Myitkyina, during a raid on monasteries Sept. 25.

In Brussels, European Union nations agreed to expand sanctions on Myanmar's military regime. Diplomats said new sanctions included an expanded visa ban for junta members, a wider ban on investment in Myanmar, and a ban on trade in the country's metals, timber and gemstones.

But the new measures did not include a specific ban on European oil and gas companies from doing business in Myanmar, diplomats said.

The Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, has vast oil and gas deposits that are hungrily eyed by its neighbors — India, China and Thailand — as well as by multinational companies around the world. Myanmar is also known for its minerals, gems and timber.

Myanmar has been ruled by various military regimes since 1962. The current junta displaced another military dictatorship after turning soldiers loose against a 1988 democracy movement, killing at least 3,000 protesters.

The generals called elections in 1990 but refused to give up power when the party led by opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won. She has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

Among those killed when troops opened fire on unarmed protesters in Yangon last week was Japanese television cameraman Kenji Nagai of the APF news agency. His body was flown to Tokyo on Wednesday, and Japan said it was reconsidering its aid to Myanmar.

Also on Wednesday, authorities released a prominent Myanmar reporter for the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun after six days in detention, but there were reports that other journalists remained missing.

Min Zaw had been taken from his home Friday by plainclothes security officers. His wife, Aye Aye Win, who is the Yangon correspondent for The Associated Press, said he was brought home in a pickup truck by a junta official.

She said Min Zaw, 56, was questioned about the visit last month of Tokyo Shimbun's Thailand bureau chief, Koji Hirata, to Yangon to cover the-democracy demonstrations. "He is really perplexed why he was held so long," she said.

Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog, has said several correspondents for foreign news media, including those of Reuters and Agence France-Presse, were physically attacked or prevented from working in the past month.

Wed Oct 3, 3:48 PM ET

BANGKOK, Thailand - While international attention has focused on the protests for democracy in Myanmar's cities, a hidden war has decimated generations of the country's powerless ethnic minorities, who have faced brutality for decades.

The Karen, the Shan and other minority groups who live along the Myanmar-Thai border have been attacked, raped and killed by government soldiers. Their thatched-roofed, bamboo homes have been torched. Men have been seized into forced labor for the army, while women, children and the elderly either hide out in nearby jungles until the soldiers leave or flee over the mountains to crowded, makeshift refugee camps.

"Many, many thousands of Karen have died in those 60 years," Karen National Union secretary general Mahn Sha said this week of his people's struggle for autonomy since 1947.

The military junta has denied reports of atrocities and says the ethnic rebels are "terrorists" trying to overthrow the government.

The Southeast Asian nation, formerly known as Burma, has more than 100 subtribes. Myanmar's diverse minority groups make up nearly a third of the country's 54 million population.

About two-thirds of the country belong to the Burman ethnic majority, which is also known as the Myanmar. The other ethnic groups include the Shan, the Karen, the Chin, the Mon, the Arakan or Rakhine, and the Kachin.

Thousand of refugees, mostly from a Muslim ethnic minority known as Rohingyas, have fled over Myanmar's western border with Bangladesh over the years because of persecution by the military junta and economic hardship. The Kachin in the far north, along the border with China, have clashed with the central government, as have the Chin in the central western region bordering India, and the Mon in the south along the Andaman Sea.

But the military is most aggressive in the eastern states along Myanmar's 1,300-mile border with Thailand, a frontier longer than the Texas-Mexico border.

Mary Callahan, a Myanmar expert at the University of Washington, said the junta has signed 27 cease-fire agreements with rebels, many of them allowing ethnic groups to keep their arms.

The Karen National Union is the only major ethnic rebel group not to have concluded a cease-fire and its separatist struggle is one of the world's longest-running insurgencies.

The Karen struggle is concentrated in Karen and Kayah states in the middle of the Thai border region, but fighting also flares sometimes in Shan state to the north. Mon and Taninthayi states, which border Thailand in the south, have been quiet for more than a decade.

After the junta's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1988, many Burmese fled to the Thai border. The ethnic minorities did not trust them at first, but after years of interaction and intermarriage, some of the students-turned-soldiers settled along the border.

Now minority groups wonder if there will be a new influx of Burmese because they led the recent pro-democracy protests in Yangon and other cities. The Karen held meetings to express solidarity with the anti-government demonstrators but did organize street protests.

The current protests began Aug. 19 after the government sharply raised fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in deep-rooted dissatisfaction with 45 years of repressive military rule.

"The people have decided never to stop and never to surrender. They (the government) cannot stop all the people all the time," said Mahn Sha of the Karen National Union.

Myanmar protesters will be welcomed by the ethnic groups, but the question remains how both can use the unrest to their advantage.

"We need to work together with the Mon, other groups, the students, to fight the (junta). We have a common enemy and common goals," Mahn Sha said.

"It is the beginning of the crack that could bring down the dictators. Even if these protests are crushed, it will still be a big block out of that tower. We all look at this with hope," Dah Say, a Karenni who is a member of the Free Burma Rangers, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The actor Sylvester Stallone, who just finished filming his "Rambo" sequel on the Salween River separating Thailand and Myanmar's Karen state, drew attention to the violence along the border.

He said his movie crew was shocked by the border situation, calling it a "full-scale genocide."

"I witnessed the aftermath — survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off. We saw many elephants with blown off legs," he told The Associated Press on Monday.

"We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia — and this was more horrific," he said.

Wed Oct 3, 2:33 PM ET

Myanmar's main ethnic groups:

BURMAN: A Buddhist group, also known as Myanmar, that accounts for two-thirds of the country's 54 million people. They live in most parts of the country, except for remote border regions.

KAREN: Tribal people who practice Buddhism, Christianity or a mix of both. They have fought for more autonomy for more than 60 years in a mountainous region bordering Thailand. Estimates of their population range from 3.5 million to 7 million, with about 400,000 more in Thailand.

SHAN: Buddhists ethnically related to Thais who live mostly in Shan state next to Thailand. Estimated to number 5 million or more, but like the Karen, their last official census was 70 years ago.

ARAKAN: Also called Rakhine, they are predominantly Buddhist people who live in hilly country in western Myanmar and number between 2.5 million and 4 million.

MON: Buddhists who once ruled kingdoms in the southern region bordering Thailand. They number more than 2 million in Myanmar and nearly 100,000 in Thailand.

KACHIN: Mostly Christian tribal people numbering more than 1.2 million. They live mostly in northern Myanmar, but also in China and India.

CHIN: Mostly Christian people of various tribes. More than 1 million strong, they speak different dialects and live in Chin state bordering India or in India itself.

ROHINGYA: Muslim group in northern Rakhine state. Many have fled across the border to Bangladesh and by sea to Thailand.

Wed Oct 3, 1:22 PM ET

YANGON - Myanmar's military regime kept up the pressure on its people Wednesday after last week's bloody crackdown on protesters as the European Union agreed in principle to punish the junta with sanctions.

Troops who last week killed at least 13 and arrested over 1,000 people to suppress the largest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years have continued overnight arrests and mounted patrols to strike terror into the population.

"You must stay inside. Don't come out," soldiers said through blaring loudspeakers as they drove around Myanmar's biggest city Yangon. "We have photographs of the people we're looking for. We will arrest them."

In one pre-dawn raid, the regime detained a local UN staff member, her husband and two relatives, said UN resident coordinator Charles Petrie.

Last week's bloody crackdown -- details and images of which have trickled out on web postings and video clips despite a media clampdown -- has drawn international outrage, and governments have started to take action.

The European Union has agreed in principle to toughen sanctions against the regime in Myanmar, the EU's Portuguese presidency said.

The EU already has broad sanctions in place on Myanmar's leadership but has since been preparing new measures while stressing the importance of pressure on neighbouring countries and in particular China and India.

Japan also said it was considering cutting aid to Myanmar following the shooting dead of its video journalist Kenji Nagai.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari was Wednesday readying a report on his talks with Myanmar's ruling generals and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi this week, amid global concern over the violent crackdown on anti-government protests.

Local and UN officials say that at least 1,000 disrobed monks and activists are being held inside a windowless warehouse at a Yangon campus, and there are unconfirmed reports about more mass arrests.

Many residents have said monks who used to live in neighbourhood monasteries were missing -- possibly injured, arrested or forced back to their villages.

"People feel angry, although they know they cannot fight against the military," one 45-year-old man said. "But they want the monks to come back."

In Yangon, troops have reduced their presence on the streets but soldiers with sniffer dogs patrolled bus stops and markets.

Military trucks were still parked near Yangon landmarks which were flashpoints in the demonstrations, including the city hall and Sule Pagoda which is near the spot where a Japanese journalist was killed.

As security forces in Myanmar's main city Yangon maintained a tight grip, UN special envoy Gambari was in Singapore, from where he was to fly back to New York to brief UN chief Ban Ki-moon, probably on Thursday, and the UN Security Council.

"I have to brief the secretary general of the United Nations who sent me and also the Security Council. Before that I can't say much," Gambari told reporters as he left his hotel late Wednesday, after refusing comment all day.

Over four days, Gambari criss-crossed Myanmar for talks with junta leaders in their remote capital Naypyidaw and, on two separate occasions, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who is detained at her Yangon home.

But a former mediator who helped broker landmark contacts between the junta and the opposition warned the crisis was far from over and that the generals had shown no sign they are ready to compromise.

Leon de Riedmatten, who served as an informal mediator for the United Nations, said he hoped something positive would come from Gambari's visit but warned that "we must also be very realistic about the situation."

Myanmar's generals have "never negotiated anything, they always impose their position and their will, and I do not believe that has changed today," he said.

In a sign that at least some officers had qualms about firing on their own people, one mid-ranking soldier has fled to neighbouring Thailand in the first known defection since the crackdown.

"As a Buddhist myself, when I heard that monks had been shot dead on the streets and that other people had been shot dead, I felt very upset," he said in a video interview, a copy of which was made available to AFP.

"As a Buddhist, I did not want to see such killing," said the man, who asked not to be identified.

The protests first erupted in mid-August after a massive hike in the price of fuel, but escalated two weeks ago when the revered monks emerged to lead the movement, drawing up to 100,000 people onto the streets.

Wed Oct 3, 10:12 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The United States or the European Union must spearhead an initiative with China, India, Japan and ASEAN states to prod Myanmar's ruling junta to end its brutal crackdown on dissent and embrace democratic reforms, experts say.

Two decades after the junta grabbed power, the Western policy of imposing trade, investment and diplomatic sanctions and the Asian strategy of constructive engagement have failed to bring about reforms in the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation.

The military generals, who suppressed a peaceful uprising in 1988 by killing an estimated 3,000 civilians, again crushed a peaceful pro-democracy uprising led by Buddhist monks last week, with at least 13 people reported killed and about 1,000 detained.

As the United Nations faces an uphill task of bringing about reconciliation, experts say the time has come for an end to the sanctions versus engagement battle, and to build an international consensus aimed at giving incentives for the junta to reform and increasing the price it will pay if it fails to change.

Although this may seem like an unlikely proposition, it has more potential today than ever before, said Michael Green, a former top Asia adviser to President George W. Bush, and Derek Mitchell, an Asian expert at the Pentagon during the Bill Clinton administration.

One way to proceed, they said, would be for Washington to lead a group that also included the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, India and Japan to develop a road map for Myanmar's junta with "concrete goalposts."

It should lay out development assistance and other benefits the junta will enjoy if it pursued true political reform and national reconciliation and the costs it would suffer if it continued to be intransigent, they said in a joint paper following the recent turmoil in Myanmar.

The junta should be given assurances of regional support for Myanmar's territorial integrity and security and the five parties' commitment to provide, under the appropriate conditions, the necessary assistance, they said.

"The current approach -- with each party pursuing its individual policy with an eye as much toward competing with the others for its own advantage as toward promoting change in Burma (Myanmar) -- has clearly played into the junta's hands," Green and Mitchell said.

Washington, on its part, will also need to relax its strict prohibition on official high-level contact with the military generals, they said.

But Mohan Malik, an Asian expert at the Hawaii-based Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, said the European Union (EU) instead of the United States should play a lead role in such a diplomatic effort.

The Chinese and Myanmar's junta are reportedly suspicious of any Washington involvement, he said.

He said during his visits to Asia, he was told by various parties that "there will be no takers for a lead US role mainly because of China's hostility and the (Myanmar junta's) suspicion about US involvement."

The US invasion of Iraq also had damaged US credibility in Asia, Malik said.

"The EU could take the lead and sponsor this with the involvement of China, Japan, India and Thailand or Indonesia because the EU won't invoke any concerns that the US participation involvement would invoke from the Chinese and the (junta)," he said.

China is the biggest ally of and top weapons supplier to Myanmar.

Another diplomatic offensive to rein in the Myanmar problem could come from China, India, Japan and the 10 ASEAN states with "an Asian solution to an Asian problem but the push has still to come from outside the region."

Wed Oct 3, 9:37 AM ET

SINGAPORE - UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari kept a low profile here Wednesday as he drafted a keenly awaited report on his talks with Myanmar's ruling generals and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Gambari flew into Singapore late Tuesday after ending a four-day mission to Myanmar in the wake of the junta's violent crackdown on anti-government street protests.

He met junta leader Than Shwe and other senior leaders to voice worldwide outrage at the crackdown and seek a way forward out of the crisis, and also twice held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi.

Gambari was to fly back to New York where he will brief UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later this week.

Before leaving Singapore, which chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that includes Myanmar, Gambari held talks with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Minister George Yeo.

The event was closed to reporters and Gambari returned to his hotel about 30 minutes later. He smiled but said nothing to waiting journalists, who were stopped from approaching him.

Hotel staff refused to put calls through to him.

Singapore's prime minister "was encouraged by the access and cooperation given by the Myanmar government to Mr Gambari," the foreign ministry said.

"Mr Lee also encouraged Mr Gambari to press on with the UN's efforts, which offer the best hope for Myanmar and its people."

Ban sent Gambari to the impoverished nation after the junta cracked down on protests, led by Buddhist monks, that had escalated into the biggest challenge to the regime in nearly 20 years.

At least 13 people were killed and at least 1,000 detained as the security forces reasserted control last week, although foreign diplomats, rights groups and aid agencies say the real figures could be much higher.

Ban's spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said Gambari would meet the UN chief on Thursday and then brief the UN Security Council "probably Friday."

Britain's UN deputy ambassador Karen Pierce told reporters that any move by the 15-member Security Council would depend on what Gambari had to say.

"We need to see what sort of territory we're in," Pierce said.

The United States also took a wait-and-see approach.

"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 White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, spent Tuesday shuttling around Myanmar, first holding talks with Than Shwe in the remote capital Naypyidaw, then jetting to the main city Yangon for a 15-minute meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, officials said.

He earlier met with Aung San Suu Kyi for more than an hour on Sunday, but was left waiting for days to see the reclusive military boss.

"You cannot fool Gambari. He is a very seasoned and sanguine diplomat. His report will be interesting," Gambari's predecessor as UN emissary to Myanmar, Razali Ismail, told reporters in Singapore.

Razali said Gambari's two meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi were a "good sign" and it was encouraging that the envoy gained access to Than Shwe.

Before starting his Myanmar mission, Gambari had said he looked forward "to a very fruitful visit so that I can report progress on all fronts".

ASEAN foreign ministers, using unusually sharp language, last week voiced their "revulsion" at the crackdown in Myanmar.

The junta has defended its tactics, with Foreign Minister Nyan Win blaming the turmoil on "political opportunists" backed by "powerful countries."

On Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council passed a motion condemning what it called "the continued violent repression of peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar" and urged the generals to call a halt.

Wed Oct 3, 9:12 AM ET

YANGON, Myanmar - Authorities on Wednesday released a prominent Myanmar reporter for the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun after six days in detention, but there were reports that other journalists remained missing after a government crackdown on protests.

Min Zaw had been taken from his home Friday by plainclothes security personnel who said he would be held temporarily for questioning.

Aye Aye Win said her husband was brought home in a pickup truck by a junta official. "The official said, 'We are sending him back,'" said Win, the Yangon correspondent of The Associated Press.

She said Min Zaw, 56, was questioned in connection with the visit last month of Tokyo Shimbun's Thailand bureau chief, Koji Hirata, to Yangon to cover pro-democracy demonstrations.

"He is really perplexed why he was held so long," said Aye Aye Win.

Hirata told AP that he went to Yangon on Sept. 24 on a tourist visa. He said an official came to his hotel room on Sept. 26 and told him he had to leave the country immediately, which he did the same night.

Around that time, the junta had stepped up its crackdown on protesters and virtually crushed the demonstrations on Sept. 27 after opening fire on the crowds.

Aye Aye Win said her husband, who suffers from diabetes, is in poor health. Soon after he was brought back home, the family took him to hospital where doctors said he would need surgery for a diabetic ulcer.

The surgery cannot be performed immediately because his blood sugar level is too high, and doctors will determine later when to operate, said Aye Aye Win.

Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog, has said that several other correspondents of foreign news media, including those of Reuters and Agence France-Presse, were physically attacked or prevented from working in the past month.

A Japanese video journalist, Kenji Nagai, was killed in Yangon at the height of the demonstrations on Sept. 27. His body was flown out of the country Wednesday.

The Thailand-based news Web site The Irrawaddy reported three Burmese journalists — Kyaw Zeya Tun, 23, of The Voice newspaper, Nay Lin Aung, 20, of the weekly 7 Day News, and an unidentified female journalist employed by Weekly Eleven News — have been missing for several days. It is believed they were arrested when the military dispersed demonstrations, the media group said.

Wed Oct 3, 5:27 AM ET

YANGON - Myanmar's junta released 80 monks and 149 women believed to be nuns rounded up last week in a crackdown on the biggest anti-government protests in nearly 20 years, one of those freed and relatives said on Wednesday.

In the first sinister glimpses inside the detention machine, a relative of three released women said those being interrogated were divided into four categories: Passers-by, Those who watched, Those who clapped and Those who joined in.

The monk, in his mid-20s but too nervous to give any more details of his identity, said he and 79 brethren were returned to their Mingala Yama monastery in Yangon shortly after midnight.

The remaining 16 of 96 arrested during a raid on the monastery -- among hundreds arrested in similar swoops on at least 15 Buddhist centers in Yangon -- were expected to be freed soon, he said.

The monk said they had been held at a former government technical institute in northern Yangon's Insein district and subjected to verbal, but not physical, abuse.

He did not know how many others were being held at the centre, about a mile from the infamous Insein prison.

"We were forced to change into civilian dress before they interrogated us," the monk said. "They questioned us day and night but we were fed two meals a day."

On their return, they were allowed to wear their maroon monastic cloaks, suggesting they were not being disrobed.

On the night of the raid, the monks were removed by officials who said they were being taken to an early morning "charity breakfast," the freed monk said.

"We were told a lie," he said.

People living near some of the raided monasteries reported monks being hit, kicked and beaten as they were carted off in trucks.

Hundreds were detained and a diplomat who visited the Ngwe Kya Yan monastery told Reuters there were signs of "severe beating" at the gates.

The 149 released women, most of whom had shaven heads, suggesting they were Buddhist nuns, had been moved from the Insein technical institute to the Kyaikkasan racetrack three days before they were freed on Wednesday morning.

Another relative of an official involved said the dresses of two or three of the women, some of whom were in their 70s, were drenched in blood, and they had not been able to wash.

It was not immediately possible to verify the account.

The monks have reported six of their brethren killed in the raids and clashes with riot police and soldiers.

A photograph posted on the exile Democratic Voice of Burma Web site shows the body of a monk lying in a ditch, although there has been no way to confirm any of the rumors sweeping across Yangon of monks being beaten and killed.

State media say 10 people died in the crackdown. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra believed at least 30 people had died and 1,400 placed in detention.

"It's hard to know, but it seems to me that the number of 30, which is the number we've officially been using, is likely to be an underestimate," Downer told Australian radio.