Junta shows Suu Kyi on TV

Rangoon - The Burmese junta claimed it had freed hundreds of detained monks, but said it was hunting for four Buddhist clerics it described as ringleaders of the uprising.

The military rulers restored Internet access after a week, one of a number of steps that appeared aimed at appeasing world opinion as the United Nations debated the crisis.

The dictatorship also ordered its tightly controlled media on Friday to broadcast rare footage of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on state television for the first time in at least four years.

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

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

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 the 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.

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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 the country 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 Burma "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 Burma.

In New York, Burma was under the spotlight at the United Nations over its bloody crackdown last week, images of which have horrified the world.

At least 13 people were killed when troops opened fire at the peaceful demonstrators, but most observers believe the true death toll is far higher.

Gambari, addressing the world body, warned the generals that their crackdown on anti-government protests "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," said Gambari.

US ambassador the UN Zalmay Khalilzad warned: "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."

The State Department, meanwhile, said a meeting earlier Friday between the top US diplomat in Burma and the junta was "not a terribly edifying meeting from our perspective."

UN ambassador Wang Guangya of China - a major trade partner and arms supplier of Burma - said that putting pressure on the military rulers to achieve greater democratisation "would only 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 the Burmese rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual violence by the military. (Agencies)