Human Rights For Burma (Myanmar)

Tue Oct 9, 7:43 PM ET

2007-10-09T18:43:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's opposition on Tuesday cautiously welcomed moves by the junta towards dialogue with its leader Aung San Suu Kyi but insisted that any offer should come with no strings attached.

With the United Nations weighing up a statement criticising the government, junta chief Senior General Than Shwe named deputy labour minister Aung Kyi to build "smooth relations" with the detained opposition leader.

The appointment of Aung Kyi, a general with a reputation as a moderate, who has a track record of dealing with the United Nations, is the latest in a series of small gestures apparently aimed at appeasing UN member states.

The junta last week said that Than Shwe was willing to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for most of the past 18 years, albeit with strict conditions attached, including that she drop support for sanctions.

"Finding a solution through dialogue is the natural way to help the people and the country," the National League for Democracy (NLD) said in a statement.

"A willingness to hold dialogue is the main way to solve the problems now facing the country," it added.

But it also said: "There are no preconditions if they really want to solve the problems through dialogue."

The party, which won elections in 1990 yet was never allowed to govern, also denied that Aung San Suu Kyi had called for economic sanctions, although she has publicly discouraged foreign investment.

Some analysts questioned whether the junta's gestures would be enough, saying the situation in Myanmar -- ruled by the military since 1962 -- remained largely unchanged.

"I think they recognise they have to do something without really giving up any power, they have to make a public gesture," said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert from Georgetown University in the United States.

"But it does not amount to anything right now given the leadership... I would say right now it is the status quo, with a few frills attached."

The official New Light of Myanmar paper said the appointment of a liaison official for Aung San Suu Kyi was suggested by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari during his mission here last week.

A bloody junta crackdown on peaceful protests led by monks in Yangon last month left at least 13 people dead and roused an international outcry.

The United States, France and Britain are pushing for a UN Security Council statement this week condemning the regime, but Myanmar's ally China is leading a drive to soften its tone.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao on Tuesday said that Beijing opposed any strong pressure against Myanmar, which it warned could exacerbate tensions.

"Sanctions or pressure will not help to resolve the issues," he said.

In an apparent attempt to forestall any punitive UN action, the junta has made a series of conciliatory moves.

Over the weekend, state media trumpeted the release of nearly half of the more than 2,100 people arrested during September's rallies, and said the military had donated thousands of dollars as well as food and medicines to monasteries.

But the junta's tough talking in its mouthpiece the New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday demonstrated that conditions on the ground remained oppressive.

The paper warned that nearly 1,000 people still being held over the protests could face jail sentences.

"Anyone who is detained for his violation of law must be charged and serve prison terms if he is found guilty," it said.

It also accused pro-democracy protesters of derailing the economy of the impoverished nation, saying the mass rallies "made the people poorer" because restaurants and shops had to be closed.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that a diplomat at Myanmar's London embassy has resigned to protest the "appalling" crackdown.

Ye Min Tun, a second secretary at the embassy, according to British government records, said Myanmar's military leaders had ignored the people's wish to negotiate.

The protests began in mid-August over outrage at an overnight hike in fuel prices that left many commuters unable even to afford the bus fare to work.

But the movement took off in late September when Buddhist monks led up to 100,000 supporters onto the streets in peaceful marches that became the most potent threat to the regime in almost two decades.

The protesters were only silenced when the junta unleashed baton charges, tear gas and live rounds.

Tue Oct 9, 7:22 PM ET

2007-10-09T18:22:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called first lady Laura Bush on Tuesday to thank her for her support for the people of Myanmar and to keep international attention on the crisis there, the White House said.

The United Nations will continue to pressure the military junta in Myanmar, also called Burma, to end its crackdown on protests and to stop arresting those participating in nonviolent demonstrations, Ban told the first lady.

"Mrs. Bush expressed her hope that the international community will help to effect positive and peaceful change in Burma," her press secretary, Sally McDonough, said in a statement.

Ban also reported that the military regime had appointed a senior official to begin a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma's popularly elected National League for Democracy Party.

"Mrs. Bush believes that the regime's appointment ... will be seen as a genuine effort toward national reconciliation when they release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners," McDonough said.

Tue Oct 9, 6:34 PM ET

2007-10-09T17:34:00.000-05:00

YANGON, Myanmar - The party of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi called Tuesday for talks with Myanmar's military regime following a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters, but it urged the junta not to set conditions for any meetings.

The junta's top general offered earlier this week to meet with Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. But he said she must first renounce her calls for international sanctions against the regime, which has been widely condemned for crushing the protests last month.

"The success of a dialogue is based on sincerity and the spirit of give and take," Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy said in a statement, which was based on her past speeches. "The will for achieving success is also crucial and there should not be any preconditions."

In its first comment since the regime held up the prospect of talks, the party appeared to be trying to encourage negotiations without abandoning its platform. The party emphasized past statements by Suu Kyi, but also said it could make "adjustments" for the sake of dialogue.

On Monday, state media said the regime had appointed Deputy Labor Minister Aung Kyi as the Cabinet's "minister for relations" to coordinate contacts with Suu Kyi. He is considered more open than top junta leaders, who are deeply insular and fiercely hostile toward Suu Kyi.

The Southeast Asian country has been ruled by the military since 1962, and protests that broke out in August over a fuel price hike quickly ballooned into mass demonstrations calling for democracy when widely respected Buddhist monks began spearheading daily marches.

Troops crushed the protests by shooting at demonstrators Sept. 26-27. The regime said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put the toll at up to 200 and say thousands of people have been arrested.

The brutal crackdown ignited outrage around the globe, and international demands have grown for the junta to release the 62-year-old Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years without trial.

The government said last week that the junta's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, was willing to meet personally with Suu Kyi if she met its conditions. Than Shwe has met with Suu Kyi only once, in 2002, and the talks quickly broke down.

Although it named a liaison official to deal with Suu Kyi, the junta did not indicate when he might meet with her.

The appointment of Aung Kyi, a retired major general, appeared to be a nod to the United Nations. The world body's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, suggested creating the Cabinet-level job during his visit to Myanmar last week, state media said.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations circulated a draft statement late Tuesday that would have the Security Council strongly deplore "the violent repression by the government of Myanmar of peaceful demonstrations, including the use of force against religious figures and institutions."

The statement also urges the junta to stop all "repressive measures," including the detention of protesters, and open a dialogue with the various political and ethnic groups.

Western nations are trying to find a consensus position acceptable to China and Russia, which have blocked previous resolutions on the grounds that Myanmar's political unrest is an internal matter and not a threat to security in its region.

The head of the U.N. Human Rights Council appealed to junta Tuesday to allow a visit by the body's Myanmar specialist, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who has been barred from the country since 2003.

Romanian Ambassador Doru-Romulus Costea, who presides over the council, said it wants Pinheiro to go to Myanmar as soon as possible to assess the human rights situation.

Tue Oct 9, 7:17 AM ET

2007-10-09T06:17:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's main opposition gave a cautious welcome on Tuesday to the junta naming its main trouble-shooter as "Minister of Relations" to act as a go-between with detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

However, in its first response to a highly conditional offer from Senior General Than Shwe for unspecified talks, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party said any negotiations should have no prior strings attached.

"If dialogue is to be held with true desire to find a solution, preconditions are not set," the NLD, which won a massive election landslide in 1990 only to be denied power by the army, said in a statement.

However, party spokesman Nyan Win described the appointment of Aung Kyi -- a big hitter in the regime despite being only a deputy labor minister -- as liaison between Suu Kyi and the former Burma's ruling generals as "a good sign."

"It shows they seem to have become a little more pragmatic," he said.

Those who know Aung Kyi said he would be more than an errand boy, suggesting that after crushing the biggest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years, the junta might be showing a rare willingness to listen to its opponents and critics.

"He's serious, he's senior and he's been sent in to difficult situations before to resolve them and trouble shoot," a former Yangon-based official of the International labor Organization (ILO) said.

"He's not a stonewaller. He's someone who's sent in to fix problems, and he seems like a very good choice if you do want to have a credible dialogue," said the ILO official, who dealt with Aung Kyi directly in a bid to curb the use of forced labor.

"UTTER DEVASTATION?"

After last month's protests against decades of military rule and deepening poverty, Senior General Than Shwe offered direct talks with Suu Kyi if she ended her "confrontation," support for sanctions and "utter devastation" -- a term not clarified.

However, critics said Than Shwe had no intention of ever talking to a woman he is known to loathe, and that the proposal was just a sop to the international outrage at the military crackdown, in which at least 10 people were killed.

Even China, the closest the junta has to a friend, issued a rare call for restraint when the troops moved in to end the biggest anti-junta movement since a 1988 uprising that was eventually crushed with the loss of an estimated 3,000 lives.

However, Beijing underscored its opposition to U.N. sanctions on Tuesday, saying any international response should be "extremely prudent and responsible."

India, another energy-hungry regional giant with its eyes on Myanmar's huge natural gas reserves, has also come under fire for appearing to ignore the protests, which started in mid-August against shock increases in fuel prices.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's word-for-word repetition on Sunday of a speech he gave four months ago about the need for closer ties with the generals is being seen as proof of uncompromising real politics in New Delhi.

Suu Kyi, a 62-year-old Nobel laureate, remains under house arrest and incommunicado, as she has been for nearly 12 of the last 18 years. An editorial in Myanmar state newspapers on Monday suggested any release was a dim and distant prospect.

During her previous periods of isolation she has had other "liaison officers" whose mediation with the junta came to naught.

Given the frequency with which optimists have been proved wrong, other analysts cautioned against seeing Aung Kyi's role as leading to talks on restoring a semblance of civilian authority in a country crippled by 45 years of military rule.

"It's too early to assess this gambit by the regime," said a retired professor in Yangon, who asked not to be named. "It comes at a time of mounting pressure from the international community. We need to wait for further movement."

Tue Oct 9, 12:27 AM ET

2007-10-08T23:27:00.000-05:00

YANGON, Myanmar - The ruling junta appointed a Cabinet official Monday to coordinate contacts with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a move that comes with Myanmar under intense international pressure to enter talks with the democracy movement.

Deputy Labor Minister Aung Kyi, a retired major general, was named to the post of "liaison minister," state radio and television said Monday night.

On Tuesday, the junta said it hoped to achieve "smooth relations" with Suu Kyi. The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece of the junta, printed a brief official announcement on its front page saying that Kyi had been appointed "minister for relations" to coordinate contacts with Suu Kyi, the country's democracy icon.

The appointment was suggested by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari during his visit to Myanmar earlier this month, the statement said. It added that the junta had accepted the idea "in respect of Gambari's recommendation and in view of smooth relations with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi."

Aung Kyi's exact duties were not detailed, and the announcement did not say when he might meet with the 62-year-old Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years without trial.

But it appeared Aung Kyi would coordinate all of Suu Kyi's contacts with both the regime and the United Nations, which is seeking to end the political deadlock between democracy advocates and a military that has ruled since 1962.

Aung Kyi has a reputation among foreign diplomats, U.N. officials and aid groups as being relatively accessible and reasonable compared to top junta leaders, who are highly suspicious of outsiders. He has had the delicate task of dealing with the International Labor Organization, which accuses the junta of using forced labor.

The government announced last week that the junta's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, was willing to meet personally with Suu Kyi, but only if she met certain conditions, including renouncing support for economic sanctions by foreign countries against the junta.

It remains unknown if Suu Kyi would accept the offer, which also called on her to give up what the junta said were her efforts backing "confrontation" and "utter devastation." The regime accuses her and her party of working with other nations to sabotage its own plans for a phased return to democracy.

Than Shwe has only met with Suu Kyi once before, in 2002, and the talks quickly broke down.

The appointment of a liaison officer was suggested by Gambari during his visit to Myanmar last week, the announcement on state media said. Gambari met with both top junta officials and Suu Kyi.

Gambari's trip to the Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma came after troops quelled democracy protests with gunfire. The regime 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 who were leading the demonstrations.

The government has continued to round up suspected activists, although some people have been released.

Security continued to ease in Yangon, the country's biggest city. Some roadblocks were removed and visitors began trickling back to the heavily guarded Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, the starting and finishing points for many of the protests.

But some residents have engaged in a low-key resistance to the military in recent days, harassing soldiers by tossing rocks at them at night, student activists claimed Monday.

They said troops had responded by detaining suspects and even suspects' relatives, including children, said the activists, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of arrest.

Protests erupted Aug. 19 over the government raising fuel prices, but anger mushroomed into broad-based marches by tens of thousands demanding democratic reforms.

On Monday, the state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar said protesters could achieve their demands — including Suu Kyi's release — by following the military government's own seven-step "road map" agenda for restoring democracy.

"The three demands of the protesters — lowering consumer prices, release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, and national reconciliation — cannot be satisfied through protest," the English-language paper said, using the polite term for addressing older women in front of Suu Kyi's name.

"When the state constitution is approved, the fulfillment of the three demands will be within reach," said the commentary in New Light of Myanmar, which is a mouthpiece for the government but often represents extreme points of view that are not official policy.

The road map process is supposed to culminate in a general election at an unspecified date in the future. But so far only the first stage — drawing up guidelines for a new constitution — has been completed, and government critics say the convention that drafted them was stage-managed by the military.

Drafting the constitution is supposed to be the next stage, and the document would then be put to a national referendum. The previous constitution was suspended in 1988 when the military crushed a democracy uprising by killing as many as 3,000 people.

The junta then allowed elections in 1990, but nullified the vote after Suu Kyi's party won.

Mon Oct 8, 9:09 PM ET

2007-10-08T20:09:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - China on Monday spearheaded a move in the UN Security Council to soften a Western-sponsored statement on the military crackdown in Myanmar amid broad agreement on the need for ending the violence and freeing political prisoners.

Experts from the council's 15 members huddled behind closed doors for nearly three hours in "a constructive atmosphere" and the sponsors agreed to come up with a revised text taking into account of the amendments, said a delegate from Ghana, which chairs the council this month.

"They intend to circulate a revised text some time this evening which we would then refer to our capitals for consideration and instructions," Albert Yankey told AFP.

The United States, Britain and France introduced their initial draft Friday after the council heard a report from UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to Myanmar to defuse the crisis.

The text would condemn "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" by Myanmar's rulers, urge them to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees as well as all political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yankey said there was consensus on calling the violence by the military regime and its repression of peaceful protests "unacceptable," on the need for dialogue and national reconciliation, and for expressing support for Gambari's mission.

But he noted that China, backed by several other delegations, insisted on replacing the word "condemn" by "strongly deplore" and dropping a reference to consideration of "further steps," suggesting instead that the council continues to monitor the situation.

The Chinese also objected to a detailed formulation in the draft of the steps the Myanmar regime must take to defuse the crisis, the diplomat said.

"China has a key role to play (in the crisis) and needs to maintain communications with the regime. The same applies to Gambari," said Yankey, who noted that members were keen "not to jeopardize" the twin mediation.

"There is no delegation that does not want to see a quick adoption" of the text, he said, adding that all members were ready for compromise.

Yankey said he did not expect the experts to meet again until Wednesday.

The text was debated here amid intense pressure for strong council action from world public opinion following outrage over Myanmar's deadly repression of peaceful anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks late last month.

At least 13 people died and more than 2,100 were locked up in the crackdown as security forces moved to crush protests involving up to 100,000 people with live rounds, baton charges and tear gas.

On Saturday, protests were held in several cities around the world in support of Myanmar's embattled pro-democracy movement.

Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora for his part stressed that it was urgent for the council to send a "strong, unified" message to Myanmar's ruling junta.

Unlike a resolution, a so-called presidential statement requires the consent of all 15 members to be adopted.

China, which has close ties with Myanmar and favors constructive engagement with its military regime, warned last week that putting pressure on the ruling generals "would lead to confrontation."

The United States has threatened to push for UN sanctions against the military regime, including an arms embargo, if it refuses to halt its crackdown and refused to cooperate with Gambari's mediation for national reconciliation.

But any sanctions resolution was likely to face resistance and possibly a veto from China and Russia, which deem the turmoil in the southeast Asian country an internal matter and not a threat to broader peace and security.

In a conciliatory move apparently aimed at forestalling tough council condemnation, Myanmar's rulers trumpeted the release of hundreds of monks and demonstrators and donated thousands of dollars as well as food and medicines to monasteries in Yangon.

And junta chief Than Shwe named the deputy labor minister, Aung Kyi, as the "manager for relations" with Aung San Suu Kyi, four days after the military supremo made a heavily conditioned offer to meet with the Nobel Peace prize laureate, state television said.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has come to symbolize Myanmar's peaceful struggle for democracy, has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest.

Mon Oct 8, 8:16 PM ET

2007-10-08T19:16:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - China, backed by several Security Council members, offered various amendments Monday to soften a Western-sponsored statement on the bloody military crackdown in Myanmar.

Experts from the council's 15 members huddled behind closed doors for nearly three hours in "a constructive atmosphere" and the sponsors agreed to come up with a revised text taking into account of the amendments, said a delegate from Ghana, which chairs the council this month.

They intend to circulate a revised text some time this evening which would then refer to our capitals for consideration and instructions," Albert Yankey told AFP.

The United States, Britain and France introduced their initial draft Friday after the council heard a report from UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to Myanmar to defuse the crisis.

The text would condemn "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" by Myanmar's rulers, urge them to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees as well as all political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yankey said there was consensus on calling the violence by the military regime and its repression of peaceful protests "unacceptable," on the need for dialogue and national reconciliation, and for expressing support for Gambari's mission.

But he noted that China, backed by several other delegations, insisted on replacing the word "condemn" by "strongly deplore" and dropping a reference to consideration of "further steps," suggesting instead that the council continues to monitor the situation.

The Chinese also objected to a detailed formulation in the draft of the steps the Myanmar regime must take to defuse the crisis, the diplomat said.

"China has a key role to play (in the crisis) and needs to maintain communications with the regime. The same applies to Gambari," said Yankey, who noted that members were keen "not to jeopardize" the twin mediation.

"There is no delegation that does not want to see a quick adoption" of the text, he said, adding that all members were ready for compromise.

Yankey said he did not expect the experts to meet again until Wednesday.

The text was debated here amid intense pressure for strong council action from world public opinion following outrage over Myanmar's deadly repression of peaceful anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks late last month.

At least 13 people died and more than 2,100 were locked up in the crackdown as security forces moved to crush protests involving up to 100,000 people with live rounds, baton charges and tear gas.

On Saturday, protests were held in several cities around the world in support of Myanmar's embattled pro-democracy movement.

Mon Oct 8, 11:49 AM ET

2007-10-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's military junta has appointed a deputy minister to negotiate with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the regime's offer of direct talks, state television said on Monday.

Aung Kyi, a major general who became deputy labor minister last year, would "make contact and deal with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the future," MRTV said, without giving further details.

After the largest anti-junta protests in nearly 20 years, Senior General Than Shwe, whose loathing for Suu Kyi is well known, offered direct talks if she abandoned "confrontation" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation."

There was no reaction from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to Aung Kyi's appointment. But NLD spokesman Nyan Win has said Than Shwe's offer could lead to talks about talks.

Analysts caution against optimism as hopes of change in the past have been dashed so often.

"It's too early to assess this gambit by the regime," a retired professor said. "It comes at a time of mounting pressure from the international community. We need to wait for further movement."

There has been no word from Suu Kyi, 62, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years in detention and is confined to her house in Yangon without a telephone and requiring official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.

The New Light of Myanmar, the general's official mouthpiece, suggested on Monday that Suu Kyi would remain under house arrest until a new constitution was approved -- a dim and distant prospect, according to most analysts.

It also gave short shrift to the demands of the thousands who joined last month's protests crushed by the regime.

"The three demands of the protesters -- lowering consumer prices, release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, and national reconciliation -- cannot be satisfied through protest," the paper said in a commentary.

"Now, those responsible are making arrangements to draft the state constitution and collect the list of voters," it added. "When the state constitution is approved, the fulfillment of the three demands will be within reach."

DISCIPLINED DEMOCRACY

Holding a referendum on a new constitution is the fourth stage in a seven-step "roadmap to democracy."

For Suu Kyi, the omens are not good.

Stage One of the roadmap -- a National Convention to draw up the "detailed basic principles" of the charter -- took 14 years.

Furthermore, Stage Two -- "step-by-step implementation of the process necessary for the emergence of a genuine and disciplined democratic state" -- is so unclear few know what it means, let alone when it can be completed.

Stage Three is drafting the constitution, a process that many thought the National Convention was meant to have been doing for the last 14 years of on-off meetings, most of which have been boycotted by Suu Kyi's party.

The NLD won a massive election victory in 1990 only to be denied power by the army, which first seized power in 1962.

Most Western governments dismissed the convention as a sham to cement the generals' grip on power.

Snippets of the "detailed basic principles" of the charter appearing in state media point to little transfer of power to a civilian administration or autonomy for the former Burma's 100-plus ethnic minorities.

The commander-in-chief of the army will be the most powerful man in the country under the constitutional guidelines agreed at the national convention, with the power to appoint the ministers of defense, interior and border affairs.

He will also be able to assume power "in times of emergency."

The junta has cut security in Yangon steadily since it sent in soldiers 10 days ago to end to the biggest pro-democracy protests since 1988. Official media say 10 people were killed, although Western governments say the toll is likely to have been higher.

In 1988, up to 3,000 people are thought to have died in a crackdown over several weeks on protests led by students, as well as the Buddhist monks who spearheaded last month's marches which filled five city blocks at their height.

Mon Oct 8, 10:49 AM ET

2007-10-08T09:49:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's military government has appointed an official to maintain "relations" with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, state television reported Monday.

Junta leader Than Shwe named the deputy labour minister Aung Kyi "to continue relations with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the future," state television said, using an honorific to show respect for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who concluded a mission here last week, had recommended that the junta task an official with maintaining relations with opposition leader, the report added.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for most of the last 18 years, but the military government rarely has any contact with her.

The appointment came just four days after Than Shwe made an offer to meet with her, although the proposal hinged on major conditions including a demand that she drop her support for international sanctions on the regime.

The latest announcement also came with the UN Security Council due Monday to weigh a draft statement condemning the military regime.

The non-binding text, drafted by the United States, Britain and France, was submitted after the world body Friday heard a report from Gambari on his mission to defuse the crisis.

The statement condemns "violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" and urges Myanmar's rulers to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees as well as political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mon Oct 8, 3:42 AM ET

2007-10-08T02:42:00.000-05:00

TOKYO - Mourners paid their final respects Monday to a Japanese freelance journalist shot dead by troops in Myanmar while covering mass pro-democracy demonstrations last month.

Kenji Nagai, 50, was killed on September 27 in Yangon as he filmed the crackdown on protesters by Myanmar's junta after demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

He appeared to have been shot at close range by security forces, according to television footage. Nagai's family members, journalists and refugees who fled the junta lamented his death at the funeral held in Tokyo.

"Journalists keep records and report at the sites of news, and that's their job," said Jiro Ishimaru, the chief editor of Asia Press International, a Tokyo-based cooperative of Asian photo and video journalists.

"He was killed doing his job. This very fact breaks my heart and makes me feel frustrated," said Ishimaru, who met Nagai when reporting at the border between China and North Korea.

Police said Nagai died of massive blood loss after a bullet pierced his liver.

Myanmar insists the killing was an accident but Japan is sceptical of the explanation and has set up a taskforce to investigate whether the shooting was deliberate.

Nagai was employed by APF News, a small agency based in Tokyo that specialises in reports from countries where most Japanese television networks dare not tread.

Much of mainstream Japanese media stay away from combat zones, but a small group of Japanese independent journalists is famed for heading on tough assignments.

Mon Oct 8, 3:26 AM ET

2007-10-08T02:26:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - Faced with mounting world outrage over violence in Myanmar, the UN Security Council was to meet Monday, under pressure to quickly condemn the military regime for crushing pro-democracy protests.

The 15-member body was to weigh a draft statement that would condemn "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" by Myanmar's rulers, urge them to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees as well as all political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The non-binding text, drafted by the United States, Britain and France, was submitted Friday to the full council after members heard a report from UN emissary Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to defuse the crisis.

But despite worldwide protests in support of Myanmar's embattled pro-democracy movement, the draft was likely to be toned down at the request of China, Russia and possibly Indonesia, diplomats said.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's state press trumpeted the release of hundreds of monks and demonstrators ahead of the council's meeting. State media reported Monday that the junta had donated thousands of dollars as well as food and medicines to monasteries in Yangon, in an apparent gesture of reconciliation.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said more than half of the 2,171 people arrested after the biggest anti-government protests in nearly two decades had been released, repeating figures given on state television.

But army trucks remained stationed at Yangon landmarks Sunday, including by the Sule and Shwedagon Pagodas -- rallying points for last month's demonstrations.

The United States has threatened to push for UN sanctions against Myanmar's ruling generals, including an arms embargo, if they refuse to halt their crackdown and to cooperate with Gambari's mediation for national reconciliation.

But any sanctions resolution was likely to face resistance and possibly a veto from China and Russia, who deem the turmoil in the southeast Asian country an internal matter and not a threat to regional or international peace and security.

Last January, China and Russia used a rare double veto to block a US-sponsored draft resolution that would have called on Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual violence by the military.

A Western diplomat said that council experts would try Monday to work out an amended version of the text which would then be submitted to their ambassadors for approval.

Unlike a resolution, a so-called presidential statement requires the consent of all 15 members to be adopted.

The Western sponsors said they expected approval in the coming days.

On Friday, Gambari said that Security Council unity was "key to really getting Myanmar authorities to move along the lines that we all want, which is a peaceful, democratic Myanmar, with full respect for human rights."

He said that all council members agreed the status quo in Myanmar "is unacceptable and unsustainable" and backed his plan to pay a return visit to Myanmar before mid-November, "to keep the momentum."

China, which has close ties with Myanmar and favors constructive engagement with its military regime, has however warned that putting pressure on the junta "would lead to confrontation."

"If the situation in Myanmar takes a worse turn because of external intervention, it will be the people of the country who will bear the brunt," China's UN envoy Wang Guangya said.

Gambari also noted that council members agreed that Myanmar's partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and regional powers such as China, India and Japan have a key role to play in defusing the crisis.

But council members face intense pressure for tougher action from public opinion and human rights groups.

Yvonne Terlingen, head of Amnesty International's UN office, called on the council to agree "a strong statement expressing its deep concern about continuing human rights violations and calling on the Myanmar authorities to take immediate concrete action to protect human rights."

Sun Oct 7, 5:36 PM ET

2007-10-07T16:36:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - Faced with mounting world outrage over violence in Myanmar, the UN Security Council was to meet Monday under pressure to quickly condemn the military regime for crushing pro-democracy protests.

The 15-member body was to weigh a draft statement that would condemn "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" by Myanmar's rulers, urge them to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees as well as all political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The non-binding text, drafted by the United States, Britain and France, was submitted Friday to the full council after members heard a report from UN emissary Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to defuse the crisis.

But despite worldwide protests in support of Myanmar's embattled pro-democracy movement, the draft was likely to be toned down at the request of China, Russia and possibly Indonesia, diplomats said.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's state press on Sunday trumpeted the release of hundreds of monks and demonstrators ahead of the security council's meeting on the junta's crackdown.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said that more than half of the 2,171 people arrested after the biggest anti-government protests in nearly two decades had been released, repeating figures given late Saturday on state TV.

But army trucks remained stationed at Yangon landmarks Sunday, including by the Sule and Shwedagon Pagodas -- rallying points for last month's demonstrations.

The United States has threatened to push for UN sanctions against Myanmar's ruling generals, including an arms embargo, if they refuse to halt their crackdown and to cooperate with Gambari's mediation for national reconciliation.

But any sanctions resolution was likely to face resistance and possibly a veto from China and Russia, who deem the turmoil in the southeast Asian country an internal matter that does not represent a threat to regional or international peace and security.

Last January, China and Russia used a rare double veto to block a US-sponsored draft resolution that would have called on Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual violence by the military.

A Western diplomat said that council experts would try Monday to work out an amended version of the text which would then be submitted to their ambassadors for approval.

Unlike a resolution, a so-called presidential statement requires the consent of all 15 members to be adopted.

The Western sponsors said they expected approval in the coming days.

On Friday, Gambari said that Council unity was "key to really getting Myanmar authorities to move along the lines that we all want, which is a peaceful, democratic Myanmar, with full respect for human rights."

He also said that all council members agreed that the status quo in Myanmar "is unacceptable and unsustainable" and backed his plan to pay a return visit to Myanmar before mid-November "in order to keep the momentum, which we must not allow to slip."

China, which has close ties with Myanmar and favors constructive engagement with its military regime, has however warned that putting pressure on the junta "would lead to confrontation."

China's UN envoy Wang Guangya Friday urged the council to adopt "a prudent and responsible approach."

"If the situation in Myanmar takes a worst turn because of external intervention, it will be the people of the country who will bear the brunt," he said.

Gambari also noted that council members agreed that Myanmar's partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and regional powers such as China, but also India and Japan have a key role to play in defusing the crisis.

But council members face intense pressure for tougher action from public opinion as well as from human rights groups.

Yvonne Terlingen, head of Amnesty International's UN office, called on the council to agree "a strong statement expressing its deep concern about continuing human rights violations and calling on the Myanmar authorities to take immediate concrete action to protect human rights."

Sun Oct 7, 6:34 AM ET

2007-10-07T05:34:00.000-05:00

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military leaders stepped up pressure on monks who spearheaded pro-democracy rallies, saying Sunday that weapons had been seized from Buddhist monasteries and threatening to punish all violators of the law.

The government also announced dozens of new arrests, defying global outrage over its recent violent crackdown on protestors who sought an end to 45 years of military dictatorship.

Security eased in the largest city of Yangon more than a week after soldiers and police opened fire on demonstrators. Some roadblocks were removed and visitors began trickling back to the heavily guarded Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, the starting and finishing points of protests that began in mid-August over a sharp fuel price increase.

The junta says at least 10 people were killed in its Sept. 26-27 crackdown — though independent sources say the toll was likely much higher — and that some 1,000 remain in detention centers.

At least 135 monks are being held, according to The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece of the junta. It said recent raids on monasteries had turned up guns, knives and ammunition, though it was not yet clear to whom they belonged.

"Monks must adhere to the laws of God and the government," the paper wrote. "If they violate those laws, action could be taken against them."

In addition, 78 more people suspected of involvement in the rallies were being questioned by investigators, it said.

Tens of thousands of people turned out for last month's protests, the biggest in nearly two decades against brutal military rule. The junta's bloody crackdown sparked international condemnation — even from its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Malaysia urged the military regime on Sunday to quickly hold unconditional talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, before the world pushes harder for political change.

The comments by Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar followed a warning from the United States that it would push for U.N. sanctions against Myanmar if it fails to move toward democracy.

China and Russia, however, have expressed opposition to any such action and Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win told the U.N. General Assembly last week democracy "cannot be imposed from outside."

The junta's propaganda machine, meanwhile, continued to claim massive rallies across the country, allegedly in support of the government. The paper said demonstrators denounced the recent protests "instigated" by some monks and members of Suu Kyi's party.

Demonstrators waved placards and shouted: "We want peace, we don't want terrorists." It reported four rallies in central and northwestern Myanmar, attended by 7,500, 19,000, 20,000 and 30,000 people.

Such rallies are widely believed to be stage-managed by the government, with every family in the district forced to contribute one or two members.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, killing at least 3,000 people. Suu Kyi's party won elections in 1990, but the generals refused to accept the results.

Sun Oct 7, 5:49 AM ET

2007-10-07T04:49:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's state press on Sunday trumpeted the release of monks and demonstrators ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to discuss how to handle the junta following its crackdown on street protests.

Security Council members -- under pressure to condemn the military regime after 13 people were killed in its drive to end the escalating pro-democracy rallies -- were to meet on Monday to debate a draft statement on Myanmar.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said Sunday that more than half of the 2,171 people arrested after the biggest anti-government protests in nearly two decades has been released, repeating figures given late Saturday on state TV.

The government paper specified that nearly 400 of 533 Buddhist monks detained had been "sent back to their respective monasteries."

Monks led the protests, which at their peak last month attracted 100,000 people to the streets of Yangon, and images of the red-robed clergy bloodied and bruised by security forces shocked many in this deeply Buddhist country.

Army trucks on Sunday remained stationed at Yangon landmarks including the Sule and Shwedagon Pagodas -- rallying points for last month's demonstrations -- but uniformed troops were keeping a low profile on the streets.

The New Light of Myanmar did not mention the UN Security Council, but analysts have said that the regime is trying to make a few token gestures to ward off a harsh Council statement, or possible sanctions.

Myanmar's media last week announced that junta leader Senior General Than Shwe was willing to meet with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but the offer came with heavy conditions attached.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari visited Myanmar last week to express global outrage at the junta's actions, and was allowed to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last 18 years under house arrest at her lakeside villa.

The United States has led global calls for her release and warned Friday that it may push for UN sanctions, including an arms embargo, if the ruling generals pursue a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

After Gambari briefed the UN on Friday, the United States, Britain and France circulated a draft of a non-binding statement condemning Myanmar's government, which is due to be debated Monday.

"The Security Council condemns the violent repression by the government of Myanmar of peaceful demonstrations, including the use of force against religious figures and institutions," the text said.

Efforts to chastise the regime could however be scuppered by Myanmar's allies China and Russia, who may work to get the language in the draft toned down and could veto any attempts to impose sanctions on the junta.

Across the globe on Saturday, activists took to the streets in cities from London to Sydney for a day of protest against Myanmar's bloody crackdown. About 300 people also gathered at the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok on Sunday.

Sun Oct 7, 5:28 AM ET

2007-10-07T04:28:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - Faced with mounting world outrage over violence in Myanmar, the UN Security Council was to meet Monday under pressure to quickly condemn the military regime for crushing pro-democracy protests.

The 15-member body was to weigh a draft statement that would condemn "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" by Myanmar's rulers, urge them to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees as well as all political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The non-binding text, drafted by the United States, Britain and France, was submitted Friday to the full council after members heard a report from UN emissary Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to defuse the crisis.

But despite worldwide protests Saturday in support of Myanmar's embattled pro-democracy movement, the draft was likely to be toned down at the request of China, Russia and possibly Indonesia before it can be adopted by consensus, diplomats said.

The United States has threatened to push for UN sanctions against Myanmar's ruling generals, including an arms embargo, if they refuse to halt their crackdown and to cooperate with Gambari's mediation for national reconciliation.

But any sanctions resolution was likely to face resistance and possibly a veto from China and Russia which both argue that the turmoil in the southeast Asian country is an internal matter that does not represent a threat to regional or international peace and security.

Last January, China and Russia used a rare double veto to block a US-sponsored draft resolution that would have called on Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual violence by the military.

A Western diplomat said that council experts would try Monday to work out an amended version of the text which would then be submitted to their ambassadors for approval.

Unlike a resolution, a so-called presidential statement requires the consent of all 15 members to be adopted.

The Western sponsors said they expected approval in the coming days.

Friday, Gambari said that Council unity was "key to really getting Myanmar authorities to move along the lines that we all want, which is a peaceful, democratic Myanmar, with full respect for human rights."

He also said that all council members agreed that the status quo in Myanmar "is unacceptable and unsustainable" and backed his plan to pay a return visit to Myanmar before mid-November "in order to keep the momentum, which we must not allow to slip."

China, which has close ties with Myanmar and favors constructive engagement with its military regime, has however warned that putting pressure on the junta "would lead to confrontation."

China's UN envoy Wang Guangya Friday urged the council to adopt "a prudent and responsible approach."

"If the situation in Myanmar takes a worst turn because of external intervention, it will be the people of the country who will bear the brunt," he said.

Gambari also noted that council members agreed that Myanmar's partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and regional powers such as China, but also India and Japan have a key role to play in defusing the crisis.

But council members face intense pressure for tougher action from their respective public opinion as well as from human rights groups.

Yvonne Terlingen, head of Amnesty International's UN office, called on the council to agree "a strong statement expressing its deep concern about continuing human rights violations and calling on the Myanmar authorities to take immediate concrete action to protect human rights."

And pressure for a tougher UN response, including sanctions, is likely to grow if Myanmar rulers do not end their repression and start a meaningful dialogue with their opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Sun Oct 7, 3:34 AM ET

2007-10-07T02:34:00.000-05:00

LONDON - Protesters across the world demonstrated against Myanmar's bloody crackdown on dissent Saturday, with thousands gathering in London and smaller actions in Sydney, Stockholm, Bangkok, Paris and elsewhere.

The coordinated displays of public condemnation followed the violent crackdown by Myanmar's junta on thousands of activists in late September. At least 13 people were killed and 2,000 detained in the clampdown.

In Britain, Myanmar's former colonial power, thousands crowded through streets behind saffron-robed Buddhist monks who threw petals into the River Thames.

Police said 3,000 people took part. Organisers put the figure at 10,000.

After stopping at British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Downing Street offices to tie red headbands to the gates, the demonstrators went on to Trafalgar Square to hear MPs, human rights campaigners and Myanmar exiles exhort the United Nations to take action against Yangon's junta.

"Burma is not a human rights emergency of today, last week or last month. It is a human rights emergency that the world has chosen to forget for the last 20 years," said Amnesty International's secretary general Irene Khan.

Brown issued a message of support to the people of Myanmar, telling them: "The world has not forgotten -- and will not forget -- the people of Burma."

In Sydney, hundreds rallied outside the landmark Opera House. Another 1,000 marched through Melbourne, some carrying red banners that read "no more bloodshed."

Other protests took place in Perth, and in Brisbane, where organiser Natasha Lutes said: "This is about getting a message to the people in Burma.

"They've been struggling to get the message out about the atrocities that are happening in Burma, putting their lives on the line. We want them to know the world has been listening and ordinary people everywhere support them."

Dozens also gathered in front of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, shouting "Free Burma" and brandishing pictures of Myanmar's pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Campaigners in India were to hold a candle-lit vigil outside a war memorial in the heart of New Delhi.

In Singapore, a vigil outside the Myanmar embassy involving an opposition political party and members of the Myanmar community entered its seventh day on Saturday.

Amnesty International Korea said some 200 protestors, including immigrant workers from Myanmar, would stage a protest outside the country's embassy in central Seoul on Sunday to press for the release of prisoners of conscience.

In Paris, 200 people gathered at a Buddhist temple where they placed yellow roses at the feet of a giant Buddha statue.

A similarly sized demonstration occurred in Vienna, where participants wore saffron as a sign of solidarity. A union leader, Rudolf Hundstorfer, said "we can fear the worst" for those detained in Myanmar.

Brussels, the Belgian city home to the main institutions of the European Union, saw 400 demonstrators gather.

"We have to know where are the people who have been arrested, and they must be freed -- you are their last hope," one of the organisers told the crowd, which included Belgian MPs.

A union tract calling for a boycott of the French oil group Total for continuing to do business with Myanmar was widely applauded.

In the Netherlands, activists announced they had sabotaged a Total petrol station in Oosterbeek, in the centre of the country, and demanded the oil company's immediate withdrawal from Myanmar.

Some 150 people demonstrated in central Stockholm and held three minutes of silence "out of respect for all those who are suffering in Myanmar," said Fredrik Korn, a spokesman for the Swedish branch of Amnesty International.

In the United States, 100 people gathered in front of Myanmar's Washington embassy and then marched to China's. They bore signs criticising the holding of the Olympics next year in Beijing, in the light of China's reluctance to pressure the Myanmar junta over its repression.

About 100 demonstrators gathered in front of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, carrying "Solidarity with Burma" placards and pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi and demanding an end to violence.

The non-government group Canadian Friends of Burma has been holding almost daily vigils for the country for the past two weeks in Ottawa and scheduled a dozen protest rallies in other Canadian cities for the weekend.

Sun Oct 7, 2:36 AM ET

2007-10-07T01:26:00.000-05:00

YANGON - The Myanmar junta reduced security in Yangon sharply on Sunday, apparently confident it would face no further mass protests against military rule, but the streets remained unusually quiet and arrests continued.

The last barricades were removed from the centre of the former capital around the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas which were the starting and finishing points of protests soldiers crushed by firing into crowds and arresting monks and other demonstrators.

The few people on the streets said they were still fearful and the Internet, through which dramatic images of the protests and sweeping security force actions to end them reached an outraged world, remained cut off.

People on the streets were too scared to talk despite the ruling generals saying for the first time they were willing to talk to detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, albeit on conditions she is unlikely to accept.

Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the lasted junta in 45 years of unbroken military rule in the former Burma, offered direct talks if Suu Kyi abandoned "confrontation" and her support for sanctions and "utter devastation."

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, or NLD, said the offer could open a path to talks about talks.

"It is a significant improvement on the past situation. They have never committed themselves to talking to her," he said.

Myanmar analysts caution against optimism as hopes of change in the past have been dashed so often, punctuated by the army killing 3,000 people in crushing an uprising in 1988, and state-run newspapers said more people had been arrested.

They said on Sunday 78 more people suspected of taking part in mass protests which filled five Yangon city blocks had been picked up for questioning.

They said 1,216 people who took part "unknowingly" had been released in the Yangon area after signing pledges not to participate in protests and 398 of the 533 monks taken in monastery raids around the city had been freed.

There was no word on the numbers of arrests and releases in other cities where thousands of people were reported to have protested against military rule, but Nyan Win said a senior NLD member was arrested in the second city of Mandalay overnight.

SMALL HOPES

Yet, there was a small hope international pressure on the junta to begin talks with the NLD, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 the generals ignored, might be having an impact on a regime that rarely takes notice of the outside world.

U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, told reporters on Friday after briefing the Security Council on his four-day visit to Myanmar he saw a "window of opportunity" for talks between the junta and Suu Kyi, who met Gambari twice.

"From my own conversation, she appears to be very anxious to have a proper dialogue" provided there were no preconditions, Gambari said.

There has been no word from Suu Kyi, 62, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years in detention and is confined to her house in Yangon without a telephone and requiring official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.

But, in what appeared to be another move aimed at deflecting international anger, state television broadcast rare footage of Suu Kyi for the first time in four years on Friday night.

It referred to her respectfully as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a departure from past practice when her father's name, Aung San, was dropped to deny her link to the nation's independence hero.

Britain, France and the United States -- which is pushing for tougher sanctions against the junta -- have circulated a draft statement at the U.N. Security Council that demanded the junta free political detainees and talk to the opposition.

It would have no legal force, but if a strongly worded statement were approved by China, the closest thing the junta has to an ally, it would send a forceful message to the generals.

The junta says 10 people were killed in the crackdown on protests which began with small marches against huge fuel price rises in August and escalated after troops fired over the heads of protesting monks.

Western governments say the toll is likely to be far higher.

Sat Oct 6, 9:38 PM ET

2007-10-06T20:38:00.000-05:00

BANGKOK, Thailand - Myanmar's "saffron revolt" has been crushed by an entrenched junta, but the brutality inflicted on Buddhist monks who braved its guns may be the only thing that could splinter the ranks of its fiercely loyal military.

As Myanmar's prisons fill with monks and other demonstrators and the bloodstains of revolt are expunged from the streets, many in Myanmar fear they might never see the return of democracy.

The Southeast Asian nation formerly named Burma has witnessed British colonial domination, a fleeting era of democracy and 45 years of iron-fisted military rule.

Yet the monks are deeply revered in this mostly Buddhist nation, and imprisoning them upsets the faithful, no matter what their occupation or political bent.

"The crackdown by the military against the monks may be a major element in the destruction of the very military unity they seek. Many may be profoundly disturbed by the actions of their colleagues," says David Steinberg of Georgetown University, an author of several books on Myanmar.

The beating and mass arrests of the monks, who led pro-democracy demonstrations last month across the country, struck at the junta's greatest fear — that factions within its ranks may side with those seeking change.

And that side showed unexpected strength. The world was caught by surprise at the determined, organized and wide-ranging opposition that sprang up in the last two months.

Drawn in by graphic images of the crackdown, governments around the world responded with unprecedented condemnation, some sanctions and calls for neighboring China and India, major trading partners of Myanmar, to use their leverage on the junta.

Given the past record, however, neither outside pressure nor possible talks between the junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are likely to have significant effect on the intransigent leaders.

But the military, in trying to woo a hostile people, has constantly trumpeted an image as Buddhism's protector, building new pagodas, repairing monasteries and offering alms to monks.

"Buddhism has been a critical element in this legitimacy process. But all of a sudden you have delegitimization of a lot of that effort," Steinberg said.

One faithful Buddhist summed up common sentiment after emerging from a pagoda in Yangon last week.

"If the military kill monks, merciful monks, they are not Buddhists, they are savages," the retired teacher said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear.

Others unleashed their hatred of the regime by screaming abuse and even exposing their genitals to soldiers.

"Terror reigns in Rangoon (Yangon) now, but anger is there also and it's not going away," says Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at Australian National University. "The pro-democracy movement sees this as the beginning of the end (of the junta), even if it takes 10 years."

Red-robed monks, university students, labor activists, ordinary people and remnants of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party all took part in the protests.

"A new generation has emerged of people we have never heard of before. Even if this new movement has been suppressed now, it's not been decapitated, so it may rise again," says Donald M. Seekins, a Myanmar expert at Meio University in Japan.

However the movement shapes up, activists may again have to face the army's guns alone.

Experts, including some Chinese academics, say even Beijing has limited influence over the generals, never mind the United Nations.

"China's soft spot would be a boycott of the Olympics next year. That's something they definitely don't want," says Seekins. "I don't see the American team not going to Beijing, but if there is a boycott movement it would be very embarrassing to China."

Chinese security experts tasked with studying risks to the 2008 Beijing Olympics believe chances of a boycott over Myanmar, Darfur, Tibet or other issues are slim because governments and world leaders are resistant to the idea. President Bush, for one, has already accepted the Chinese president's invitation to attend the games.

World pressure on the junta to hold talks with Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, also shows little promise.

Following last week's trip by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Myanmar, the junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said Thursday that he would be willing to meet with Suu Kyi, but only if she stops calling for sanctions.

However, the two already met five years ago and those talks broke down in acrimony.

"I don't believe there is one shred of evidence that they (the junta) are sincere," says Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers University professor who has studied Myanmar for more than half a century. "(Than Shwe) is still the commander and she's expected to come crawling to him on her belly."

Sat Oct 6, 6:01 PM ET

2007-10-06T17:01:00.000-05:00

YANGON - The door to talks between Myanmar's ruling generals and detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to be ajar on Saturday as Western powers pressured the junta to begin a dialogue with the opposition.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, or NLD, who initially rejected the junta's offer of talks as unrealistic, said it could clear the way for discussions about discussions.

"We can say it is a significant improvement on the past situation. They have never committed themselves to talking to her," Nyan Win said.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who outraged the world by sending in soldiers to crush peaceful monk-led demonstrations last week, offered direct talks if Suu Kyi abandoned "confrontation" and her support for sanctions and "utter devastation."

Myanmar analysts caution against optimism as hopes of change in the past have been dashed so often in 45 years of military rule, punctuated by the army killing 3,000 people in crushing an uprising in 1988.

Two years later, the NLD won a landslide election victory that the generals ignored. Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the past 18 years in detention.

A global day of demonstrations against the junta's actions failed to spark in Asia on Saturday, although several thousand people marched through central London waving placards and wearing red headbands to show solidarity with detained monks.

On the way, they dropped petals into the River Thames and tied ribbons and robes to the gates at the entrance of the road to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Downing Street office. Britain is the former colonial power in Myanmar, formerly Burma.

A rally in Tokyo was canceled and one in Bangkok attracted only around 100 people. Dozens of Buddhist monks and women demonstrated outside the Myanmar and Chinese embassies in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

In Australia, 250 mainly Burmese expatriates marched to the Sydney Opera House and 200 protesters gathered in Melbourne.

"We are united in opposition to the military dictatorship in Burma. It's time for the regime to start reconciliation," said Sydney organizer Maung Maung Than.

FOOTAGE OF SUU KYI

U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, speaking to reporters after briefing the Security Council on Friday on his four-day visit to Myanmar, said he saw a "window of opportunity" for talks between the junta and Suu Kyi, who met Gambari twice.

"From my own conversation, she appears to be very anxious to have a proper dialogue" provided there were no preconditions, Gambari said.

There has been no word from Suu Kyi, 62, who is confined to her house in Yangon without a telephone and requires official permission, rarely granted, to receive visitors.

But, in what appeared to another move aimed at deflecting international anger, state television broadcast rare footage of Suu Kyi for the first time in four years on Friday night.

It referred to her respectfully as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a departure from past practice when her father's name, Aung San, was dropped to deny her link to the nation's independence hero.

Official newspapers on Saturday quoted a senior junta official as telling Gambari that "anti-government groups should compromise and adjust their policies."

Britain, France and the United States -- which is pushing for tougher sanctions against the junta -- circulated a draft statement to the U.N. Security Council that demanded the junta free political detainees and talk to the opposition.

A statement has no legal force but if a strongly worded text were approved by China, until now Myanmar's closest ally on the council, it would send a forceful message to the junta.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, said he was hopeful of international action given the strong consensus at the Human Rights Council, where even China and Russia agreed to a condemnatory resolution.

Pinheiro has been denied a visa to visit Myanmar for four years but he said he was still hoping to go and that there were positive signs despite the resistance of China and Russia against Security Council action.

"I can't guarantee that something positive will happen but I think that we are living at a moment where things are moving and perhaps this famous 'international community' will have some effect," he said.

The junta says 10 people were killed in the crackdown but Western governments say the toll is likely far higher.

"We believe there have been many more killings than the regime admit," Britain's Brown said. "And we have very grave concerns about hundreds, possibly thousands, of monks, nuns and others who have simply disappeared."

Brown met a delegation of Myanmar democracy campaigners as part of the global day of protests.

"I want the EU to impose further sanctions on the regime to make it absolutely clear we will not tolerate the abuses that have taken place," he told the delegation.

Sat Oct 6, 4:34 PM ET

2007-10-06T15:34:00.000-05:00

LONDON - Protests against Myanmar's bloody crackdown on dissenters took place in cities around the world Saturday, with thousands demonstrating in London and smaller gatherings held in Sydney, Stockholm, Bangkok, Paris and elsewhere.

The coordinated displays of public condemnation followed the violent crackdown by Myanmar's junta on thousands of activists in late September. At least 13 people were killed and 2,000 detained.

In Britain, Myanmar's former colonial power, thousands crowded through streets behind saffron-robed Buddhist monks who threw petals into the River Thames.

Police said 3,000 people took part. Organisers put the figure at 10,000.

After stopping at British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Downing Street offices to tie red headbands to the gates, the demonstrators went on to Trafalgar Square to hear MPs, human rights campaigners and Myanmar exiles exhort the United Nations to take action against Yangon's junta.

"Burma is not a human rights emergency of today, last week or last month. It is a human rights emergency that the world has chosen to forget for the last 20 years," said Amnesty International's secretary general Irene Khan.

Brown issued a message of support to the people of Myanmar, telling them: "Today is above all about repeating a firm message: the world has not forgotten -- and will not forget -- the people of Burma."

In Sydney, hundreds rallied outside the landmark Opera House. Another 1,000 marched through Melbourne, some carrying red banners that read "no more bloodshed."

Other protests took place in Perth, and in Brisbane, where organiser Natasha Lutes said: "This is about getting a message to the people in Burma.

"They've been struggling to get the message out about the atrocities that are happening in Burma, putting their lives on the line. We want them to know the world has been listening and ordinary people everywhere support them."

Dozens also gathered in front of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, shouting "Free Burma" and brandishing pictures of Myanmar's pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Campaigners in India were to hold a candle-lit vigil outside a war memorial in the heart of New Delhi.

In Singapore, a vigil outside the Myanmar embassy involving an opposition political party and members of the Myanmar community entered its seventh day on Saturday.

Amnesty International Korea said some 200 protestors, including immigrant workers from Myanmar, would stage a protest outside the country's embassy in central Seoul on Sunday to press for the release of prisoners of conscience.

In Paris, 200 people gathered at a Buddhist temple where they placed yellow roses at the feet of a giant Buddha statue.

A similarly sized demonstration occurred in Vienna, with those taking part wearing saffron as a sign of solidarity. A union leader, Rudolf Hundstorfer, said "we can fear the worst" for those detained in Myanmar.

Brussels, the Belgian city home to the main institutions of the European Union, saw 400 demonstrators gather.

"We have to know where are the people who have been arrested, and they must be freed -- you are their last hope," one of the organisers told the crowd, which included Belgian MPs.

A union tract calling for a boycott of the French oil group Total for continuing to do business with Myanmar was widely applauded.

In the Netherlands, activists announced they had sabotaged a Total petrol station in Oosterbeek, in the centre of the country, and demanded the oil company's immediate withdrawal from Myanmar.

Some 150 people demonstrated in central Stockholm and held three minutes of silence "out of respect for all those who are suffering in Myanmar," said Fredrik Korn, a spokesman for the Swedish branch of Amnesty International.

About 100 demonstrators gathered in front of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, carrying "Solidarity with Burma" placards and demanding an end to violence.

The association "Canadian Friends of Burma" has scheduled about a dozen of protest rallies in other Canadian cities for this weekend.

Sat Oct 6, 3:31 PM ET

2007-10-06T14:31:00.000-05:00

LONDON - Several thousand protesters marched through central London on Saturday after a global day of demonstrations against Myanmar's violent suppression of pro-democracy protests failed to take off in Asia.

A rally in Tokyo was cancelled and one in Bangkok attracted only around 100 people. Dozens of Buddhist monks and women demonstrated outside the Myanmar and Chinese embassies in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

In Australia around 250 mainly Burmese expatriates staged a march to the Sydney Opera House and around 200 protesters gathered in Melbourne.

"We are united in opposition to the military dictatorship in Burma. It's time for the regime to start reconciliation," said Sydney organizer Maung Maung Than who called for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners to be freed.

Than said the protests were also aimed at keeping up pressure on the international community to act. "The international response is just getting started, it must get a lot stronger."

One banner at the protest called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, reflecting a view that regional powerhouse China should be exerting more pressure on the junta.

In London, after a delegation met British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, campaigners waving placards and wearing red headbands to show solidarity with detained monks marched to a rally in Trafalgar Square. Police said 3,000 took part in the demonstration, but organizers estimated the turnout at 10,000.

On the way, they dropped petals into the River Thames and tied ribbons and robes to the gates at the entrance of the road to Brown's Downing Street office. Britain is the former colonial power in Myanmar, formerly Burma.

CANCELLED PROTEST

A planned protest in Tokyo was cancelled. Organizers said they were satisfied with a U.N. draft proposal on Myanmar on Friday which condemned repression by the junta and demanded it free political detainees and begin dialogue with the opposition.

In Bangkok, about 100 activists shouted anti-junta slogans and waved placards saying "No More Bloodshed" and "Stop Destroying Freedom" as they marched through the Thai capital.

Boonthan Verawongse of the rights group Amnesty International called on the Thai government to put pressure on Myanmar's generals.

"Without intervention by the Thai government and many Asian countries, the Burmese junta will still be very strong and oppress people in the country," he said.

Myanmar receives most of its export earnings from selling gas to Thailand, which is competing against China, India and others for a slice of the country's abundant gas reserves.

Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbors condemned last week's ruthless crackdown when soldiers opened fire to clear the streets of the capital of up to 100,000 monk-led protesters, but have so far ruled out sanctions.

State media said 10 people were killed in the violence. "We believe there have been many more killings than the regime admit," Brown said in a statement.

Sat Oct 6, 2:38 PM ET

2007-10-06T13:38:00.000-05:00

LONDON - Demonstrators in cities across Europe and Asia joined Saturday in protests against the military junta in Myanmar, where some activists held covert vigils for those killed and arrested in the crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations.

Hoping to send Myanmar's ruling military generals a message that "the world is still watching," rights group Amnesty International organized marches in more than two dozen Asian, European and North American cities.

Some observers predicted the protests would have minimal effect on an inward-looking military elite that has largely ignored world opinion and pressure during its 45 years in power.

There were no visible demonstrations in Myanmar's largest city of Yangon, where bans on gatherings of more than five people are enforced by soldiers, but some in the city and elsewhere in the country prayed in their homes at the suggestion of a Buddhist monk interviewed by Radio Free Asia's Myanmar-language service.

The military has acknowledged detaining hundreds of Buddhist monks — who are revered in the deeply religious nation and spearheaded the mass demonstrations — and the party of the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Saturday that 210 of its members were arrested during the crackdown.

Before demonstrations began in London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for new European Union sanctions against the junta, including a ban on future investment in the country, which is also known as Burma.

"The anger of the world has been expressed about the outrages that have taken place against the people of Burma," Brown said during a televised meeting with Buddhist monks gathered in his 10 Downing St. office.

Myanmar monks scattered flower petals in London's River Thames and led about 3,000 people — some chanting "Burma, Burma, Free, Free" to a rally in Trafalgar Square, where Amnesty International's chief Irene Khan declared, "Burma is not a human rights emergency of today, last week or last month. It is a human rights emergency that the world has chosen to forget for the last 20 years. We will not forget this time round, we will not let the people of Burma down."

The international day of protest began in Melbourne, Australia, where 200 people marched behind a banner demanding "No More Bloodshed." In Sydney, some 200 marchers dressed in colorful clothes to show their support for what some are calling the "saffron revolution" after the Myanmar monks' robes.

In Taipei, hundreds braved a strong typhoon to demand action from the international community. Smaller crowds turned out in Bangkok and Manila. In Malaysia's biggest city, Kuala Lumpur, 300 people attended a candlelight vigil Friday evening.

In Paris, French police blocked several hundred protesters, including monks, from marching on the Chinese Embassy in Paris. The crowd stood in front of the adjacent embassy.

"China has the biggest investments there. Therefore, we would like to go on bended knees and ask them to do something because they are so powerful there," French-British actress Jane Birkin told AP Television News. Birkin has been a leading activist in France against the Myanmar regime.

International condemnation of the junta intensified at the United Nations, with the U.S. warning it would push for U.N. sanctions against Myanmar if it fails to respond to the world's demands for democratic reforms.

But Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win told the U.N. General Assembly last week that democracy "cannot be imposed from outside" and demonstrators at recent pro-government rallies have carried placards saying "Oppose external interference."

"International public opinion is not enough. It hasn't been as effective as we had hoped. There is hope now that (opposition) is stirring inside the country. It must happen from inside the country, with pressure from outside," said Asda Jayanama, a former Thai diplomat active who watches Myanmar.

Demonstrations that began in mid-August over a sharp fuel price increase swelled into Myanmar's largest anti-government protests in 19 years. The government says 10 people were killed in the subsequent crackdown but dissident groups put the death toll at more than 200.

Sat Oct 6, 11:47 AM ET

2007-10-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

Main events in the political history of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma:

• 1824-1886: Britain and Burma fight three wars, and Britain eventually annexes Burma.

• January 1948: Burma wins independence from Britain. Civilian government takes office.

• March 1962: General Ne Win seizes power in a bloodless coup, and the government adopts socialism, leading to economic ruin.

• March 1988: Students battle riot police in the largest city then known as Rangoon, starting a national uprising for democracy in which at least 3,000 are killed by security forces.

• September 1988: Army commander Gen. Saw Maung announces military takeover. Aung San Suu Kyi emerges as pro-democracy leader, forms the National League for Democracy party.

• June 1989: The government renames the country Myanmar and changes the name of capital from Rangoon to Yangon.

• July 1989: Suu Kyi is put under house arrest. She will spend 12 of the next 18 years in detention.

• May 1990: The junta calls general elections. Suu Kyi's party wins landslide victory, but military refuses to hand over power.

• October 1991: Suu Kyi is awarded Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful struggle against the regime.

• July 1992: Gen. Than Shwe takes over as head of the junta.

• November 2005: Government begins moving capital to Naypyitaw, 250 miles north of Yangon.

• Aug. 15, 2007: Government raises fuel prices by as much as 500 percent.

• Aug. 19: Up to 500 people in Yangon stage rare public protest against price increases.

• Sept. 5: Soldiers fire warning shots at monks' protest in Pakokku in the north, reportedly injuring several monks.

• Sept. 22: Up to 10,000 monks protest in the northern city of Mandalay. In Yangon, Suu Kyi greets thousands of monks as they march past her house. It is her first public appearance in more than four years.

• Sept. 24: About 100,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrate in the largest anti-government protests since 1988. Security forces respond with mass arrests and beatings.

• Sept. 27: Security forces fire into crowd of unarmed protesters, igniting international outrage. The government says 10 people are killed, but activists put the death toll far higher.

• Oct 2: U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari meets with Than Shwe during a four-day visit, urging the government to stop its crackdown on protesters. He also meets twice with Suu Kyi.

• Oct. 4: Than Shwe says he is willing to meet Suu Kyi, but sets conditions.

Sat Oct 6, 11:16 AM ET

2007-10-06T10:16:00.000-05:00

LONDON - Thousands of people took to the streets of central London Saturday in a show of solidarity with democracy protesters in Myanmar.

Organisers of the march told AFP that an estimated 10,000 people had turned out, but police said the figure was about 3,000.

Saffron-robed Buddhist monks led off the marchers from the Tate Britain art gallery after throwing petals into the River Thames opposite.

The marchers, many shouting "Burma, Burma, free, free", stopped outside the British prime minister's official residence on Downing Street and tied red headbands similar to those worn by protesters in Myanmar to the gates.

A rally was then held at Trafalgar Square where a number of MPs, human rights campaigners and Myanmar exiles told the crowd there was an urgent need for United Nations action against the military regime.

Monks began the rally with prayers for peace and an end to the violence.

Amnesty International's secretary general Irene Khan said: "Burma is not a human rights emergency of today, last week or last month. It is a human rights emergency that the world has chosen to forget for the last 20 years.

"We will not forget this time round, we will not let the people of Burma down.

"I cannot think of a better way of getting the message across today and in the words of (the imprisoned democracy leader) Aung San Suu Kyi herself who said the worst prison is fear and the real freedom is freedom from fear.

"That is what we want for the people of Burma: freedom from fear."

Refugee Myo Thien, who fled Myanmar in 2003, said she was encouraged by the world's condemnation of the junta's bloody crackdown on the protesters, adding: "We have had good statements but now we need real action."

Similar protests and vigils took place in other cities and around the world.

Earlier, Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave his support to the marchers, pledged an extra one million pounds in emergency aid to Myanmar and vowed to maintain the pressure on the international community to act.

Sat Oct 6, 8:55 AM ET

2007-10-06T07:55:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's junta Saturday tried to cool growing UN pressure over its deadly crackdown on peaceful protests, offering talks with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and relaxing its blockage of the Internet.

But analysts warned that the rare gestures offered by the regime appeared to be token efforts to stave off tougher UN action demanded by the United States and other Western countries.

Faced with the biggest protests against military rule in nearly two decades, Myanmar's government launched a bloody crackdown in late September that left at least 13 dead and more than 2,000 locked up.

Across Asia, activists on Saturday took to the streets in cities from Sydney to Bangkok, kicking off a global day of protest against Myanmar's bloody crackdown on dissent.

Hundreds rallied outside Sydney's iconic Opera House, while in Melbourne 1,000 people marched, some carrying red banners that read "no more bloodshed."

In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a message of support to the people of Myanmar, saying the world was not forgetting them.

"We have not forgotten their courage and dignity, taking to the streets in the face of a brutal regime. We have not forgotten the guns and batons, the arrests and murders which met them," Brown said.

Meanwhile, UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who visited Myanmar to express global outrage at the junta's actions, warned the UN Security Council Friday that the nation's turmoil could have "serious international repercussions."

As Gambari was briefing the Council in New York, state television in Myanmar broadcast images of the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time in at least four years.

The regime also restored some Internet access and announced that it had freed hundreds of detained Buddhist monks who led the protests.

The military, which has ruled this country also known as Burma for 45 years, rarely makes any concessions, but analysts warned the gestures were a bid to ward off tougher international action.

"The regime is trying to cool down international pressure. The junta hopes to defuse pressure as the UN Security Council is likely to take some action against Burma following Gambari's briefing," Thailand-based Myanmar analyst Win Min said.

Junta leader Than Shwe has made a heavily conditioned offer to hold talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, insisting that the Nobel peace prize winner drop her support for sanctions and tell supporters to stop confronting the government.

"It's a mixed signal. It showed Than Shwe at least recognised internal and international calls for dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi," Win Min said.

"But at the same time, the conditions set by the regime were not realistic at all. It looks like the regime really doesn't want to talk to her."

Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest but she remains an international symbol of non-violent struggle against tyranny.

The United States has led global calls for her release and warned Friday that it may push for UN sanctions if the ruling junta kept up a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

After Gambari's briefing, the United States, Britain and France circulated a draft of a non-binding statement condemning Myanmar's government.

"The Security Council condemns the violent repression by the government of Myanmar of peaceful demonstrations, including the use of force against religious figures and institutions," the text said.

Gambari told reporters that there was a consensus among members of the Security Council that the status quo in Myanmar "is unacceptable and unsustainable and probably unrealistic."

He also said Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to be in good spirits when he met her.

"But now I think she wants this to be used as an opportunity to really engage in dialogue with the authorities so that together they can move the country forward," he told CNN.

In Yangon, residents declined to comment on the UN draft statement condemning the junta's actions.

"I don't want to talk about politics. Poor people like me are just trying to survive. Now commodity prices are high, but my salary is still low," said a security guard in his 40s who works at a downtown building.

Myanmar's neighbour China has previously sheltered the generals from action at the United Nations.

China's ambassador to the world body, Wang Guangyam, has warned that pressure for greater democratisation "would only lead to confrontation."

Sat Oct 6, 6:18 AM ET

2007-10-06T05:18:00.000-05:00

LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a message of support to the people of Myanmar Saturday, as activists took to the streets around the world in a show of solidarity with democracy protesters.

"Today is above all about repeating a firm message: the world has not forgotten -- and will not forget -- the people of Burma," he said.

"We have not forgotten their courage and dignity, taking to the streets in the face of a brutal regime. We have not forgotten the guns and batons, the arrests and murders, which met them."

In London, Buddhist monks will lead a march from the Tate Britain art gallery on the banks of the River Thames to a rally in Trafalgar Square, central London.

On the way, they will tie red headbands similar to those worn by protesters in Myanmar to the gates of the prime minister's official residence in Downing Street.

Brown repeated his assertion that many more protesters have been killed in Myanmar than the military regime admits and described attacks on monks in their monasteries as "appalling".

London also has "very grave concerns" about "hundreds, possibly thousands" of monks, nuns and others who have not been seen since a bloody crackdown on dissent began, he said, urging foreign governments to keep up the pressure.

"The demonstrators who have made sacrifices, and the brave citizens and journalists who have risked so much to get images and information to the outside world, deserve no less," he added.

Brown wants tougher European Union sanctions against Myanmar and has thrown his weight behind UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy Ibrahim Gambari in efforts towards political reconciliation and democracy.

He also believes the leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest in the country's biggest city Yangon, should play a central role.

"I salute and share the commitment of those who will send such a powerful message of support to the people of Burma today -- and of condemnation to the regime that seeks to stifle those same Burmese voices," he added.

Sat Oct 6, 3:45 AM ET

2007-10-06T02:45:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - Key UN powers stepped up calls for Myanmar to release political prisoners, after an envoy to the repressive state warned of "serious international repercussions" from the bloody turmoil there.

The United States signaled Friday it may push for UN sanctions if the ruling junta kept up a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, and western UN powers circulated a draft statement condemning its "violent repression."

"It is ... essential for Myanmar's leadership to recognize that what happens inside Myanmar can have serious international repercussions," the world body's special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, said in his first report to UN Security Council since his return Thursday from a visit to Yangon.

"No country can afford to act in isolation from the standards by which all members of the international community are held," he said.

Myanmar's rulers meanwhile broadcast rare footage of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on state television for the first time in at least four years.

They said they had freed hundreds of detained monks, and restored Internet access after a week -- but only during a military-imposed curfew, users reported. The steps appeared aimed at appeasing the international outrage over their crackdown.

Gambari told CNN International after meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi in her Yangon home that she had seemed "encouraged by the fact that the people of Myanmar spoke up."

"But now I think she wants this to be used as an opportunity to really engage in dialogue with the authorities so that together they can move the country forward," he said.

After a closed-door session with Security Council members, Gambari told reporters here Friday that there was a consensus among members that the status quo in the unrest-hit Southeast Asian country "is unacceptable and unsustainable and probably unrealistic."

He also said he was considering a return visit to Myanmar earlier than mid-November, as initially arranged, saying this would be useful "to keep the momentum" generated by his visit earlier this week, which offered "a window of opportunity."

The draft statement circulated late Friday to the council contained an appeal to the ruling generals "to ensure full and unlimited access for Mr. Gambari during his visit."

"The Security Council condemns the violent repression by the government of Myanmar of peaceful demonstrations, including the use of force against religious figures and institutions," said the text, drafted by the United States, Britain and France.

Gambari added that he was awaiting a "concrete" response from the military junta to his call for the release of political prisoners, humanitarian access to those in need, cessation of hostilities against ethnic minorities and for dealing with the underlying cause of discontent.

Taking a more hardline stance, the US ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad told the council Washington was prepared to introduce a sanctions resolution if the military rulers fail to cooperate with Gambari.

The United States has already slapped travel bans on the junta's top leaders and frozen their assets. But there was no indication that the council would consider a sanctions resolution any time soon.

China, which has close ties with Myanmar and favors constructive engagement with its military regime, warned putting pressure on the junta "would lead to confrontation."

China has already opposed past bids for UN sanctions, vetoing a US-sponsored draft resolution in January, along with Russia.

But Myanmar topped the UN agenda again after last week's pro-democracy protests, sparked by a hike in fuel prices, drew more than 100,000 people onto the streets of Yangon, prompting a violent crackdown and more than 2,000 arrests.

Authorities in Myanmar say 13 people were killed in the crackdown on the anti-regime protests, the largest the country has seen in almost 20 years.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed an offer by Myanmar's rulers to meet Aung San Suu Kyi if she drops her call for sanctions against the regime and urged.

The Nobel peace prize laureate, who has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest, is a symbol of the pro-democracy movement. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party said she would consider the offer "in a positive light."

Protests against Myanmar's crackdown and in support of Aung San Suu Kyi were expected to take place around the world Saturday.

In one of the first rallies, hundreds of activists took to the streets in New Zealand. Later demonstrations were planned for Taipei, Delhi, Geneva, London, Lisbon and Ottawa.

Sat Oct 6, 3:12 AM ET

2007-10-06T02:12:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - The U.S. warned it would push for U.N. sanctions against Myanmar if it fails to respond to international demands to move toward democracy. But the country's U.N. ambassador strongly resisted punitive measures, saying it is not a threat to regional security and needs "patience" to promote reconciliation.

The U.S. and its allies on the Security Council — France and Britain — said Friday after being briefed on the U.N. special envoy's four-day trip to Myanmar that they want swift action in response to the government's brutal crackdown on demonstrations last week.

Security Council members met behind closed doors to discuss a possible statement in support of national reconciliation in the country and U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari's efforts, but U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad stressed he was prepared to go further.

"The United States is appalled by the brutal repression that has been carried out by the Burmese regime against its own people," he told the council, using Myanmar's former name.

If the junta doesn't respond to the demands of the international community, he warned, "the U.S. is prepared to introduce a resolution in the Security Council imposing sanctions," citing a possible arms embargo.

But China and Russia remain opposed to council action, saying the situation in Myanmar is an internal affair that does not threaten international peace and security.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya called on the Security Council to exercise restraint and reiterated his country's opposition to pressuring Myanmar through such measures as sanctions.

"Pressure would not serve any purpose and would only lead to confrontation," Wang said. "If the situation in Myanmar takes a worse turn because of external intervention it will be the people of the country who will bear the brunt."

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his government has called on the junta to implement democratic reforms. The Security Council's job, he said, "is to continue lending political support to the efforts of Mr. Gambari."

Myanmar's U.N. ambassador, Kyaw Tint Swe, also urged against Security Council action, saying his country was committed to forging ahead with national reconciliation.

"Patience, time and space is needed," he said. "Despite the recent tragic events, the situation in Myanmar is not, and I repeat not, a threat to either regional or international peace and security. No Security Council action is warranted."

Kyaw Tint Swe said stability had returned to his country and people have been holding peaceful, pro-government rallies "to demonstrate their aversion to recent, provocative demonstrations." Critics say such rallies are shams, filled with people ordered to attend by authorities.

In his speech to the council, Gambari urged Myanmar's military rulers to take steps toward democracy and quickly start talks with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"This is an hour of historic opportunity for Myanmar," Gambari said. "To delay the prospect of a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Myanmar is to deny it to those who deserve it most, the people of Myanmar."

Gambari said he was "cautiously encouraged" that the country's military ruler, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said he would meet with Suu Kyi, with certain conditions. Those include giving up her calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions against it, Myanmar state media said.

Gambari stressed, however, that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for talks without any preconditions to overcome "the high level of mistrust" between Than Shwe and Suu Kyi.

"From my own conversations (with Suu Kyi), she appears to be very anxious to have a proper dialogue — and, of course, a dialogue that the secretary-general has characterized as without preconditions — because that would be the best way to move forward. Just start talking," Gambari told reporters afterward.

Gambari said he has been invited to return to Myanmar in mid-November but may try to go earlier. Ban sent Gambari to Myanmar last week after troops quashed the protests with gunfire and detained hundreds of people. 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.

Myanmar's ambassador said Friday that 2,095 detainees had been released, including 728 monks, and that more releases will follow.

The U.S., Britain and France circulated a draft presidential statement Friday that would welcome Gambari's mission, condem the government's "violent repression" of peaceful demonstrations, and call for the immediate release of all detainees and political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, to promote "genuine reconciliation, dialogue and democratization."

The draft statement, which the council is expected to discuss next week, supports a dialogue between the government and opposition "without conditions."

Myanmar's junta took power in 1988 after crushing the democracy movement led by Suu Kyi. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide election victory. Suu Kyi has been detained for nearly 12 of the last 18 years and is currently under house arrest.

The current protests began Aug. 19 after the government hiked fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. The protests were faltering when Buddhist monks took the lead late last month.

Sat Oct 6, 2:31 AM ET

2007-10-06T01:31:00.000-05:00

SINGAPORE - Any peaceful solution to the situation in Myanmar must include the military, the Association of South East Asian Nations has told a UN meeting.

Current ASEAN chair Singapore told a Security Council meeting Friday excluding the armed forces could result in more instability in Myanmar, where a bloody crackdown on protests last month left at least 13 dead and more than 2,000 locked up.

"It would be a grievous mistake to think that if the State Peace and Development Council (Myanmar's ruling junta) left the scene tomorrow, all would suddenly be well and all problems would automatically be resolved," said Vanu Gopala Menon, Singapore's permanent representative to the United Nations.

Menon said the world must be "pragmatic" in dealing with the reclusive, military-ruled country.

"The military is a key institution in Myanmar that cannot be wished away. Any peaceful solution to the crisis will have to involve all parties, including the military," he said, according to a transcript released by the foreign ministry here.

"If the military is not part of the solution, there will be no solution. If the process is mishandled, it could result in greater instability and more suffering for the Myanmar people."

Despite its spotty human rights record, ASEAN admitted Myanmar in 1997 in the hope of inducing democratic reforms through constructive diplomacy.

Menon said Myanmar was not a homogenous state, noting the presence of various armed ethnic groups opposed to the central government.

"This should not be an excuse for delaying necessary steps forward. But neither do we want a Yugoslavia in Southeast Asia," he cautioned, referring to the civil wars that led to Yugoslavia's break-up in the 1990s.

The UN Security Council met in New York to hear a report by UN special envoy to Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to Myanmar after troops opened fire on protesters last month to suppress a civilian uprising, killing at least 13 people. More than 2,000 were arrested.

The UN is attempting to find a peaceful way to restore democratic rule in Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military in various guises since 1962, when the first military dictator Ne Win seized power in a coup.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of independence hero General Aung San, rose to prominence during a 1988 democracy uprising that was brutally suppressed by the junta, leaving thousands dead.

She helped form the National League for Democracy, but was put under house arrest in 1989, where she has spent 12 of the last 18 years.

Senior General Than Shwe became the junta leader in 1992, and has ruled the country with an iron fist in near-complete isolation.

Menon, Singapore's UN envoy, also said any move to impose additional sanctions must be studied carefully to determine their impact, and urged the world to "avoid falling into the trap of over-simplification" of the situation in Myanmar.

Menon said "it is in everyone's interest to keep Myanmar in the ASEAN family."

ASEAN also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Sat Oct 6, 12:51 AM ET

2007-10-05T23:51:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's junta Saturday tried to cool growing UN pressure over its deadly crackdown on peaceful protests, seeking talks with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and relaxing its blockage of the Internet.

But analysts warned that the rare gestures offered by the regime appeared to be token efforts to stave off tougher UN action demanded by the United States and other western countries.

Faced with the biggest protests against military rule seen in nearly two decades, Myanmar's government launched a bloody crackdown in late September that left at least 13 dead and more than 2,000 locked up.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari made a four-day mission here to express global outrage at the junta's actions, and warned the UN Security Council Friday that the nation's turmoil could have "serious international repercussions."

As he was briefing the Council in New York, state television in Myanmar broadcast images of the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time in at least four years.

The television report referred to her as 'Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,' using a respectful form of address, rather than just her name, as was common in the past.

The regime also restored some Internet access -- but only during a military-imposed curfew -- and announced that it had freed hundreds of detained Buddhist monks who led the protests in Yangon.

The military, which has ruled this country also known as Burma for 45 years, rarely makes any concessions, but analysts warned the gestures were just a bid to ward off tougher international action.

"The regime is trying to cool down international pressure. The junta hopes to defuse pressure as the UN Security Council is likely to take some action against Burma following Gambari's briefing," Thailand-based Myanmar analyst Win Min said.

Junta leader Than Shwe has made a heavily conditioned offer to hold direct talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, but insisted that the Nobel peace prize winner first drop her support for sanctions and tell her supporters to stop confronting the government.

"It's a mixed signal. It showed Than Shwe at least recognized internal and international calls for dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi," Win Min said.

"But at the same time, the conditions set by the regime were not realistic at all. It looks like the regime really doesn't want to talk to her."

Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, has spent most of the last 18 years under house arrest, but she remains an international symbol of non-violent struggle against tyranny.

Protests against Myanmar's crackdown and in support of Aung San Suu Kyi were expected to take place around the world Saturday.

In one of the first rallies, hundreds of activists took to the streets in New Zealand while later demonstrations were planned for Taipei, Delhi, Geneva, London, Lisbon and Ottawa.

The United States has led global calls for her release and warned Friday that it may push for UN sanctions if the ruling junta kept up a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

After Gambari's briefing, the United States, Britain and France circulated a draft of a non-binding statement condemning Myanmar's government.

"The Security Council condemns the violent repression by the government of Myanmar of peaceful demonstrations, including the use of force against religious figures and institutions," the text said.

Gambari told reporters that there was a consensus among members of the Security Council that the status quo in Myanmar "is unacceptable and unsustainable and probably unrealistic."

He also said Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to be in good spirits when he met her.

"But now I think she wants this to be used as an opportunity to really engage in dialogue with the authorities so that together they can move the country forward," he told CNN.

Myanmar's neighbour China has previously sheltered the generals from action at the United Nations.

China's ambassador to the world body, Wang Guangyam, has warned that pressure for greater democratisation "would only lead to confrontation."

Sat Oct 6, 12:05 AM ET

2007-10-05T23:05:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - The chief U.N. envoy to Myanmar urged the country's military rulers on Friday to strive toward democracy and quickly start talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The U.S. warned it will press for sanctions if the junta does not act.

"This is an hour of historic opportunity for Myanmar," Ibrahim Gambari told the U.N. Security Council following his four-day trip to the country after the government's crackdown on peaceful demonstrators and Buddhist monks. "To delay the prospect of a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Myanmar is to deny it to those who deserve it most, the people of Myanmar."

A dozen red-robed monks from Myanmar who now live in the United States sat in the front row of the visitors gallery listening intently.

Gambari said he is "cautiously encouraged" that the country's military ruler, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said he would meet Suu Kyi "although with certain conditions." They include her giving up calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions against it, Myanmar state media said.

Gambari stressed, however, that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for talks without any preconditions to overcome "the high level of mistrust" between Than Shwe and Suu Kyi.

"From my own conversations (with Suu Kyi), she appears to be very anxious to have a proper dialogue," Gambari told reporters afterward.

"The expectation is ... not an open-ended dialogue, but dialogue that (is) targeted to achieving national reconciliation in an all-inclusive manner, a constitution that reflects the will of the majority of the people, and also a government that is responsive to the needs of their own people," he said.

Gambari, who met twice with Suu Kyi and once with Than Shwe during his visit, addressed the council shortly after the secretary-general urged Myanmar's military rulers to "take bold actions toward democratization and respect for human rights."

"I must reiterate that the use of force against peaceful demonstrators is abhorrent and unacceptable," Ban said, calling on the government to release all detainees "without further delay."

Gambari urged Myanmar's leadership "to make the bold choices" to demonstrate its commitment to democracy and national reconciliation.

The U.S., Britain and France circulated a draft presidential statement Friday night welcoming Gambari's mission, condemning the government's "violent repression" of peaceful demonstrations and calling for the immediate release of all detainees and political prisoners, including Suu Kyi, to promote "genuine reconciliation, dialogue and democratization."

The draft statement, which the council is expected to discuss next week, supports a dialogue between the government and opposition "without conditions."

Gambari, who said his mission helped convey the "urgent need" for action to the government, said he has been invited to return in mid-November but may try to go earlier.

The United States threatened to introduce a resolution seeking sanctions, including an arms embargo, against Myanmar if it does not move quickly toward national reconciliation and release thousands of detainees.

But China and Russia remain opposed to council action, saying the situation in Myanmar is an internal affair that does not threaten international peace and security.

Myanmar's U.N. ambassador, Kyaw Tint Swe, also urged the Security Council not to take any action, saying his country was committed to forging ahead with national reconciliation.

"Despite the recent tragic events, the situation in Myanmar is not, and I repeat not, a threat to either regional or international peace and security," the ambassador said. "No Security Council action is warranted."

Kyaw Tint Swe said stability had returned to his country and people have been holding peaceful, pro-government rallies "to demonstrate their aversion to recent, provocative demonstrations." Critics say such rallies are shams, filled with people ordered to attend by authorities.

Myanmar's junta took power in 1988 after crushing the democracy movement led by Suu Kyi. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide election victory. Suu Kyi has been detained for nearly 12 of the last 18 years and is currently under house arrest.

"She looked better this time than last November when I last saw her," Gambari said.

Ban sent Gambari to Myanmar after troops quashed the protests with gunfire last week. 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.

Myanmar's ambassador said Friday that 2,095 detainees had been released, including 728 monks, and that more releases will follow.

Meanwhile, actor Jim Carrey said Friday the international community was sanctioning the Myanmar crackdown by failing to take firm action against the military junta.

At a news conference near U.N. headquarters, Carrey urged the Security Council to pass a resolution authorizing an arms embargo against Myanmar, saying "this is a government that uses its weapons not in self-defense but against its own citizens."

Carrey is one of numerous celebrities who have signed a letter calling on Ban to help win the freedom of Suu Kyi.

Sat Oct 6, 12:00 AM ET

2007-10-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - Key western members of the UN Security Council late Friday circulated a draft statement condemning the "violent repression" by Myanmar's military regime of anti-government protests.

"The Security Council condemns the violent repression by the Government of Myanmar of peaceful demonstrations, including the use of force against religious figures and institutions," said the text drafted by the United States, Britain and France and submitted to other members of the council.

It noted "with concern continuing mass detentions, and calls on the Government of Myanmar to exercise utmost restraint and to cease repressive measures, as an essential first step in de-escalating the situation."

The non-binding statement, which requires consensus by all 15 council members to be adopted, was circulated after the council heard a briefing by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his recent four-day mission to Myanmar.

It is to be discussed by the Security Council at expert level on Monday.

The text welcomed Gambari's mission and his briefing to the council.

It called for "the immediate release of those detained, and ... for those injured to be allowed access to proper medical care, and for a full account to be provided of those jailed, missing, or killed following the recent peaceful demonstrations."

It also urged Myanmar's rulers to release all political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, "in order to permit dialogue with leaders of all political and ethnic groups in support of an inclusive process of genuine reconciliation, dialogue and democratization."

It stressed the need for the ruling junta "to engage without further delay in such a process, with the direct support of the United Nations."

And it underscored the Council's "support for the early return to Myanmar of Mr. Gambari, in order to maintain momentum and maximize the prospects for concrete progress."

Gambari earlier Friday said he now planned to return to Myanmar before mid-November, the time he had earlier arranged.

The draft also contained a council appeal to the ruling generals "to ensure full and unlimited access for Mr. Gambari during his visit."

Fri Oct 5, 11:59 PM ET

2007-10-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta said Friday that hundreds of Buddhist monks were detained during its crackdown on pro-democracy activists and that it was hunting for four more clerics it described as ringleaders of the uprising.

The government insisted that most of the monks had already been freed, with only 109 still in custody, according to an official statement broadcast on state TV.

The junta's treatment of the Buddhist monks — who are revered in this deeply religious nation — is a key issue that could anger soldiers loyal to the military rulers.

Twenty-nine monks were suspected of being protest leaders and 25 of them were already in custody, state media said. It identified the monks still at large as U Kantiya, U Visaitta, U Awbatha and U Parthaka, but did not name their monasteries.

Demonstrations that began in mid-August over a fuel price increase swelled into Myanmar's largest anti-government protests in 19 years, inspired largely by thousands of monks coming out on the streets.

Television images last week showed soldiers shooting into crowds of unarmed protesters — but the government on Friday described the troops' reaction as "systematically controlling" the protesters.

The government says 10 people were killed in the Sept. 26-27 crackdown and 2,100 were detained. But dissident groups put the death toll at more than 200 and the number of detainees at nearly 6,000.

The U.N. special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, said the military government's new willingness to hold talks with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked "an hour of historic opportunity."

"This is a potentially welcome development which calls for maximum flexibility on all sides," Gambari said, briefing the U.N. Security Council about his four-day visit to Myanmar.

On Thursday, Myanmar's military ruler, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said he was prepared to meet with Suu Kyi if she stopped supporting international sanctions against the country.

The United States and the European Union have issued some sanctions against Myanmar's junta, but China and Russia have ruled out any Security Council action.

Diplomats and opposition figures were skeptical that Than Shwe's offer was genuine but expressed hope that the meeting with Suu Kyi would take place. The two have not met since 2002.

Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, flew to the remote capital of Naypyitaw on Friday for a rare meeting with the deputy foreign minister, but U.S. officials said the meeting was not productive.

"What she heard in private was not very different than what we hear from the government in public," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The state media said troops searched 18 monasteries where alleged rogue monks were living. Initially, authorities detained 513 monks, one novice, 167 men and 30 women lay disciples from the monasteries, but most were released, it said.

Only 109 monks and nine other men are still being questioned, it said.

A government official met senior Buddhist monks Friday in Yangon, the country's main city, and asked them to "expose four monks who are at large," the report said.

The visit aimed to show ordinary people that the ruling generals still had high regard for the Buddhist clergy, despite targeting monks in the crackdown.

Older abbots are more closely tied to the junta, while younger monks are seen as more sympathetic to the pro-democracy protesters. Hundreds of monks were sent back to their hometowns this week from monasteries in Yangon. It was not known who ordered them out of the city — the abbots or the government.

Security forces also claimed to have seized nonreligious material from the monasteries, including pornographic videos, literature from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, and headbands with a swastika or a U.S. flag.

The official report also said a body found floating in Pazundaung Creek in eastern Yangon last week was not that of a monk — as claimed by a dissident group — but a man "with a piece of saffron robe tied round his neck."

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based dissident group, said Friday that more than 250 protests have taken place in Myanmar since Aug. 19.

Life in Yangon was slowly returning to normal but security remained tight downtown. A half-dozen military trucks were stationed near the Sule Pagoda, a flash point of the unrest.

The typically busy area around the city's famed Shwedagon Pagoda was eerily quiet, and seven fire engines with water hoses remained parked in the compound.

Elsewhere in the city, schools, classes and stores were all open.

In Geneva, the head of the U.N. telecommunications agency criticized the junta's decision to block access to the Internet during the protests.

"No government has the right to cut off its citizens from cyberspace," said Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union.

Dissidents and foreigners had used the Internet to get word out of the government's brutal crackdown. Internet service was spotty Friday in Yangon.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, killing at least 3,000 people. Suu Kyi's party won elections in 1990 but the junta refused to accept the results.

Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her democracy campaign.

Fri Oct 5, 11:23 PM ET

2007-10-05T22:23:00.001-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - Western powers circulated a draft statement on Myanmar to the U.N. Security Council on Friday that condemned repression by the junta and demanded it free political detainees and begin a dialogue with the opposition.

The draft came hours after a report to the 15-member council on Friday morning by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who warned the Myanmar government of serious consequences of its actions.

Drafted by the United States, Britain and France, the statement said a return to the situation before the past weeks of demonstrations by pro-democracy activists and their forcible suppression by the military government would be unacceptable.

The draft, obtained by Reuters, condemned Myanmar's "violent repression ... of peaceful demonstrations" and called on authorities to "cease repressive measures."

Security Council statements have to be unanimous, so the draft will need to be approved by, among others, China, which has in the past blocked U.N. action against Myanmar.

Diplomats said experts from council member states would discuss the text on Monday, which could lead to changes.

Unlike a resolution, a statement has no legal force. But if a strongly worded text were approved by China, until now Myanmar's closest ally on the council, it would send a forceful message to the junta.

China and the United States clashed over whether the international community should take any action through the U.N. Security Council, with Beijing insisting the crisis was an internal affair.

Gambari, addressing the Security Council after a four-day visit to Myanmar, called for the release of all political prisoners there and voiced concern at reports of continuing government abuses after last week's huge protests.

"Of great concern to the United Nations and the international community are the continuing and disturbing reports of abuses being committed by security and non-uniformed elements, particularly at night during curfew, including raids on private homes, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances," Gambari told the council.

He said the Myanmar government must recognize that its ruthless crackdown on Buddhist monk-led protests that grew to 100,000 strong in Yangon "can have serious international repercussions."

The United States said it would propose sanctions at the 15-member council if Myanmar did not "respond constructively" to international concerns, but success seemed unlikely with veto-wielding China firmly opposed to such action.

In a warning to the world body, Myanmar urged the United Nations to take no action that would harm its "good offices" role in defusing the crisis there.

OPPOSITION DISMISSES OFFER

State television in Myanmar, the former Burma, said the junta was hunting four monks it accused of leading the biggest anti-government protests in nearly 20 years in the main city, Yangon.

MRTV said more than 400 monks and 188 men and women had been freed since they were detained in raids by troops and police on 18 Buddhist monasteries in and around Yangon last week.

The opposition in Yangon dismissed the junta's offer of talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as effectively asking her to abandon the campaign for democracy that has kept her in detention for 12 of the last 18 years.

"They are asking her to confess to offenses that she has not committed," said Nyan Win, spokesman for the Nobel peace laureate's National League for Democracy, 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 Gambari on Tuesday, state-run television said. It said Suu Kyi must abandon "confrontation," give up "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation," a phrase it did not explain.

Nyan Win demanded Suu Kyi be allowed to respond in public.

People who applauded the protest marches could face two to five years in jail, 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 face 20 years, he said.

A leader of the Buddhist monks who have led street protests in Myanmar urged Americans on Friday to press for more international action to pressure the military junta into dialogue with the opposition.

Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location in Myanmar to a public meeting at the Asia Society in New York, the monk identified by organizers as "U Gambira," a name he took as leader of a group calling itself the All Burma Monks Alliance, was quoted as saying, "The military junta is still arresting people at the Buddhist monasteries every night and every day.

Fri Oct 5, 11:23 PM ET

2007-10-05T22:23:00.000-05:00

Fri Oct 5, 6:11 PM ET

2007-10-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK - Actor Jim Carrey urged the U.N. Security Council on Friday to ban all international arms shipments to Myanmar to pressure the country to end its brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters and its detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"This is a government that uses its weapons not in self defense, but against its own citizens," the actor/comedian told a news conference across the street from the United Nations.

"The time has come for the United Nations Security Council to start acting less like a group of corporations and more like united nations," he said, urging China and Russia -- Security Council members that have been resistant to sanctions -- as well as India to back the ban.

Last week, monks led protests of up to 100,000 people in Myanmar's largest city Yangon and elsewhere. The marches were halted by security forces who raided monasteries, imposed curfews, and killed 10 people, by the official count.

Carrey's speech was a precursor to a day of marches and protests planned by the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

He also made an appeal to Than Shwe, head of the latest junta in 45 unbroken years of military rule of the former Burma: "There is nothing to defend if you have lost the faith of your people. It is already over."

Carrey is best known for his comic roles in movies like "Dumb and Dumber" and "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective."

Fri Oct 5, 5:02 PM ET

2007-10-05T16:02:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's military regime Friday broadcast rare footage of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on state television for the first time in at least four years.

The junta also said it had freed hundreds of detained monks, and it restored Internet access after a week, steps that appeared aimed at appeasing world opinion as the generals came under strong attack at the United Nations over their crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.

The TV report showed Aung San Suu Kyi with UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari and said he met the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) twice and held talks with regime leader General Than Shwe during his four-day visit this week.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest, and her image has not appeared in state media since before her last period of detention started in 2003.

The junta has said Than Shwe was ready for a face-to-face meeting with her, provided she first drops her call for sanctions against the country, and an NLD spokesman said she was looking positively at the offer of dialogue.

The TV report -- broadcast as UN members were discussing Myanmar's crackdown on protesters -- referred to her as "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," using a respectful form of address, rather than just her name, as was common in the past.

Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, whose NLD won 1990 elections but was never allowed to govern, continues to symbolise the nation's democratic aspirations.

The regime also admitted that security forces last week raided 18 monasteries and jailed more than 700 people -- part of the more than 2,000 people detained in the sweep -- but said only 109 monks now remain in custody.

Buddhist monks were at the vanguard of the largest anti-regime protests that Myanmar, also known as Burma, has seen in almost 20 years before they were crushed last week, leaving at least 13 people dead.

The state media report said Gambari had told Myanmar "to find a political solution by avoiding a violent crackdown," to pull back troops and end an overnight curfew, and to "start solid steps for the democracy process."

He had also asked that the International Committee for the Red Cross be allowed to meet with the detainees and that all political prisoners be released as soon as possible, state media said in unusually detailed reporting.

Culture Minister Khin Aung Myint, a regime spokesman, had replied that the protests were "not in a democratic way," that the protesters were only detained for investigation, and that "there are no political prisoners in Myanmar."

Myanmar was under the spotlight at the United Nations over the bloody crackdown last week, images of which have horrified the world.

Gambari, in his report to the UN Security Council, warned the generals that their crackdown "can have serious international repercussions."

"No country can afford to act in isolation from the standards by which all members of the international community are held," he said.

After a closed-door session with council members, Gambari told reporters his visit may well have created "a window of opportunity" for progress towards national reconciliation.

Taking a more hardline stance, US ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad told the council that "the people of Burma (Myanmar) must not be let down."

Washington was prepared to introduce a sanctions resolution if Myanmar's military regime failed to cooperate with Gambari, he said.

But envoy Wang Guangya from China, which has close ties with Myanmar and favours constructive engagement with its military regime, warned putting pressure on the junta "would lead to confrontation."

China has already opposed UN sanctions when in January in a rare double move with Russia it vetoed a draft US-sponsored resolution urging Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual violence by the military.

Rights groups have called for a global day of protests on Saturday over the crackdown on peaceful protests demonstrations in Myanmar.

Events are to take place at midday local time, and have already been scheduled in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Britain and the United States.

Fri Oct 5, 3:49 PM ET

2007-10-05T14:49:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. envoy warned Myanmar on Friday of international consequences from its brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters, and detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party dismissed the junta's offer of talks as a surrender demand.

But China and the United States clashed over whether the international community should take any action through the U.N. Security Council, with Beijing insisting the crisis was an internal affair.

Ibrahim Gambari, addressing the Security Council after a four-day visit to Myanmar, called for the release of all political prisoners there and voiced concern at reports of continuing government abuses after last week's huge protests.

"Of great concern to the United Nations and the international community are the continuing and disturbing reports of abuses being committed by security and non-uniformed elements, particularly at night during curfew, including raids on private homes, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances," Gambari told the council.

He said the Myanmar government must recognize that its ruthless crackdown on Buddhist monk-led protests that grew to 100,000 strong in Yangon "can have serious international repercussions."

The United States said it would propose sanctions at the 15-member council if Myanmar did not "respond constructively" to international concerns, but success seemed unlikely with veto-wielding China firmly opposed to such action.

In a warning to the world body, Myanmar urged the United Nations to take no action that would harm its "good offices" role in defusing the crisis there.

The opposition in Yangon dismissed the junta's offer of talks with Suu Kyi as effectively asking her to abandon the campaign for democracy that has kept her in detention for 12 of the last 18 years.

"They are asking her to confess to offenses that she has not committed," said Nyan Win, spokesman for the Nobel peace laureate's National League for Democracy, 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 Gambari on Tuesday, state-run television said. It said Suu Kyi must abandon "confrontation," give up "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation," a phrase it did not explain.

Nyan Win demanded Suu Kyi be allowed to respond in public.

People who applauded the protest marches could face two to five years in jail, 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 face 20 years, he said.

The Norway-based opposition Democratic Voice of Burma quoted relatives as saying about 50 students who demonstrated in Mandalay had been sentenced to five years hard labor.

HIGHER CASUALTIES

Gambari, addressing an open meeting of the Security Council whose audience included around a dozen Buddhist monks in robes, said there were unconfirmed reports that casualties were much higher than the handful reported by the government.

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

Nevertheless, Gambari told reporters he saw a "window of opportunity" in possible talks between the government and Suu Kyi and he hoped to return to Myanmar before a scheduled date of mid-November.

He said a number of points "emerged by real consensus" in the council, including support for his efforts and resolve that Myanmar could not return to the "status quo" prevailing before recent pro-democracy protests.

"We can't go back to the situation before the recent crisis," he said.

Addressing the Council, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for "bold actions" by the military government toward democratization and respect for human rights.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya, however, reiterated Beijing's view that Myanmar posed no threat to international peace and security, a condition for Security Council action. China borders Myanmar and is one of the country's few allies and major trading partners.

Pressure, he said, "will not help address the problem but might lead to mistrust and confrontation."

Myanmar's U.N. Ambassador Kyaw Tint Swe urged the world body not to take action in the Security Council and said many of those detained had now been released.

"To date ... a total of 2,095 people, including 722 monks, have been released," he said. "More releases will follow."

Despite China's opposition, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Washington was prepared to introduce a resolution in the Security Council imposing sanctions.

"We must all be prepared to consider measures such as arms embargoes," Khalilzad told the council.

Western diplomats said they would try to draft a statement next week that the whole council could approve.

In Washington, the United States called on the junta to talk to Suu Kyi without conditions and U.S. charge d'affaires Shari Villarosa went to the new capital, Naypyidaw, to urge it to begin a "meaningful dialogue" with opposition groups.

"It was not a terribly edifying meeting from our perspective," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, adding that Villarosa's meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint produced no breakthroughs.

Fri Oct 5, 3:31 PM ET

2007-10-05T14:31:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - The United States warned Myanmar Friday it would push for UN sanctions against the junta if it fails to cooperate with a UN envoy, despite signs Beijing would again oppose any such move.

"If the Burmese regime does not respond constructively to the demands of the international community in a timely manner, the United States is prepared to introduce a resolution in the Security Council imposing sanctions," US Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the UN Security Council.

All council members must be prepared "to consider measures such as arms embargoes to convince the ruling junta to cooperate with (UN special envoy Ibrahim) Gambari," he said.

"It is time for the council to do more than simply listen to a briefing," the US envoy said.

But China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya countered that putting pressure on Myanmar's military rulers to achieve greater democratization "would only lead to confrontation."

"It is quite understandable for the outside world to express concern or expectations regarding the situation on the ground," he told the 15-member council.

"However pressure would not serve any purpose and would only lead to confrontation, or even the loss of dialogue, between Myanmar and the international community."

Khalilzad insisted "the eyes of the world are focused on Burma" and urged greater efforts to support moves by UN chief Ban Ki-moon "to establish a genuine political dialogue between the regime and all parties to condemn the deplorable repression of peaceful demonstrators and to call on the Burmese regime to release detainees and political prisoners."

Khalilzad was sepaking after Gambari delivered a report on his recent four-day mission to Myanmar to try to defuse the crisis sparked by the military regime's crackdown on anti-government protests.

He urged Gambari to return to the region "as soon as possible" to continue his intensive diplomatic efforts, and called on "all governments with influence with the (Myanmar) regime to support his return and his mission."

In Washington, the State Department said talks on Friday between the top US diplomat in Myanmar and the Southeast Asian nation's junta over the crackdown did not prove productive.

"It was a not a terribly edifying meeting from our perspective," department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

US charge de affairs in Yangon Shari Villarosa met with a deputy foreign minister from the Myanmar military regime in the junta's administrative capital Naypyidaw in the first such high-level talks since the crackdown.

"From the sketchy readout I have of it, what she heard in private wasn't much different than what you hear from the government in public and our views on their interpretation of events is well known," McCormack said.

At least 13 people are reported to have been killed and more than 2,000 people were arrested in the military crackdown on last week's peaceful pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks.

Myanmar Foreign Minister U Nyan Win defended his government's crackdown at the UN General Assembly on Monday, blaming the turmoil on "political opportunists" backed by "powerful countries," which he did not name.

But the US view is that the brutal suppression against peaceful protestors is "disgraceful," McCormack said.

The 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.

McCormack said there was no indication from Friday's meeting of any upcoming meaningful dialogue between the junta and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest.

Fri Oct 5, 3:14 PM ET

2007-10-05T14:14:00.000-05:00

MAE SOT, Thailand - Thet Oo says his military interrogators in Myanmar kicked him in the head until he blacked out, shackled his polio-ridden legs, and then threw him in a tiny, dark cell where he spent much of the next 12 years.

"They treat people like animals," said the 46-year-old, one of dozens of former political prisoners who have fled across the border to Thailand.

He and others recounted this week how they were imprisoned and tortured by Myanmar's military regime for their pro-democracy activities.

Oo was a security guard for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi before she was placed under house arrest in 1989. Her party won national elections the next year, but the junta did not recognize the results and began rounding up her supporters.

Oo was detained and brought before his interrogators, who reeked of alcohol, and was beaten so badly that he lost most of his hearing.

As Myanmar's security forces cracked down on demonstrators last week, former prisoners said they were sickened by televised images of Buddhist monks and students being chased down, bludgeoned with batons and loaded onto police trucks.

"I'm so worried for them," Oo told an Associated Press reporter and television crew traveling through this remote border region in northern Thailand.

Myanmar's military government has repeatedly denied using torture or abusing its prisoners.

A group of political prisoners is collecting evidence, including lists of jailers and torturers, to give to human rights organizations.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, comprised of around 100 former inmates, has already put out one report on torture in Myanmar. It described homosexual rape, electric shocks to the genitals, partial suffocation by water, burning of flesh with hot wax, and being made to stand for hours in tubs of urine and feces.

The government said 10 people were killed and nearly 2,100 arrested in last week's demonstrations, with 700 later released. Diplomats and dissidents say the death toll is likely much higher and up to 6,000 people were seized, including hundreds of monks who led the protests.

Some were brought to Yangon's notorious Insein prison. Witnesses said others were held in university buildings and an old horse track for questioning.

Those who have been released so far have been too frightened to speak out about their treatment. One man detained for five days, however, said he was not allowed to contact his family, had no bed, and did not get enough to eat.

Myanmar's military seized power in 1962, ending an experiment in democracy and leading the resource-rich nation toward isolation and economic ruin. The current junta has been in power since 1988, when it crushed pro-democracy demonstrations.

Myo Myint, who lost a leg, an arm and an eye while fighting as a soldier for the Myanmar government, was arrested in 1989 after he quit the army and switched his loyalty to the pro-democracy movement.

He says his interrogators stripped him naked and tied him with a leather belt to a seesaw, placing him head down for four hours and pouring water in his face as he fell in and out of consciousness. Another time they put a bag over his head and kicked away his crutch.

"I still have nightmares," the 45-year-old says. "I wake up and my whole body is wet with sweat."

Oo Tezaniya, a 42-year-old monk who spent eight years and three months in prison for opposing the government, clenched his hands in the folds of his saffron robe as he told how he was seized in the middle of the night in 1988.

He was brought to an interrogation center, beaten with guns, and then thrown into a dark cell for a month with two other men and no bathroom.

"There was excrement all over the floor," he said.

Tezaniya's heart sank this week when he saw pictures of what dissidents said was a monk's body floating face down in a Yangon river. The junta said in a statement Friday that the body was not of a monk but of a man "with a piece of saffron robe tied round the neck."

"I thought the monks might be arrested and defrocked, but not that the troops would open fire," Tezaniya said sadly. "I'm surprised, even after all I've seen."

___

On the Net:

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners: http://www.aappb.org/

Fri Oct 5, 2:39 PM ET

2007-10-05T13:39:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - Talks between the top US diplomat in Myanmar and the Southeast Asian nation's ruling military junta Friday on last week's violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests were not productive, the State Department said.

"It was a not a terribly edifying meeting from our perspective," department spokesman Sean McCormack said after the talks between the US charge de affairs in Yangon Shari Villarosa and a deputy foreign minister from the Myanmar military regime, held at the junta's administrative capital Naypyidaw.

"From the sketchy readout I have of it, what she heard in private wasn't much different than what you hear from the government in public and our views on their interpretation of events is well known," he said.

It was the first high-level meeting between the two sides since last week's military bloody crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks, with at least 13 people reported killed and more than 2,000 arrested.

Myanmar Foreign Minister U Nyan Win had defended his government's crackdown at the UN General Assembly on Monday, blaming the turmoil on "political opportunists" backed by "powerful countries," which he did not name.

But the US view is that the brutal suppression against peaceful protestors are "disgraceful," McCormack said.

The 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.

McCormack said there was no indication from Friday's meeting of any upcoming meaningful dialogue between the junta and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest.

"Thus far, we haven't seen any indication of that," he said.

Than Shwe reportedly made the offer to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi 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, briefed his boss, UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon later Thursday and would also inform the 15-member UN Security Council of his discussions in Myanmar Friday.

McCormack said the United States would push for a "strong" presidential statement following the Security Council meeting.

"We believe that a strong statement is merited by the actions of the Burmese (Myanmar) government against the people," he said.

The United States on Friday pressed the UN Security Council to send its special envoy back to Myanmar as soon as possible to work with the junta towards "a peaceful transition to democracy."

Fri Oct 5, 1:30 PM ET

2007-10-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

PARIS - French oil group Total has no intention of withdrawing from Myanmar though it will heed President Nicolas Sarkozy's request to freeze future investments, company president Christophe de Margerie said Friday.

"Investing in the country at this stage would be a provocation," he told Le Monde newspaper. "But our investments go back to the 1990s and there have been none since.

"Total will not pull out. Some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) want us to, but others recognise the usefulness of what we are doing," he said.

De Margerie rejected allegations that Total uses forced labour at its gas-field in Yadana. This week the Belgian courts re-opened a case brought by Myanmar refugees alleging human rights abuses.

"Twice already there have been cases before Belgian courts, and twice they have been rejected. I repeat: there is no forced labour at our installations," he said.

Last week Sarkozy urged French businesses including Total to freeze their investments in Myanmar, where the military regime has violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations.

Fri Oct 5, 1:16 pm ET

2007-10-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

Myanmar Internet Shutdown Is Human Rights Abuse: UN Telecom Chief

GENEVA -- The decision by Myanmar's military-led government to block access to the Internet from within the country violated its citizens' right to communicate, the head of the U.N. telecoms agency said Friday.

Secure access to the Internet is a basic human freedom that "needs to be preserved, no matter what," said Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union.

"No government has the right to cut off its citizens from cyberspace," he told reporters in Geneva.

The Myanmar government shut down the country's Internet service providers last month as part of a crackdown on the biggest anti-regime rebellion in nearly two decades.

Dissidents and foreigners had used the Internet to get word of the government's brutal quashing of the protests to the outside world.

The government says 10 people were killed but oppositions groups say up to 200 people died when security forces attacked demonstrators who were largely led by Buddhist monks.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council that Myanmar's military rulers have to "take bold actions towards democratization and respect for human rights," which observers say are regularly abused in the Southeast Asian country.

"What is wrong in the conventional world is wrong in cyberspace as well," Toure said.

Bloggers from at least 45 countries joined forces on Thursday for an online protest against Myanmar's efforts to keep citizens from sending photographs, videos and reports to the outside world.

Fri Oct 5, 12:00 PM ET

2007-10-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party dismissed the Myanmar junta's offer of talks as surreal on Friday, as a U.N. envoy warned of "serious international consequences" from its brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters.

Ibrahim Gambari, addressing the U.N. Security Council after a four-day visit to Myanmar, called for the release of all political prisoners there and voiced concern at reports of continuing government abuses in the wake of last week's protests.

"Of great concern to the United Nations and the international community are the continuing and disturbing reports of abuses being committed by security and non-uniformed elements, particularly at night during curfew, including raids on private homes, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances," Gambari told the Council.

Gambari also said there were unconfirmed reports that the number of casualties was "much higher" than the dozen people reported killed by the government.

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

The Western powers have called for the Security Council to impose sanctions on Myanmar, but veto-holding China is opposed to any action by the 15-member body because the junta's crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners was an internal affair.

Addressing the Council just before Gambari, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for "bold actions" by the military government toward democratization and respect for human rights.

"The use of force against peaceful demonstrators is abhorrent and unacceptable," he said.

Senior General Than Shwe, who caused international outrage by sending in soldiers to crush the peaceful monk-led demonstrations, was asking Suu Kyi to abandon the campaign for democracy that has kept her in detention for 12 of the last 18 years, an opposition 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 Gambari on Tuesday, state-run television said.

It said Suu Kyi must abandon "confrontation," give up "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation," a phrase it did not explain.

"It is very difficult to see how that will be productive because basically he has asked Aung San Suu Kyi publicly to surrender before the meeting takes place," Georgetown University Myanmar expert David Steinberg told Reuters Television.

"You could say it's a psychological ploy and at the same time it's very clear that the military is not making any concessions."

Nyan Win demanded Suu Kyi 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.

People who applauded protest marches could face two to five years in jail, 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 face 20 years, he said.

The Norway-based opposition Democratic Voice of Burma quoted relatives as saying about 50 students who demonstrated in Mandalay had been sentenced to five years hard labor.

ACTION UNLIKELY

The United States called on the junta to talk to Suu Kyi without conditions and U.S. charge d'affaires Shari Villarosa went to the new capital, Naypyidaw, to urge it to begin a "meaningful dialogue" with opposition groups.

A diplomatic source said she was to see Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint, who is not a policymaker.

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, ASEAN's current chairman and a leading investor in Myanmar, said the group 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."

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.

Fri Oct 5, 11:26 AM ET

2007-10-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - The United States said on Friday it would propose a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Myanmar if the government there does not "respond constructively" to international concern about repression of pro-democracy protests.

"If the Burmese government does not take appropriate steps ... the United States is prepared to introduce a resolution in the Security Council imposing sanctions," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told the Security Council.

"We must all be prepared to consider measures such as arms embargoes," Khalilzad said, urging Myanmar's neighbors to exert the maximum pressure in the meantime to get the military government there to cooperate with U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari's efforts to promote dialogue.

Fri Oct 5, 11:25 AM ET

2007-10-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown agreed on Friday to keep up international pressure on Myanmar's rulers, and the White House condemned the crackdown there as "barbaric."

Bush and Brown spoke by video link about "the need for countries around the world to continue to make their views clear to the junta that they need to refrain from violence and move to a peaceful transition to democracy," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

In Myanmar, crowds taunted soldiers and police who barricaded central Yangon to prevent more mass protests against 45 years of military rule and deepening economic hardship in the former Burma.

"The crackdown on peaceful protesters there is quite barbaric," Stanzel told reporters.

State-run television said nine people were killed on Thursday, but Brown told reporters British authorities believed the death toll was "far greater than is being reported."

Brown said Myanmar's government had responded with "oppression and force" to the calls for restraint. "The international community must intensify its efforts," he said in a statement issued before his talks with Bush.

First lady Laura Bush, who has taken an active role in bringing attention to human rights abuses in Myanmar, issued a statement condemning the violence.

"The deplorable acts of violence being perpetrated against Buddhist monks and peaceful Burmese demonstrators shame the military regime," she said.

"The United States stands with the people of Burma. We support their demands for basic human rights: freedom of speech, worship, and assembly," she said. "We cannot, and will not, turn our attention from courageous people who stand up for democracy and justice."

Asked whether Bush and Brown discussed the possibility of encouraging Myanmar's people to overthrow their government if protests grew into a full-scale uprising, Stanzel said: "That would be a hypothetical. ... We certainly support the people who are marching for democracy and peace."

Bush announced tightened sanctions against Myanmar's rulers on Tuesday. Brown said on Friday that Britain was pressing for tougher European Union sanctions.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey on Friday unveiled new sanctions that made more than three dozen additional government and military officials and their families ineligible to receive visas to travel to the United States.

Washington "will add others who bear responsibility for the ongoing attacks on innocent civilians and other human rights abuses," Casey said in a statement.

Jeremy Woodrum of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, an advocacy group based in Washington, said Western countries were "getting it right" by tightening sanctions on Myanmar to put the squeeze on leaders.

The next step was to widen bank account freezes to "target their personal money and make sure they can't bring it in and out of the country," Woodrum said.

Fri Oct 5, 11:07 AM ET

2007-10-05T10:07:00.000-05:00

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari warned Myanmar on Friday of potential serious international repercussions from the political crisis there and urged the ruling junta to release all political prisoners.

Gambari was reporting to the U.N. Security Council on a four-day visit he made to Myanmar sparked by concern over suppression of pro-democracy protests.

He said the international community was concerned about "continuing and disturbing reports of abuses being committed by security and non-uniformed elements, particularly at night during curfew, including raids on private homes, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances."

Gambari also said there were unconfirmed reports that the number of casualties was "much higher" than the dozen people reported killed by authorities.

He said the Myanmar government must recognize that what happened there "can have serious international repercussions." He said it was time for the Myanmar government to make "bold choices" and he urged it to meet as soon as possible with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Security Council dispatched Gambari to Myanmar in hopes of ending a crackdown involving soldiers shooting into crowds and mass arrests that have sparked international outrage.

China, which has a veto in the Security Council, has said the situation in Myanmar is an internal affair and it opposes action by the Security Council.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the Myanmar authorities' use of force on peaceful protesters was "abhorrent and unacceptable."

Addressing the Security Council just before Gambari's report, Ban called for "bold actions" by the military government toward democratization and respect for human rights.

Fri Oct 5, 9:30 AM ET

2007-10-05T08:30:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON - The White House rejected on Friday conditions set by Myanmar's military ruler for meeting detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and urged the junta to talk to the opposition with no strings attached.

Expressing concern about a continuing government crackdown, the White House also called on the U.N. Security Council to send its envoy back to Myanmar as soon as possible to meet Suu Kyi and the junta to work toward a peaceful transition to democracy.

Senior General Than Shwe, who caused international outrage by sending in soldiers to crush peaceful monk-led demonstrations, was asking Suu Kyi to abandon the campaign for democracy that has kept her in detention for 12 of the last 18 years, her party's spokesman said.

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.

It said Suu Kyi must abandon "confrontation," give up "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation," a phrase it did not explain.

Suu Kyi's party dismissed the junta's offer as surreal.

"We would hope that the leaders in Burma, the military junta, would not put conditions on a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters.

"What you saw from the monks who were protesting, their very limited call was for dialogue, and that dialogue should be without conditions. We want to see a transformation towards more freedom and democracy in Burma," he added.

With Gambari reporting to the U.N. Security Council on Friday, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said: "The United States urges the UN Security Council to send Mr. Gambari, at the earliest possible time, back to Burma."

"Reports from Burma that the Internet has been cut off and that innocent Burmese monks and others have been detained, continue to be causes for serious concern and we urge the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council to take these matters seriously and to act," he said.

Fri Oct 5, 7:19 AM ET

2007-10-05T06:19:00.000-05:00

YANGON, Myanmar - The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar sat down for a rare meeting with a representative of the military government Friday, a day after the junta announced a conditional offer to meet with detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Acting Ambassador Shari Villarosa met with Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint in the remote jungle capital of Naypitaw, according to a senior embassy official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Villarosa has been a vocal critic of the junta's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last week. She received word Thursday that she had been asked to meet with the military-led government, the State Department said in Washington. During her visit, she was expected to repeat the U.S. view that the regime must meet with democratic opposition groups and "stop the iron crackdown" on peaceful demonstrators, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.

Hoping to deflect outrage over soldiers gunning down protesters, Myanmar's junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe announced that he was willing to talk with Suu Kyi, the democratic opposition leader — but only if she stops calling for international sanctions.

Than Shwe also insisted that Suu Kyi stop 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 appeared aimed at staving off economic sanctions, thereby 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.

Diplomats and opposition figures were skeptical that the offer was genuine but, nonetheless, expressed hope that the meeting with Suu Kyi — something she has requested for years — would materialize.

Many governments have urged stern U.N. Security Council action against Myanmar, but members China and Russia have ruled out any council action, saying the crisis does not threaten international peace and security.

"This issue does not belong to the Security Council," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said Thursday. "These problems still, we believe, are basically internal."

State media in Myanmar gave new figures Thursday for the number of people arrested during last week's bloody assault by troops. 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.

Life in Yangon was slowly returning to normal but security remained tight in downtown areas where protests were quashed last week. A half dozen military trucks were stationed near the Sule Pagoda, a flash point of the unrest.

The typically busy area around the city's famed Shwedagon Pagoda was eerily quiet, with residents avoiding the area outside the temple where Buddhist monks were beaten by soldiers.

Philippine Ambassador Noel Cabrera described the mood in the country as "quite dark, uncertain and depressed," noting that Myanmar remained cut off from the Internet and strategically placed troops were on standby.

Reaction to Than Shwe's offer of talks was mixed.

Thein Lwin, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's conditions.

Suu Kyi "does not have confrontational attitude, nor does she encourage sanctions," he said. Asked if he was hopeful that she would accept the junta's terms for talks, he replied: "We'll have to wait and see."

Democracy activists living in exile in Thailand were also not very impressed by the offer.

"This is just PR ahead of the Security Council meeting," said Maung Maung, a member of a self-styled Myanmar government in exile in Bangkok.

"If they really want to talk, she needs to be released first so she has freedom of association and freedom of speech to engage in a dialogue," he told reporters.

Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, 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 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.

Fri Oct 5, 4:49 AM ET

2007-10-05T03:49:00.000-05:00

YANGON - Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will consider positively a heavily conditioned offer to meet the junta leader, her party said Friday, as a US envoy headed to meet leaders of the isolated regime.

The ruling generals made the offers of dialogue as the United Nations readied to discuss the violent crackdown on the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in almost 20 years in the country formerly called Burma.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest, is a living symbol of the pro-democracy movement that last week brought up to 100,000 people onto the streets of Yangon.

While the top general, Than Shwe, is known to despise her, Myanmar's state media late Thursday said he was willing to see the Nobel peace prize winner if she ends her support for sanctions against the regime.

Aung San Suu Kyi would consider the offer "in a positive light," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD). "It's up to Daw (Ms) Aung San Suu Kyi to decide," he said.

The regime extended the rare offer of talks as UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared to brief the UN security council on his four-day trip this week to Myanmar, during which he met both the top general and the opposition leader.

The US chief of mission in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, was Friday due to pass on a "very clear message" in her talks with the generals to start "meaningful" dialogue with the opposition, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Villarosa -- whose government has spearheaded global protests against Myanmar -- was invited by the regime to its remote capital Naypyidaw but had received no word on whom she would meet, US officials said.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose NLD won 1990 elections by a landslide but was never allowed to rule, continues to symbolise the nation's democratic aspirations.

Last week, she was briefly allowed to greet some of the country's revered Buddhist monks before the junta came down hard on the protesters, killing at least 13 people and detaining more than 2,000, according to state media.

The rallies had begun with small-scale protests after a massive mid-August hike in fuel prices but swelled into the biggest threat to the hardline regime since student-led demonstrations in 1988, which were put down in a massacre.

Although the security presence on Yangon's streets has eased, soldiers continue to enforce a curfew and raid activists' home overnight, residents say. Many Yangon monasteries are empty, leaving neighbours to wonder if the monks have been arrested, injured or worse.

Amid this week's flurry of international diplomacy, Gambari was due to brief the UN Security Council later Friday on his four-day mission to Myanmar, but China signalled early that it would block efforts to punish Myanmar.

China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya, whose country, along with India, has close ties to Myanmar, said Thursday that Beijing still regarded the crisis there as an internal matter and rejected the idea of punitive measures.

"No internationally imposed solution can help the situation," Wang said.

India, which has been under fire for its low-key reaction, called for Aung San Suu Kyi's release, saying she can "contribute to the emergence of Myanmar as a democratic country."

Thailand's Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and Singapore's Premier Lee Hsien Loong agreed to send some foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to Myanmar next month, a Thai government statement said.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also said he would soon travel to the Southeast Asia region to press for change, while Brazil unveiled plans to send a team of observers.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, called on Myanmar to allow rights monitors to enter the country, pointing to "pretty alarming" signs of abuses.

Fri Oct 5, 4:36 AM ET

2007-10-05T03:36:00.000-05:00

NEW DELHI - India, under fire for its low-key reaction to the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Myanmar, has called for Aung San Suu Kyi to be freed, but is not abandoning the authoritarian regime.

India issued the call concerning the opposition leader at a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the situation in Myanmar, held in Geneva on Tuesday, according to an official statement released Thursday night.

"The government of India believes that the release of Aung San Suu Kyi would be helpful in terms of the process of democratisation and that she can contribute to the emergence of Myanmar as a democratic country," said Swashpawan Singh, India's envoy to the council.

It was the first time since the early 1990s that India has publicly sought the release of the 62-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been under house arrest in Yangon for more than a decade.

Singh in his statement described Myanmar as a "close and friendly neighbour" with whom India shares "links of geography, culture, history and religion."

But he said the recent crackdown led by highly respected Buddhist monks, in which at least 13 people were killed, was a "matter of concern" for New Delhi.

However, he objected to the tough language in the Human Rights Council's resolution, which he said could hamper efforts to engage "the authorities in Myanmar in a constructive manner to facilitate a peaceful outcome."

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

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

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

A foreign ministry official said although New Delhi had refrained from seeking any information about Suu Kyi in public, during private conversations with Myanmarese leaders it always sought information about her "wellbeing."

Earlier this week, under Western pressure to react, India urged Myanmar to launch a probe into the bloody crackdown and speed up the process of political reform.

A group of US senators on Wednesday demanded intense US pressure on China and India to force them to sever ties with Myanmar's junta.

But in a sign that India was unwilling to abandon the regime, Indian envoy Singh said he regretted the wording of the UN resolution, which strongly deplored "the continued violent repression of peaceful demonstrations."

Singh said the resolution's "unhelpful tone does not contribute to effectively pursuing the objective of engaging constructively with the authorities in Myanmar, which is essential to make a difference to the situation on the ground."

India was always in favour of "promotion and protection of human rights through dialogue and cooperation," in a manner that was "non-condemnatory," he added.

C. Uday Bhaskar, former head of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses think-tank, said India's statement showed it would continue with a "nuanced approach towards Myanmar."

India's call for change in Myanmar would not be "very strident," he said, even though "a lot of people are dismayed that India has taken the realpolitik line for a decade... that we have not been able to balance democratic values and security interests."

Thu Oct 4, 11:33 PM ET

2007-10-04T22:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T20:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T19:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T19:06:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T17:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T14:20:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T11:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T08:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T08:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T02:58:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-04T00:37:00.000-05:00

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.

Wed Oct 3, 7:23 PM ET

2007-10-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T16:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T16:33:00.001-05:00

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

2007-10-03T16:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T13:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T12:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T09:12:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T08:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T08:12:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-03T04:27:00.000-05:00

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.

Tue Oct 2, 11:23 PM ET

2007-10-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 11:22 PM ET

2007-10-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"VIOLENT REPRESSION"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 6:19 PM ET

2007-10-02T17:19:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A similar resolution passed the Senate on Monday.

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

Tue Oct 2, 5:09 PM ET

2007-10-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 3:56 PM ET

2007-10-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 2:42 PM ET

2007-10-02T13:42:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 2:03 PM ET

2007-10-02T13:03:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Than Shwe's early years were hardly so glittering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 12:01 PM ET

2007-10-02T11:01:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 10:17 AM ET

2007-10-02T09:17:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 8:33 AM ET

2007-10-02T07:33:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 6:06 AM ET

2007-10-02T05:06:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 4:27 AM ET

2007-10-02T03:27:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 2:58 AM ET

2007-10-02T01:58:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY HOPES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"POLITICAL OPPORTUNISTS"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 1:20 AM ET

2007-10-02T00:20:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue Oct 2, 12:44 AM ET

2007-10-01T23:44:00.000-05:00

YANGON, Myanmar - A U.N. envoy met with Myanmar's military leader Tuesday in a bid to end the country's political crisis, as the junta's foreign minister defended a deadly crackdown on democracy advocates that has provoked global revulsion.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.'s special envoy to Myanmar, met with Senior Gen. Than Shwe in the junta's remote new capital, Naypyitaw, said a foreign diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. No details of the meeting were available.

Security forces lightened their presence in Yangon, the country's main city, which remained quiet after troops and police brutally quelled mass protests last week. Dissident groups say up to 200 protesters were slain, compared to the regime's report of 10 deaths, and 6,000 detained.

Gambari has been in the country since Saturday with the express purpose of seeing Than Shwe about the violence. The leader had avoided him until Tuesday.

Than Shwe doesn't normally bother with the usual diplomatic protocol and is not an easy man to meet with. In previous sparring with the United Nations and other international bodies over human rights abuses, the regime has repeatedly snubbed envoys and ignored diplomatic overtures.

Instead of the meeting Gambari sought Monday, he was sent to a remote northern town for an academic conference on relations between the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, diplomats reported, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The town of Lashio, where the conference was held, is 240 miles north of Naypyitaw, the secure, isolated city carved out of the jungle where Than Shwe moved the capital in 2005.

U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq earlier said Gambari would urge the junta "to cease the repression of peaceful protest, release detainees, and move more credibly and inclusively in the direction of democratic reform, human rights and national reconciliation."

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the U.S. wanted to see Gambari convey a clear message on behalf of the international community "about the need for Burma's leaders to engage in a real and serious political dialogue with all relative parties."

He said that included talking with Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate who has been under house arrest for years. Diplomats say Than Shwe has an intense hatred for her.

Casey also urged China, India and other nations around Myanmar to do more to pressure the junta to change.

In Yangon, soldiers on Monday dismantled roadblocks in the middle of the city and moved to the outskirts, but riot police still checked cars and buses and monitored the streets from helicopters.

Most shops stayed closed and traffic was lighter than usual. After keeping Buddhist monasteries sealed off for several days because of their prominent role in the protests, authorities let some monks go out to collect food donations, but soldiers kept watch on them.

Protests against the government ignited Aug. 19 after it hiked fuel prices, but public anger ballooned into mass demonstrations led by Buddhist monks against 45 years of military dictatorship.

Soldiers responded last week by shooting at unarmed demonstrators. The government says 10 people were killed, but dissident groups say anywhere from several dozen to as many as 200 died in the crackdown.

Opposition groups also say several thousand people were arrested, including many monks who were dragged out of their monasteries and locked up. Many demonstrators were reported held in makeshift prisons at old factories, a race track and universities around Yangon.

It was impossible to independently verify the reports in the tightly controlled nation. Some 70 detainees were released Monday in Yangon, according to Irrawaddy, a Thailand-based news magazine.

Many people who ventured out Monday in Yangon felt the junta had defeated the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations since 1988, when another brutal crackdown killed an estimated 3,000 protesters.

"The people are angry but afraid. Many are poor and struggling in life so they don't join the protests anymore. The monks are weak because they were subjected to attacks," said Theta, a 30-year-old university graduate who drives a taxi and gave only his first name.

He and others who agreed to talk about the protests spoke on condition their identities not be revealed, fearing retaliation by security forces.

"The people are enraged, but they could not do anything because they're facing guns," said a 68-year-old teacher. "I think the protests are over because there is no hope pressing them."

An Asian diplomat said Monday that all the arrested monks had been defrocked — stripped of their highly revered status — and were likely to face long jail terms. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.

The Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, the two main flash points of the unrest in Yangon were reopened Monday, but there were few visitors. A foreign diplomat said a crucial bridge at Hlaingtharyar leading into Yangon was barricaded by troops.

Internet access remained restricted and cell phone service was sporadic for a fourth day. Both conduits were used by dissidents to get information out about the demonstrations until the junta launched its crackdown Wednesday.

Than Shwe, a former postal clerk who began his army career fighting insurgencies by Myanmar's ethnic minorities, has had an iron grip on power since 1992, having ousted or co-opted any challengers within the military.

Not well educated, he rarely makes public appearances, and there is no record of him traveling to a Western country.

Diplomats who have met him say he has a streak of xenophobia common to Myanmar's military and an almost visceral hatred of Suu Kyi, who has become an international symbol of the yearning for democracy in Myanmar.

In 2004, Than Shwe ousted his main rival, Gen. Khin Nyunt, the powerful head of intelligence, who favored some dialogue with Suu Kyi.

He has also been reported to be deeply attached to the predictions of astrologers and views himself as a throwback to the old kings of Burma. Now in declining health at 74, he suffers from hypertension and diabetes.

Tue Oct 2, 12:13 AM ET

2007-10-01T23:13:00.001-05:00

LASHIO, Myanmar - UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari was again kept waiting for a meeting with Myanmar's junta leader Than Shwe on Tuesday, as the regime said it was not to blame for a deadly crackdown on mass street protests.

Gambari, trying to see the reclusive general since the weekend to express international outrage over the bloodshed, was instead brought to a carefully orchestrated public rally in support of the government.

It was his third attempt to meet Than Shwe since arriving at the weekend, after security forces effectively stopped the protests with a crackdown that left at least 13 people dead and hundreds if not thousands behind bars.

Diplomats have warned the death toll could be far higher, as activists struggle to assess the scope of the crackdown and to find hundreds of dissidents, monks and ordinary civilians who were arrested or went missing.

The demonstrations were the biggest in two decades against the junta, which has ruled Myanmar with an iron fist for 45 years and has usually acted quickly to stifle any sign of dissent.

Speaking at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York, Foreign Minister Nyan Win blamed the unrest on political "opportunists" and said the junta was not responsible for the violence.

He said security forces had shown "utmost restraint" in handling the protests, which began as small-scale marches in mid-August but drew 100,000 people into the streets last week after Buddhist monks joined the movement.

"The situation would not have deteriorated had the initial protest of a small group of activists against the rise in fuel prices not been exploited by political opportunists," Nyan Win said.

He said they had been "aided and abetted by some powerful countries" and that the regime had first tried to warn demonstrators by instituting a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

"When protesters ignored their warning, they (security forces) had to take action to restore the situation," he said. "Normalcy has now returned in Myanmar."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon dispatched Gambari, a Nigerian-born diplomat, to underline international concern and attempt to get the regime to ease the crackdown.

Gambari has already been allowed to meet with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as senior officials, but the government has dragged its feet in arranging talks with Than Shwe in the capital, Naypyidaw.

As he waited for a hoped-for meeting on Tuesday, the envoy found himself in the city of Lashio, where Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu escorted him to a pro-government rally with tens of thousands of people in attendance.

Witnesses said many in the crowd were members of local ethnic minority groups who could not understand the speeches given in the majority Myanmar language. Some appeared to be dozing off.

"Myanmar is poised to introduce a new political system that will ensure that the next constitutionally elected government cannot be manipulated by anyone inside or outside the country," one speaker told the crowd.

Gambari stayed for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka was holding talks in Naypyidaw with top military officials over the death of a Japanese journalist killed while covering the protests last week.

Yabunaka demanded the return of a video camera the journalist was carrying at the moment he was shot dead, the foreign ministry said in Tokyo.

The United States on Monday again expressed serious concerns about "continued reports of violence and intimidation" in Myanmar, where protests first erupted in August after a massive hike in fuel prices.

Rights group Amnesty International has urged the UN Security Council to impose an immediate arms embargo on Myanmar as punishment for the brutal crackdown, saying China had been the main source of weapons.