Myanmar crowds taunt troops
YANGON (Reuters) - Crowds taunted and cursed security forces that barricaded central Yangon on Friday to try to prevent more mass protests against Myanmar's 45 years of military rule and deepening economic hardship.
Potentially deadly games of cat and mouse went on for hours around the barbed-wire barriers in a city terrified of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in crushing an uprising in the former Burma.
The junta faced a torrent of international condemnation but usually ignores outside pressure and appeared to have cut off access to the Internet, through which much of the news about their crackdown reached the rest of the world.
In one small concession, it agreed to admit U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, of Nigeria, who was expected to arrive on Saturday. Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yong-Boon Yeo said he believed Myanmar's government would "be restrained in what it does" during Gambari's visit.
"If he fails, then the situation can become quite dreadful," Yeo said. "He's the best hope we have. He is trusted on both sides."
Few Buddhist monks were among the crowds on Friday, unlike in previous days, after soldiers ransacked 10 monasteries on Thursday and carted off hundreds inside.
When the troops charged, the protesters vanished into narrow side streets, only to emerge elsewhere to renew their abuse until an overnight curfew took effect.
"F--- you, army. We only want democracy," some yelled in English. "May the people who beat monks be struck down by lightning," others chanted in Burmese.
Far fewer protesters turned out in Yangon than earlier in the week, when they had marched alongside thousands of maroon-robed monks.
Shots were fired on Friday but there was no word of more casualties a day after troops swept through central Yangon. Security forces fired on several crowds on Thursday and state-run television said nine people were killed.
"I am afraid we believe the loss of life is far greater than is being reported," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday after talking by telephone with U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
By Aung Hla Tun
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New Bin Laden Tape
CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden appeared for the first time in three years in a video Friday released ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, telling Americans they should convert to Islam if they want the war in Iraq to end.
American officials said the U.S. government had obtained a copy even though the video had not been posted yet by al-Qaida — and intelligence agencies were studying the video to determine whether it was authentic and looking for clues about bin Laden's health.
The 30-minute video was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages, and provided to the Associated Press.
The footage gives a rare look at the al-Qaida leader, who has likely avoided appearing in videos as a security measure. His emergence comes at a time when terrorism experts believe his terror network is regrouping in the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region — and it underlines the U.S. failure to catch him.
In the video, a short excerpt of which was broadcast to the Arab world by Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden wears a white robe, a white circular cap and a beige cloak seated behind a table while reading an address to the American people from papers in front of him.
The video appeared to have been recently made. At one point, bin Laden mentions that "several days ago" Japan marked the 62nd anniversary of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He also refers to the Democratic Party's congressional victory in last fall's election and to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May.
He also shows a grasp of current events, dropping mentions of global warming and saying Americans are "reeling under the burdens" of a mortgage crisis.
And he praises author Noam Chomsky, an early critic of the Iraq war, as well as Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, who has said poor U.S. leadership was losing the war against terrorist groups.
Bin Laden "knows Bush has low approval ratings, knows the significance of a growing awareness of global warming," said Thomas Sanderson, deputy director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "He's trying to capitalize on what he sees as a shift back to the middle in American politics."
Al-Qaida annually uses the anniversary of the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as a propaganda opportunity, issuing videotapes to rally supporters and mock the United States.
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