http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...6960&ch=222562
Sporadic marches against fuel price hikes have swelled over the past month into mass demonstrations against 45 years of military rule in the former Burma.
It is the worst unrest to hit the poor and isolated Southeast Asian country since the rebellion by students and monks in 1988.
Troops dispersing crowds on Thursday chased fleeing people, beating anybody they could catch, witnesses said.
Another Buddhist monk -- adding to the five reported killed Wednesday -- was killed during the midnight raids on monasteries, witnesses said.
Monks were kicked and beaten as soldiers rounded them up and shoved them onto trucks.
"Doors of the monasteries were broken, things were ransacked and taken away," a witness said. "It's like a living hell seeing the monasteries raided and the monks treated cruelly."
After darkness fell and curfew hour loomed, sporadic bursts of automatic rifle fire echoed over Yangon, a city of 5 million people.
The junta told diplomats summoned to its new jungle capital, Naypyidaw, "the government was committed to showing restraint in its response to the provocations," one of those present said.
In a sign that the junta may be hearing the international outcry over its clampdown, Myanmar's rulers later in the day agreed to receive a U.N. envoy to discuss the crisis.
The United States announced sanctions against senior government figures and sought to rally the international community against Myanmar, focusing diplomacy on China.
"I call on all nations that have influence with the regime ... to tell the Burmese junta to cease using force on its own people who are peacefully expressing their desire for change," Bush said in a statement.
Bush met Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and asked Beijing "to help bring a peaceful transition to democracy in Burma," the White House said.
China is a key trading partner and arms supplier to Myanmar and is seen as the linchpin for any international effort to defuse the situation.
China has said it is "extremely concerned" about the situation in Myanmar and has urged all parties to "maintain restraint," but has not given any sign it is willing to go further in pressuring the government there.
ASEAN ministers, meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, "expressed their revulsion to Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win over reports that the demonstrations in Myanmar are being suppressed by violent force."
All members except Myanmar issued the statement. The 10-member diplomatic and trade group holds as a core principle noninterference in each other's internal affairs.
ASEAN made no mention of punitive measures against the military government that has ruled Myanmar in various forms since 1962.
