Burma

Burma’s military regime launched a violent crackdown on anti-government protests this week. One person was shot dead on Wednesday and five others hospitalised with gunshot wounds.
In a separate incident at least 17 Burmese monks were injured when security forces baton-charged protesters near the shrine.
The clashes are centered on the Shwedagon Pagoda, the country’s holiest shrine and the starting point of protest marches, which have brought Rangoon to a standstill for nine successive days.
The protests have seen crowds of up to 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks and nuns, calling for an end to the ‘evil dictatorship’. The rallies began last month when the government doubled fuel prices.

Zaire/DR Congo

FOUR THOUSAND people have arrived in the past several days at a UN camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says. They join more than 300,000 people in the area  who have fled this year.
Many of those at the Bulengo site have fled troops of rebel Congolese General Laurent Nkunda, who are accused of looting and abducting children. Ethnic tension following the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda lies at the heart of the fighting.

Iraq & Blackwater

BLACKWATER, the US private military company providing security for US diplomats in Iraq, has denied as “baseless” allegations that it has been involved in smuggling weapons that could have been used by a group labelled as terrorist by the US.
Blackwater security staff escorting US diplomats in Baghdad on Sunday, 16 September, have been blamed by Iraqi officials for panicking and opening fire on Iraqi civilians after a bomb exploded some distance away. Eleven men, women and children were killed by Blackwater personnel.
The North Carolina-based company said its employees acted in self-defence. Iraqi police have refuted this and said the Blackwater convoy was not under threat or in any danger at the time.
Blackwater subsequently had its licence to operate in Iraq withdrawn by the Iraqi authorities but has now resumed ‘limited operations’.