Burma repeats the revolt of '88 - the outcome is unlikely to be any happier

Then, in one dreadful moment, the Japanese video journalist took a bullet in the chest – almost certainly from the gun of a Burmese soldier.

We cannot be certain of the exact circumstances in which Mr Nagai died, but a series of pictures appears to suggest he was callously gunned down, a victim of the repressive junta who are almost as keen to quell the worldwide media coverage of the protests as they are to quell the protests themselves. Burmese state television has been running news bulletins accusing global broadcasters of pumping out a "Skyful of lies".

It fell to Mr Nagai's father to identify his son, who was working for the Japanese news agency APF News, from photos and videos taken in the street where he was killed. Japan has lodged a protest with the Burmese authorities. Mr Nagai was one of at least nine people known to have been killed in Rangoon yesterday. There may have been more. It seems unlikely that they will have been the last.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry told The Associated Press it had been informed that several people, including a Japanese man, were found dead at the site of the protests. The information was transmitted by Burma's Foreign Ministry to the Japanese Embassy in Rangoon. More than 600 Japanese are in Burma, the ministry said.

According to Japan's public broadcaster NHK, several people were hit by stray bullets fired by soldiers, and one of them - a person who appeared to be a photographer - was carrying a Japanese passport.

Meanwhile, witnesses told The Associated Press that five men were arrested and severely beaten after soldiers fired into a crowd on the east side of downtown Rangoon. The shooting happened after several thousand protesters ignored an order from security forces to disband.

In other parts of the city, thousands of protesters ran through the streets after warning shots were fired into crowds that had swollen to 70,000. Bloody sandals were left lying in the road.

Protesters shouted at the soldiers, angry about early morning raids by security forces on Buddhist monasteries. Soldiers reportedly beat up and arrested more than 100 monks, who have spearheaded the largest challenge to the junta since a pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed in 1988.

"Give us freedom, give us freedom!" some demonstrators shouted at the soldiers, who by mid-afternoon had fanned out across the streets of Rangoon, the country's largest city.

The government said one man was killed in Rangoon on Wednesday when police opened fire during the ninth consecutive day of demonstrations, but dissidents outside Burma reported receiving news of up to eight deaths.

At least 10 people have been killed in two days of violence in the country's largest cities, including a Japanese cameraman who was shot when soldiers with automatic rifles fired into crowds demanding an end to 45 years of military rule.

Exile groups say the toll could be much higher.

Daily demonstrations by tens of thousands have grown into the stiffest challenge to the ruling military junta in two decades, a crisis that began on August 19 with rallies against a fuel price increase, then escalated dramatically when monks began joining the protests.

Hundreds of people have been arrested, taken away in trucks at night or pummelled with batons, witnesses and diplomats said, with the junta ignoring international appeals for restraint.

The US imposed new sanctions on a dozen senior Burmese officials, including the junta's two top generals, and again urged China as Burma's main economic and political ally to use its influence to prevent further bloodshed.

Southeast Asian nations also expressed their "revulsion" and told the junta "to exercise utmost restraint and seek a political solution," with pro-democracy demonstrations held or planned in several cities across the region.

But by Burmese standards, the crackdown has so far been muted, in part because the regime knows that killing monks, who are highly revered in the deeply Buddhist nation, could trigger a maelstrom of fury.