Myanmar under fresh pressure after new US sanctions

Military-run Myanmar was under renewed pressure yesterday after the United States announced a new round of sanctions following the junta's bloody crackdown on dissent here.
US President George W Bush's new penalties targeted the country's military leaders late Friday and also urged China and India, Myanmar's neighbours and main allies, to step up pressure on the military government.
It is the second time in four weeks that the United States has increased sanctions on the junta following the regime's clampdown on protests.
State media in Yangon has yet to speak about the latest US action, while detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), also declined to comment on the move.
However, a Yangon-based diplomat voiced scepticism over the impact of the latest US sanctions designed to pressure the junta into ending its repression of pro-democracy activists.
"The junta leaders may feel nervous because the United States was stepping up pressure very quickly," said the diplomat, who declined to be named.
"But the impact of the latest US sanctions is limited at best. I don't think Myanmar's top leaders still hold vast assets in the United States," he said.
The military government has been under international pressure since it violently put down peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, in Yangon on September 26, killing at least 13 people and detaining some 3,000 people.
In the wake of the violence, the United States ordered a freeze on the assets of 14 top officials, including Myanmar's junta leader General Than Shwe.
On Friday, Washington further tightened sanctions by adding 11 more junta leaders, including 10 government ministers, to the existing list of 14 officials whose US assets have been frozen.
Anti-junta rallies began in August following a massive hike in fuel prices and snowballed into the biggest challenge to the iron-fisted regime in nearly two decades.
The bloody crackdown sparked global outrage against the junta, with the United States and the European Union tightening sanctions, while the United Nations also urged the regime to open talks with Aung San Suu Kyi.
The United States has imposed sanctions due to Myanmar's rights abuses, including the detention of 62-year-old Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past 18 years under house arrest in Yangon.
Aung San Suu Kyi has publicly discouraged foreign investment in Myanmar in a bid to pile pressure on the military, which has ruled the Southeast Asian country since 1962.
But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened by the eagerness of China, India and Thailand to tap Myanmar's rich natural wealth to fuel their own growing economies.