Troops clash with protesting monks

Police in riot gear fired warning shots to disperse more than 100 Buddhist monks who defied the Burmese military government’s ban on public assembly today by trying to penetrate a barricade blocking Rangoon’s famed Shwedagon Pagoda.

The junta had banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a night-time curfew following eight days of anti-government marches led by monks in Rangoon and other areas of the country.