Posted: 2007-09-25 11:57:21

NEW YORK, Sept. 25 (Kyodo) – (EDS: INCORPORATING EARLIER RELATED STORIES)

U.S. President George W. Bush  on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions on the military regime in Myanmar  to promote democracy in the Southeast Asian country.

“The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers,” he said in an annual speech before the U.N. General Assembly. “We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights.”

Bush made the announcement after as many as 80,000 Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens continued an eighth consecutive day of protest Tuesday in Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon.

Bush accused the government of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, of imposing a “19-year reign of fear” that denies basic freedoms of speech, assembly and worship. He said the new sanctions are meant to “help bring peaceful change to Burma.”

Demonstrations started in Myanmar last month as activists and opposition members led by well-known student leaders took to the streets to protest soaring fuel prices.

Myanmar’s junta has said the protests are being held on the pretext of anger over the fuel prices but are actually designed to create public outrage so as to incite a mass protest like the one in 1988, when the military crushed a pro-democracy uprising.

Bush also urged other countries to support the struggle for democracy in Afghanistan , Iran  and Lebanon, saying, “Every civilized nation also has a responsibility to stand up for the people suffering under dictatorship.”

“In Belarus, North Korea , Syria  and Iran, brutal regimes deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of the United Nations,” he added.

Also in his speech, Bush said the U.N. Security Council must be reformed by expanding its membership. He singled out Japan as a country that is “well-qualified” to become a permanent member of the powerful U.N. body.

“We believe that Japan is well-qualified for permanent membership on the Security Council and that other nations should be considered as well,” he said.

Since the inception of the United Nations in 1945, the 15-member Security Council has been dominated by five veto-bearing permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

“The United States will listen to all good ideas and we will support changes to the Security Council as part of broader U.N. reform,” Bush said, alluding to the actual difficulties of expanding the council.