Thu Oct 4, 11:33 PM ET

YANGON - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party dismissed a Myanmar junta offer of talks as unreal on Friday, while China said the ruthless suppression of pro-democracy protests did not require international action.

Senior General Than Shwe, who outraged the world by sending in soldiers to crush peaceful monk-led demonstrations, was asking Suu Kyi to abandon the campaign for democracy which has kept her in detention for 12 of the last 18 years, a spokesman said.

"They are asking her to confess to offences that she has not committed," said Nyan Win, spokesman for the Nobel peace laureate's National League for Democracy (NLD), whose landslide election victory in 1990 was ignored by the generals.

Than Shwe, head of the latest junta in 45 unbroken years of military rule of the former Burma, set out his conditions for direct talks at a meeting with special U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Tuesday, state-run television said.

Suu Kyi must abandon her "confrontation" with the government, give up "obstructive measures" and backing for sanctions as well support of "utter devastation," a phrase it did not explain.

Nyan Win demanded "The Lady," as Suu Kyi is known in Myanmar, be allowed to respond in public.

That is unlikely. The only time Suu Kyi has been seen in public since she was last detained in May 2003 was during one monk-led demonstration when protesters were inexplicably allowed through the barricades sealing off her street.

She appeared for 15 minutes at the gate of the home to which she is confined without a telephone and requiring official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors. The barricades were reinforced afterwards and not opened again.

The United States called for the military to talk to Suu Kyi without conditions and said the senior U.S. diplomat in Myanmar would visit the new capital, Naypyidaw, to urge them to begin a "meaningful dialogue" with opposition groups.

However, an embassy official in Yangon dismissed reports that the diplomat would meet Than Shwe.

"She is going to Naypyidaw for a meeting, but it's lower level than that," the official told Reuters.

GAMBARI REPORT

The U.N. Security Council dispatched Gambari to Myanmar, where he had to wait two days to see Than Shwe, in hopes of ending a crackdown involving soldiers shooting into crowds and mass arrests, and getting talks with Suu Kyi started.

Gambari was to present his report to the council on Friday, but veto-wielding China said it opposed international action.

"There are problems there in Myanmar, but these problems still, we believe, are basically internal," China's U.N. Ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters.

"No international-imposed solution can help the situation," Wang said. "We want the government there to handle this issue."

To many people in Yangon and other Myanmar cities who demonstrated en masse or applauded from the sidewalk, the government is the issue in the resource-rich but increasingly impoverished country.

But with China, the closest thing the junta has to an ally, blocking action at the United Nations and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- one of the few international groupings of which Myanmar is a member -- unwilling to change its policy, experts say little is likely to happen.

Singapore, the current chairman of ASEAN, said the grouping would continue its policy of engagement with Myanmar, one which has shown no more signs of influencing the generals than Western sanctions, to try to "help it move forward."

"We have to be mindful of the realities," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told his country's Straits Times newspaper. "Sanctions against a regime that is ready to isolate itself are more likely to be counter-productive than effective."

Singapore is a leading investor in Myanmar, one of the world's most isolated countries.

The junta says all is back to normal after "the least possible force" was used to end demonstrations which began with small marches against huge fuel price rises in August and escalated after troops fired over the heads of protesting monks.

It says 10 people were killed in the crackdown on the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years, although Western governments say the toll is likely to be far higher.

But Yangon's five million people still appear cowed by middle-of-the-night arrests and a heavy security presence on the streets, residents and Western diplomats say.

State television said about 1,400 people were still being detained after the release of 692 of the 2,093 people arrested since the crackdown began last week.

A relative of three women released said detainees were being divided into four categories: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in.

"They're looking for the people who led the demonstrations. The people clapping will only get a minimal punishment -- maybe two to five years," said Win Min, who fled to Thailand in 1988 as the army crushed an uprising at the cost of around 3,000 lives.

Leaders could be looking at up to 20 years behind bars, he said.

Thu Oct 4, 9:57 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS - China and Russia ruled out any Security Council action on Myanmar Thursday as a special envoy briefed the U.N. chief on his mission to the strife-torn nation.

Ibrahim Gambari met with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and senior U.N. officials on his four-day visit to Myanmar soon after he arrived in New York on Thursday. He was scheduled to brief the U.N. Security Council at an open meeting Friday.

"You must be very tired — all the way from Singapore!" the secretary-general told his envoy before photographers were ushered out of his office. Details of the near hour-long meeting were not disclosed.

Gambari's trip to the Southeast Asian nation came after troops quelled mass pro-democracy protests with gunfire last week.

Ban told reporters Wednesday that he couldn't view Gambari's mission as "a success" and said he wanted to discuss possible council action at Friday's meeting.

Myanmar's state TV and radio reported that the country's military ruler, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, told Gambari that he would personally meet detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi but said she must first agree to some of his demands. They include giving up her calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions against it, state media said.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said she could not confirm the report.

China praised Gambari's talks with the country's military rulers but made clear the "crisis" doesn't threaten international peace and should stay out of the U.N. Security Council.

"There (is a) crisis, but this does not constitute (a) threat ... to the region and international peace and security. Therefore, we think that ... this issue does not belong to the Security Council," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Gunagya said. "These problems still we believe are basically internal."

The best action the Security Council can take — and has taken — "is to support the secretary-general's initiative and support ambassador Gambari's mission," Wang said. "No international imposed solution can help the situation.

Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Konstantin Dolgov echoed China's view saying "it's not for the Security Council to lead on this matter."

"We don't think that there is a situation of threat to international peace and security at this point in time, but, of course, regional action is very important to prevent that," he said, strongly backing efforts by ASEAN to promote a solution.

Thu Oct 4, 8:37 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council decided on Thursday to hear a U.N. envoy's report on Myanmar at a public meeting but China said it was opposed to any action by the 15-member body because the junta's crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners was an internal affair.

U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari met U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday after a four-day visit to Myanmar in which he secured the junta's agreement to meet pro-democracy figure Aung San Suu Kyi. But military leader Than Shwe set conditions for the talks to go ahead, such as renouncing any confrontation with the government.

Other speakers invited to address the council on Friday included Ban, a delegate from Myanmar, and one from Singapore, representing the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Myanmar.

Beijing's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters, "There are problems there in Myanmar but these problems still, we believe, are basically internal."

"No international-imposed solution can help the situation," Wang said. "We want the government there to handle this issue."

Both China and Russia say the Security Council's mandate is limited to threats to international peace and security and Myanmar does not fall into this category.

Western nations have urged sanctions against Myanmar, whose security forces continued on Thursday to round up and interrogate protesters after last week's huge demonstrations led by Buddhist monks against military rule.

China, which neighbors Myanmar and is one of the country's few allies and major trading partners, has called for restraint but opposes any U.N. Security Council resolution, maintaining Myanmar does not threaten the region or the world.

China and Russia in January vetoed a U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution that demanded an end to political repression and human rights violations on grounds that the Myanmar crisis was not a threat to international peace and security, the council's mandate.

Wang said China and its neighbors wanted to see the country "achieve stability, achieve democracy, achieve good governance, achieve a better way of life of its people."

He added: "The important thing is we have to express our concern in different ways to let the government down there understand that they have to handle the situation very carefully."

Wang said the best action the council could take was to support the efforts of Gambari, a U.N. undersecretary-general and former U.N. ambassador from Nigeria.

He said his preference had been to have a closed council meeting on Friday because Gambari could speak "more frankly." As a compromise, private consultations will follow the public meeting.

In the first official remarks since Gambari's visit earlier this week, Than Shwe said he would hold direct talks with Suu Kyi if she publicly agreed to abandon her "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions as well "confrontational positions." He did not elaborate on how the Nobel laureate could meet the demands.

Thu Oct 4, 8:06 PM ET

YANGON, Myanmar - Hoping to deflect outrage over images of soldiers gunning down protesters, Myanmar's hard-line leader announced Thursday he is willing to talk with detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi — but only if she stops calling for international sanctions.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe also insists Suu Kyi give up urging her countrymen to confront the military regime, state television and radio said in reporting on the conditions set by the junta leader during a meeting this week with a special U.N. envoy.

The surprise move is aimed at staving off the possibility of economic sanctions and keeping Myanmar's bountiful natural resources on world markets, while also pleasing giant neighbor China, which worries the unrest could cause problems for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The state media announcement came a few hours before U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on his four-day trip seeking to persuade Myanmar's military leaders to end the crackdown on democracy activists.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas in New York could not confirm that was what Than Shwe told Gambari on Tuesday.

State media gave new figures Thursday for the number of people arrested during last week's bloody assault by troops on the biggest anti-government protests in nearly two decades. The reports said nearly 2,100 people had been detained, with almost 700 already released.

The government has said 10 people were killed when security forces broke up the mass demonstrations, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of Buddhist monks who were leading the protests.

In reporting on Than Shwe's meeting with Gambari, state media quoted the general as saying that "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions."

While Suu Kyi has previously voiced support for economic sanctions against the junta, she has not publicly called for the devastation of her homeland or the government.

"If she abandons these calls, Senior Gen. Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the state media report said.

The report's use of the title "daw" was a conciliatory gesture. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women in Myanmar and it was an unusually polite reference to Suu Kyi, a far cry from the usual way state media denigrates her as a foreign puppet or worse.

Reaction to the olive branch was mixed.

"I don't believe there's one iota of sincerity" in the junta's offer, Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers professor and Myanmar expert, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Princeton, N.J.

But, Silverstein added, he thinks Suu Kyi will take up the offer. "She has been saying consistently since 1995 that she will talk to anybody about anything to bring about peace and development," he said.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's proposal. "Applying such conditions shows the government is not really sincere about meeting her," he said.

It's not clear how much the party knows about her thinking, however. Party members are not allowed any contact with Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

Than Shwe's offer to meet with the opposition leader was remarkable because he is reported to have an intense dislike for Suu Kyi, who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her democracy campaign. Her party won elections in 1990 but the junta refused to accept the results.

Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising in bloodshed that killed at least 3,000 people.

The offer of a meeting with Suu Kyi was the first hint of an initiative from the government side since 2002, when she was freed from house arrest after U.N.-backed confidence-building talks began between her and the regime, including Than Shwe. Those talks collapsed in acrimony.

The report gave no indication that the junta is now prepared to lift restrictions on Suu Kyi or on members of her party, which has often called for a dialogue with the government but has been rebuffed.

China, Myanmar's closest ally, praised the meeting between Than Shwe and Gambari and appealed to all parties in Myanmar to remain calm and resume stability "as soon as possible."

Soldiers remained out on the streets of Yangon, the country's main city, and there were reports of more overnight arrests. Moe Aye, of the exile dissent group Democratic Voice of Burma, said soldiers arrested more than 100 civilians at a monastery in Bahan Township and raided another monastery and arrested up to 50 monks in South Okkalapa.

A U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law and driver were freed Thursday, a day after being arrested.

With Myanmar's bloggers unable to post their comments and reports because Internet access was still shut off, thousands of bloggers from at least 45 other nations joined a cyberspace protest Thursday against the military regime by posting "Free Burma" banners on their pages.

Sixty-one Nobel laureates criticized the junta's abuse of human rights and expressed solidarity with Suu Kyi. Thirty well-known novelists, poets and artists of Asian heritage called on the junta to stop its repression and free political prisoners.

State media, meanwhile, filled newspaper pages with propaganda slogans such as "We favor stability. We favor peace" and "We oppose unrest and violence." International critics and foreign media were dismissed as "liars attempting to destroy the nation" by The New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

Thu Oct 4, 6:47 PM ET

YANGON - Myanmar's military ruler set conditions on Thursday for meeting detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as security forces continued to round up people and interrogate hundreds more arrested in a ruthless crackdown on protesters.

In the first official remarks since a visit by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari this week, junta chief Than Shwe said he would hold direct talks with Suu Kyi if she publicly agreed to four conditions.

Than Shwe told Gambari that Suu Kyi must abandon her "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions as well as her positions that were "confrontational" and for "utter devastation," state television said, without elaborating on how the Nobel laureate could meet the demands.

Gambari was dispatched to Myanmar to persuade the generals to end the crackdown on protests against their rule that grew to 100,000-strong in the main city of Yangon and to talk to Suu Kyi, who has been in detention for 12 of the past 18 years.

But reports of physical abuse of captured protesters, including Buddhist monks who led the uprising, suggest Than Shwe is paying scant regard to his calls for restraint.

"That is one of the top concerns of the international community," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to attend a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on Friday to discuss the crackdown in a country under military rule for an unbroken 45 years.

The U.N. Security Council decided to hear Gambari's report at a public meeting on Friday, but China said it was opposed to any "international imposed solution." It said the junta's crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners was an internal affair.

'BASICALLY INTERNAL'

Beijing's U.N. Ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters, "There are problems there in Myanmar but these problems still, we believe, are basically internal."

Official media say 10 people were killed in the crackdown on the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years, although Western governments say the toll is likely to be far higher.

About 1,400 people were still being detained, according to the evening state news broadcast, which said 2,093 people had been arrested and 692 released since the crackdown on the peaceful protests began last week.

The United States called for the military to talk to Suu Kyi without conditions and said the senior U.S. diplomat in Myanmar would visit its new capital, Naypyidaw, to urge them to begin a "meaningful dialogue" with opposition groups.

"We don't believe that there need to be any conditions. This is a dialogue between a government and its people. You shouldn't need to have conditions," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.

A relative of three women released said detainees were being divided into four categories: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in.

"They're looking for the people who led the demonstrations. The people clapping will only get a minimal punishment -- maybe two to five years," said Win Min, who fled to Thailand during a crackdown on a student-led uprising in 1988.

Leaders could be looking at up to 20 years behind bars, he said.

People in central Yangon's Kamayut district said soldiers had arrested scores of people on Wednesday for trying to impede a raid on the Aung Nyay Tharzi monastery a few days earlier and giving protection to fleeing Buddhist monks.

Another 70 young monks rounded up in other swoops across the city a week ago were freed overnight from a government technical institute, after 80 monks and 149 women believed to be nuns were released on Wednesday.

One freed monk, who did not want his name revealed, said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity, birthplace, parents and involvement in the protests.

"The food and living conditions were horrible," the monk, from Yangon's Pyinya Yamika Maha (A) monastery told Reuters.

Among those detained in the middle of the night on Wednesday was a Myanmar U.N. staff member and her two relatives. They were released, along with her driver, on Thursday, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said in New York.

The junta's crackdown has provoked scores of protests around the world and on Thursday hundreds of Buddhist monks in yellow robes marched in India chanting hymns, and waving placards that read "Stop Killing" and "No violence against democracy."

The body of 50-year-old Kenji Nagai, a Japanese video journalist shot to death near Yangon's Sule Pagoda, was returned home on Thursday for an autopsy whose results could lead to Tokyo making good on a threat to scale back economic assistance to Myanmar, one of Asia's poorest countries.

Thu Oct 4, 6:19 PM ET

WASHINGTON - In its first high-level talks with Myanmar's ruling military junta since last week's bloody turmoil, the United States is to press the generals to end their brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests and start a dialogue with opposition groups.

In an atypical move, the junta had invited the US envoy in Yangon for talks in their administrative capital Naypyidaw on Friday, US officials said.

"They have requested our charge de affairs to travel to the capital for a briefing with members of the government," department spokesman Sean Mccormack told reporters.

The envoy, Shari Villarosa, has not been told who she is going to meet with or the subject of the discussions, US officials said.

"I can't tell you what the topic is. I don't know what she is going to hear," McCormack said.

But he said the United States would send a "very clear message" to the military generals, that they need to start a "meaningful" dialogue with all democratic opposition groups, stop the violent crackdown on peaceful protests, encourage economic and political reforms and greater freedom and openness.

The United States downgraded its embassy in Yangon to be headed by a charge de affairs, rather than a full fledged ambassador, since the early 1990's after the current military regime grabbed power in 1988.

The military generals, who suppressed a peaceful uprising that year 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 more than 2,000 arrested.

News of the upcoming meeting between Villarosa and the junta came as Myanmar's state media reported Thursday that military strongman Senior General Than Shwe would be willing to meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi if she met several conditions, including ending support for sanctions on the regime.

The United States has been spearheading political, economic and diplomatic sanctions on the military regime, including a ban on investment and imports.

Than Shwe reportedly made the offer to meet with the detained Nobel Peace Prize winner during his talks Tuesday with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who was sent by the UN Security Council following the bloody crackdown.

Gambari, who has returned to New York, is to brief his boss, UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon later Thursday and the 15-member UN Security Council Friday.

McCormack said the junta should not set conditions for any meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won a landslide election victory in 1990 which the military government refused to recognize.

"It should be a meaningful dialogue. We don't believe that there need to be any conditions. This is a dialogue between the government and its people. You shouldn't need to have conditions to have that kind of dialogue," he said.

US President George W. Bush has been leading Washington's campaign to put global pressure on the military rulers, saying all nations that had influence with the regime should support the aspirations of Myanmar's people and tell the junta to cease using force on people expressing a desire for change.

The US Congress has also adopted resolutions 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.

Last week, the Bush administration slapped visa bans on more than 30 members of the junta and their families in a stepping up of sanctions, which have effectively failed to bring any reforms in Myanmar.

Thu Oct 4, 4:23 PM ET

YANGON, Myanmar - The head of Myanmar's military junta told a U.N. envoy this week that he is willing to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but with certain preconditions, the state media reported Thursday.

It also said nearly 2,100 people were arrested in last week's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, and almost 700 have been released.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe told U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari during their talks Tuesday that he is willing to meet Suu Kyi if she gives up her calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions on it, Myanmar state TV and radio reported.

Than Shwe told Gambari that "in her dealings with the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions," state media said.

"If she abandons these calls, Senior Gen. Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the media said. Daw is a term of respect for older women.

Suu Kyi has said in the past she supports economic sanctions against the military junta, but she has not publicly called for devastation of her homeland or the government.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's offer. "Applying such conditions shows that the government is not really sincere to meet her," he said. NLD executives are allowed no contact with Suu Kyi.

Than Shwe's preconditions are not new — the junta has regularly called on Suu Kyi to give up her confrontational attitude — but it is the first time the junta leader has said he is willing to meet with her.

This willingness is remarkable given that Than Shwe has a visceral dislike for the Nobel peace laureate and is said to get angry even at the mention of her name. Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, is not known to have met a senior junta leader since 2002.

The reports gave no indication that the junta was prepared to lift restrictions on Suu Kyi or on members of her NLD party, which has often called for a dialogue with the government but has been rebuffed. Suu Kyi's party won national elections in 1990 but the generals refused to give up power.

Gambari on Tuesday ended a four-day trip to Myanmar in a bid to persuade the junta to end its crackdown on pro-democracy activists. He is scheduled to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday.

Ban himself has said that Gambari's mission could not be termed a success even though the envoy delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders.

China, Myanmar's closest ally, praised the meeting between Than Shwe and Gambari, and appealed to all parties in the country to remain calm and resume stability "as soon as possible."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement that Beijing has "made its own efforts to support the U.N. secretary-general and his Myanmar special envoy's negotiations." It did not elaborate.

Anti-junta demonstrations broke out in mid-August over a fuel price increase, then grew when monks took the lead last month. But the military crushed the protests with gunfire, tear gas and clubs starting on Sept. 26. 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, including thousands of monks.

State TV and radio said 2,093 were arrested under the emergency law that was invoked on Sept. 25, banning assembly of more than five people. It said 692 have been released.

The demonstrators were arrested under three categories: people who were actively involved in the protests, those who supported the protesters, and those who inadvertently took part.

Soldiers maintained a visible presence on the streets of Yangon on Thursday.

A foreign aid worker said his staff had told him that soldiers are continuing to raid homes at night to arrest people who took part in the demonstrations. Neighbors are alerting each other if they see troops coming, he said.

Meanwhile, a U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law and driver were freed Thursday, a day after being arrested, said Charles Petrie, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Myanmar.

With Internet access to the outside world blocked, state-controlled newspapers churned out the government's version of the country's crisis and filled pages with propaganda slogans, such as "We favor stability. We favor peace," and "We oppose unrest and violence."

Critics from the international community and foreign media were dismissed as "liars attempting to destroy the nation" — one of many bold-faced slogans covering The New Light of Myanmar newspaper's back page Thursday.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to power after snuffing out a 1988 pro-democracy movement against the previous military dictatorship, killing at least 3,000 people in the process.

Thu Oct 4, 3:29 PM ET

Key events in life of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi:


• June 19, 1945: Born in Rangoon, main city now known as Yangon.

• January 1947: Britain agrees to give Burma independence after negotiations with Suu Kyi's father, nationalist leader Gen. Aung San.

• July 1947: Aung San and six members of interim government assassinated by rivals.

• January 1948: Burma gets independence.

• 1960: After finishing high school, Suu Kyi leaves to study in India, then England.

• 1972: Marries Michael Aris, Oxford University academic. Son Alexander born in 1973, son Kim born in 1977.

• 1988: Returns to tend dying mother. Emerges as pro-democracy leader during anti-junta protests, which end with troops slaughtering demonstrators. Helps found National League for Democracy Party.

• July 1989: Suu Kyi and deputy Tin Oo put under house arrest.

• May 1990: Junta holds election, but refuses to hand over power after Suu Kyi's party wins by landslide.

• October 1991: Suu Kyi awarded Nobel Peace Prize for pro-democracy efforts.

• July 1995: Released from house arrest, but stays in Myanmar.

• March 1999: Husband, who had not been allowed to visit Suu Kyi in three years, dies from cancer in England.

• September 2000: Suu Kyi put back under house arrest.

• May 2002: Released from house arrest.

• May 2003: Put in "protective custody" after her motorcade attacked by government-backed mob.

• Aug. 19, 2007: Protests start over fuel price hikes, then swell in following month into largest pro-democracy demonstrations since 1988.

• Sept. 22, 2007: Suu Kyi greets protesters marching past her house, making first public appearance in more than four years.

Thu Oct 4, 3:20 PM ET

BANGKOK, Thailand - Locked inside her walled home and not seen in public for four years, democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi has been like a ghost to the people of Myanmar. But she can cause a sensation just peeking out from behind her iron gate.

A blurry photograph of Suu Kyi behind stone-faced riot police during the recent protests against Myanmar's military junta was splashed on front pages around the world and gave a surge of hope to countrymen demanding an end to 45 years of rule by generals.

By praying with monks who marched despite the threat of bullets, by silently acknowledging demonstrators shouting her name, by blessing with her steely gaze the biggest anti-junta protests in two decades, the tiny woman nicknamed "the Lady" has become more of a democratic icon than ever.

Suu Kyi has been compared to Nelson Mandela, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Supporters mark her birthday with candlelight vigils, U2 penned the song "Walk On" in her honor, and everyone from first lady Laura Bush to comedian Jim Carrey has championed her cause.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is not only the inspiration for the Burmese to bear their ongoing suffering ... She alone continues to command the moral and political legitimacy of the nation," said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at Australian National University.

Still, being under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years has taken a toll. The long years of isolation, the lack of contact with family, friends and colleagues, the crushing of the latest protests clearly are weighing on her.

In photos taken after her two meetings with U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari this week, the 62-year-old Suu Kyi appeared exhausted and discouraged, unable even to fake a smile for being allowed the rare privilege of talking to an outside guest.

But even though she is locked away, the very mention of her name is said to throw the head of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, into fits of rage.

"She is not just the opposition ... She is a symbol," said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at Georgetown University in Washington. "She is the biggest threat."

Hundreds of riot police are now stationed around the clock outside her sparsely furnished, lakeside home in Yangon. The road in front is closed to traffic. Two navy boats patrol the lake.

Access to the compound is mostly limited to her two aides and her doctor, who makes monthly stops. Groceries are dropped off with security guards.

Suu Kyi has no phone or Internet access. Her two grown sons, Alexander and Kim, live abroad and are denied entry into the country. It is not known whether she has ever seen her young grandchildren, Kim's children Jasmine and Jamie.

Her husband, British academic Michael Aris, died from cancer in 1999 after being blocked from seeing her for three years. Suu Kyi could have left Myanmar to see her family, but she feared she would not be allowed to return.

Her days, according to U.N. staffers who have been allowed to meet with her, follow a simple routine. She rises early to meditate and spends much of her time reading books — mostly politics, philosophy and Buddhism — and listening to the BBC and Voice of America on the radio.

She likes music, occasionally playing classical music on her piano and listening to everything from the Grateful Dead to Bob Marley.

Her two-story house, once a grand mansion where her mother lived, has fallen into disrepair. She largely lives hand-to-mouth, depending on book royalties to buy her meager rations. Money from her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize went into a foundation to educate Myanmar's children.

"She is completely devoted to the cause of democracy and human rights," said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a U.N. official who met with Suu Kyi seven times from 2000 to 2003. "I think she survives all the duress because she has a great spiritual quality ... She doesn't worry about herself."

Her critics, including some former members of her National League for Democracy Party, call her uncompromising and principled to a fault. They point to 1993, when the junta organized a gathering to draw up a new constitution. She barred the party from participating, which some members said denied them a chance to influence the document.

Despite being the daughter of Burma's founder, Gen. Aung San, Suu Kyi fell into politics almost by accident.

In 1988, she rushed home from England to care for her dying mother, then was swept up in mass demonstrations. She turned into a rallying figure against the junta amid clashes that killed at least 3,000 protesters.

"I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that is going on," she told some 500,000 people at the Shwedagon Pagoda that year, a moment that cemented her inspiring presence as a leader. "This national crisis could in fact be called the second struggle for national independence."

The aftermath was swift and furious. The junta detained Suu Kyi, then barred her from entering a 1990 election. Her party still won in a landslide, but the generals refused to honor the results.

Despite the years of harsh treatment, Suu Kyi says she would be open to compromise with the generals and insists her quest is not about becoming the next leader of Myanmar.

"I don't want to see a new personality cult develop," she has said. "I have a vision of a country where we can sort out our problems by talking with one another."

Thu Oct 4, 12:33 PM ET

YANGON - Myanmar's junta chief has offered to meet detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi if she ends her support for sanctions against the regime, state media said Thursday.

The announcement came as the junta said more than 2,000 people were arrested during its deadly crackdown on anti-government protests during the last week, acknowledging that some of the detainees were simply bystanders.

Myanmar's Senior General Than Shwe made the offer to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi during his talks Tuesday with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, state television reported.

However, his offer was contingent on the 62-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been held under house arrest for more than a decade, making a series of concessions that made any hope of talks appear a distant possibility.

"Senior General Than Shwe said during his meeting with Mr. Gambari that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been promoting four things -- confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions on Myanmar, and other sanctions," state television said.

"Then he passed his message that he would meet directly with her for dialogue if she announces that she has given up these four things," it added.

Separately, the US State Department said the junta had invited the US envoy in Yangon for talks on Friday.

Spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would send a "very clear message" to the generals, that they need to start a "meaningful" dialogue with all democratic opposition groups, stop the violent crackdown on peaceful protests, encourage economic and political reforms and greater freedom and openness.

Myanmar again accused foreign media of stoking the protests that drew 100,000 people into the streets of Yangon on successive days last week.

"The United Nations had to send Mr. Gambari because of the one-sided reporting of the foreign media," state television said.

Myanmar also made its first public account of the arrests in its crackdown that left at least 13 dead as security forces used baton charges, tear gas, and live weapons fire to break up the peaceful protests last week.

A total of 2,093 people were arrested since September 25, but 692 have already been released, state television said.

The number includes protesters, their supporters, but also simple bystanders who have all been accused of violating a ban on gatherings of more than five people, state television announced.

"The government ordered people not to gather as a precaution, but people gathered anyway," it said.

The protests were the greatest challenge in nearly two decades to the military, which has ruled the country also known as Burma for 45 years.

The crackdown has continued despite the international community increasing the pressure on the military, with Gambari due to brief Secretary General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday about his four-day mission here.

"They have a curfew in place and every night they arrest people," said Shari Villarosa, the chief US diplomat here, adding that the embassy believes the death toll is far higher than confirmed by the regime.

While a semblance of normality has returned during daytime, long-simmering discontent had been "heightened by anger by what has been done against the demonstrators, the atrocities that have been committed against the monks," she said.

Most Yangon monasteries seem empty, leaving neighbours to wonder if the monks have been arrested, injured or worse.

Activists who sent photos and video of the protests around the world have now found those weapons turned against them. Security forces also recorded the protests, apparently using the images to hunt down more activists.

Myanmar on Thursday released a 38-year-old local UN staff member, her two relatives and driver, a day after they were detained, the UN's country chief Charles Petrie said.

China, which has in the past blocked steps to punish Myanmar, praised the UN mediation efforts and called for calm.

"We are pleased with the results achieved by Gambari's visit," said a Chinese government statement without specifying what those results were.

Thu Oct 4, 9:19 AM ET

MAIJAYANG, Myanmar - Far from the crackdown in the rest of the country, Myanmar's lawless northeast has a distinctly Chinese feel as gamblers eager for a turn at the baccarat table cross into the Southeast Asian nation in droves.

Betting is illegal in China, so thousands of Chinese flock to the relative safety of Maijayang to try their luck at the mafia-run casinos on this Myanmar frontier town.

Shielded by Myanmar's lush green mountains, surrounded by a wall of dense sugarcane fields, Maijayang rises from these ancient lands in Kachin State -- which is effectively run by former rebels -- like a forbidden fortress.

While world leaders condemn a bloody crackdown by security forces against mass protests in Myanmar's main city Yangon and elsewhere, little is taboo in this sinners' paradise.

Business is roaring here, handily located just 20 minutes by motorbike from the border along pot-holed dirt roads that wind through picture-perfect paddy fields.

"Whatever you need we can take care of, gambling, drugs, girls -- all of it can be arranged," a former casino employee surnamed Wang said as he escorted an AFP journalist past Myanmar border guards to Maijayang.

Visas are required to enter Myanmar but are easily bypassed here in Kachin, where the rebel Kachin Independence Organisation and a fragmented coalition of warlords hold sway over an area bordering China's Yunnan province.

After paying the guards, Wang buzzed through the town gates, past rows of low-slung, white-tiled buildings that advertise hotels, restaurants, gems and massage parlours that double as brothels -- all in Chinese script.

At first glance Maijayang may look like any other small town in China, but police with hard stares patrol the streets where cars with Myanmar plates make it clear what country this is.

Inside International Entertainment, one of 11 casinos here, slot machines buzz and sing, as Chinese croupiers in maroon vests call for bets at blackjack and baccarat tables crowded by mostly Chinese patrons.

Suggesting a professionalism behind the operations, cameras are trained on each of the seven sprawling rooms packed with players, while shifty looking men who do not appear to be betting move around the floor.

"If the odds were deliberately stacked or players felt that it was not professionally run they would not come," said Michael Backman, an Asia analyst and author who has researched cross-border casinos in the region.

"A lot of the border casinos are very professional."

According to one Chinese man who has worked in three of Maijayang's casinos, operations are headed by a Chinese mafia boss in Ruili, a Chinese border town built on the illicit drug, gemstone and timber trade.

The popularity of Maijayang and another frontier casino further north in Laiza exploded after Chinese authorities last year cracked down on the multiple gambling dens in Ruili, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) south of here.

Chinese casino owners in Maijayang operate with impunity, as the gambling dens' extra-territorial location means they are beyond the reach of Chinese law.

Protection money is paid to Kachin soldiers but Chinese police also turn a blind eye to the hundreds of daily border violations in return for a piece of the action.

"Everyone takes a cut," said the Chinese man, who asked that his name not be used.

"It is very difficult for the Chinese government to control because the government would need the cooperation of the Myanmar government but they have almost no control over this area run by (the) Kachin army."

But China insists it is doing something.

In early 2005, with the agreement of officials in Shan state, a jungle area of Myanmar south of Kachin and also run by militias, Chinese police swept into the frontier town of Mongla, then a hub of Chinese gambling operations.

Meanwhile the number of casinos operating near China's borders in Myanmar and elsewhere dropped from 149 in 2005 to 28 last year, thanks to a crackdown that netted 445 million dollars in gambling related funds, China's official Xinhua news agency reported in January.

Thu Oct 4, 9:04 AM ET

YANGON - Despite gradually easing its iron grip on Myanmar's main city on Thursday, the junta continued to round up scores of people and grill hundreds more arrested during and after a ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy marches.

Although most are too terrified to talk, the monks and civilians slowly being freed from a makeshift interrogation centre in north Yangon are giving a glimpse of the mechanics of the generals' dreaded internal security apparatus.

A relative of three women released said detainees were being divided into four categories: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in.

"They're looking for the people who led the demonstrations. The people clapping will only get a minimal punishment -- maybe two to five years," said Win Min, who fled to Thailand during a crackdown on a student-led uprising in 1988.

Leaders could be looking at up to 20 years behind bars, he said.

The reports of verbal and physical abuse suggest junta chief Than Shwe is paying scant regard to the calls for restraint delivered by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, now flying back to New York to brief his boss, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"That is one of the top concerns of the international community," said Ban, due to attend a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on Friday to discuss the crackdown in a country now under military rule for an unbroken 45 years.

People in central Yangon's Kamayut district said soldiers had arrested scores of people on Wednesday night for trying to impede a raid on the Aung Nyay Tharzi monastery a few days earlier and giving protection to fleeing Buddhist monks.

Another 70 young monks rounded up in other swoops across the city a week ago were freed overnight from a government technical institute, complementing 80 monks and 149 women believed to be nuns released on Wednesday.

One freed monk, who did not want his name revealed, said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity, birthplace, parents and involvement in the protests, the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years.

"The food and living conditions were horrible," the monk, from Yangon's Pyinya Yamika Maha (A) monastery told Reuters.

Among those detained in the middle of the night on Wednesday was a Myanmar U.N. staff member and her two relatives. They were released, along with her driver, on Thursday, a U.N. source said.

INDIA PROTEST

The junta's crackdown has provoked scores of protests around the world and on Thursday hundreds of Buddhist monks in yellow robes marched in India chanting hymns, and waving placards that read "Stop Killing" and "No violence against democracy."

Dozens of monks from Myanmar, living in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, joined the rally in the holy town of Bodh Gaya, the last resting place of Lord Buddha.

"The Buddhist community is shocked at the way the military rulers fired bullets on monks who were protesting peacefully," said Bhikkhu Bodhipala, chief priest of the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya.

Gambari was to brief Ban after arriving in New York on Thursday in the midst of international outrage at the use of soldiers against peaceful columns of Buddhist monks and civilians demanding an end to military rule.

Official media say 10 people were killed, including a Japanese video journalist, although Western governments say the final toll is likely to be far higher.

The body of 50-year-old Kenji Nagai, shot dead near Yangon's Sule Pagoda, returned home on Thursday for an autopsy whose results could lead to Tokyo making good on a threat to scale back economic assistance to Myanmar, one of Asia's poorest countries.

Fears of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in a crackdown lasting several months, were not realized, but even China, the junta's closest ally, made a rare public call for restraint.

China praised Gambari's mission -- which Western diplomats said Beijing helped facilitate -- saying it gave his efforts a "positive appraisal."

Thu Oct 4, 3:58 AM ET

TOKYO - The body of a Japanese video journalist who was shot dead during a crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Myanmar was returned home on Thursday, and was due to be taken for an autopsy.

The results of the investigation are likely be a factor as Japan weighs whether to take action against military-ruled Myanmar, such as cutting back economic assistance.

Kenji Nagai, 50, was shot when the military opened fire on protesters in Yangon on September 27. Footage smuggled out of the country appeared to show a soldier shooting Nagai at point-blank range, but Myanmar officials have said he was shot accidentally.

"He has finally been able to return, a week after the incident," said Toru Yamaji, head of the APF News organization for which Nagai worked on contract. "Nagai would be happy."

Airline staff placed a bouquet of flowers on the coffin, after which the body was taken off the plane and to a Tokyo hospital for the autopsy. Nagai's parents would be at the hospital.

On Wednesday, Japanese officials said the government may suspend some 500 million yen ($4.3 million) in aid, although one official said Tokyo would maintain its policy of engagement and had no plans to suspend trade or freeze Myanmar's assets.

Japanese media have also said police will investigate the case on suspicion of murder, in accordance with a law that allows them to carry out a probe in cooperation with local authorities in cases where Japanese nationals are victims of serious crimes.

A Japanese envoy was in Myanmar earlier in the week to try to ensure a full investigation into Nagai's death.

Tokyo says the small video camera he was clutching as he died near the Sule Pagoda was missing from items returned by Myanmar officials.

Japan has withheld full-scale aid to impoverished Myanmar since democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was detained in 2003, but it has funded emergency health projects and provided some training and technological transfers.

Japan has provided a total of about 3 billion yen ($25.84 million) in aid annually in recent years, down from 10 billion in 2001.

($1=116.11 Yen)

Thu Oct 4, 1:37 AM ET

WASHINGTON - US senators demanded intense US pressure on China and India to force them to sever ties with Myanmar's junta after a violent crackdown on protests by monks and democracy activists.

High-profile lawmakers wanted to know how the United States could leverage its relationship with the two giant powers for the advantage of Aung San Suu Kyi's democracy movement.

"China needs to make it clear that it's unacceptable that those monasteries have been cleared of monks, that people have been loaded into trucks and driven off into God knows where," said Democratic Senator John Kerry.

Kerry warned at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations committee's Asia sub-panel that if China did not use its close economic relationship with Myanmar to forge change, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing would be under a "cloud."

The hearing came hours after Myanmar's military rulers kept up the pressure on their people, after last week's bloody crackdown on protesters.

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, made new arrests and mounted patrols to keep the population on tenterhooks.

Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, author of legislation imposing US economic sanctions on Myanmar, joined Wednesday's hearing and complained that efforts to pressure the junta were weakened without Chinese and Indian backing.

"China and India are the two biggest players in Burma (Myanmar). Their attitude seems to be largely it'd be bad for business to start siding with the pro-democracy forces," said McConnell.

But Democratic Senator Jim Webb said that despite a punishing US and European range of sanctions on Myanmar, it was unclear what more the West could do to support Aung San Suu Kyi.

"You have a type of pressure which is driving authoritarian governments toward like partners, China being the classic example with respect to Burma," Webb said.

Scot Marciel, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said President George W. Bush's administration had been doing its best to pressure China.

"While we have indications that Beijing has been quietly pressing junta leaders to exercise restraint ... we think China can do more," he said.

"We have been pressing and we will continue to press Beijing to do more."

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted by 413 votes to two 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.

Adding to the symbolism of the hearing, US First Lady Laura Bush called for Myanmar's reclusive generals to "step aside" and urged the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a peaceful transition to democracy.

"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 statement.

"We urge other governments to join the United States in condemning the junta's use of violence, and in working toward freedom for Burma," she said.

Washington does not recognize the name Myanmar and continues to call the country Burma.

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.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Saturday urged Myanmar to seek stability in a peaceful manner and work towards democracy and development.

India on Monday urged Myanmar's military regime to launch a probe into its violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests, the foreign ministry said.

But critics of both nations in Congress say that is not enough.