UN: "Strongly deplored" repression by Burmese authorities

It called on the government to desist from further violence and for it to lift all restraints on peaceful political activity.

The 11 point resolution also requested that its special rapporteur, Paulo Pinheiro, be allowed into the country for the first time in four years to report on the human rights situation.

Pinheiro said the special session had sent "an eloquent message to the government of Burma from 58 countries, Council members and observer states.

Asked if he believed the junta would grant him a visa he said: "I think they must allow me to go to the country because there is this powerful message from so many countries in the world saying that we need to have an assessment."

   He said Burma was paying "a high price" for its continued isolation seeing the "revulsion" expressed by states, including its neighbours.

The Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) had called for the expulsion of Burma from the 10-nation organisation.

Pinheiro said he expected nothing less than "the normal etiquette" of "full access" to the prisons, detention centres and prisoners otherwise it would amount to "non-cooperation."

At least ten people had been killed and hundreds more detained in the crackdown by the junta. Pinheiro said people wanted to know exactly how many had died.

 Earlier the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour told the session: "The Myanmar authorities should no longer expect that their self-imposed isolation will shield them from accountability," she said, noting that information technology had allowed the world "unprecedented access" to what had happened.

 The Council President Romanian Ambassador Doru Costea said it had been a "tense day" of negotiations but the lesson learned in the session was that "the time for rhetoric is over, action has to come now." It had been an "important moment" with the Council demonstrating it was able to respond to emergency situations.//dpa