yanmar's pro-democracy protests, with video footage sometimes transmitted one frame at a time. Reporters Without Borders said the junta has cut some cell phone service. On the other side of the world in Oslo, a shoestring radio and television network called the Democratic Voice of Burma has been at the forefront of receiving and broadcasting such cyber dispatches by satellite TV and shortwave radio.
Chief editor Aye Chan Naing said the station, founded in 1992 by exiled Myanmar students, is able to pass on nearly real-time images and information about anti-government protests - unlike in 1988, when a similar uprising was shut down in a bloodbath that left more than 3,000 dead.
On Wednesday, the military opened fire after a month of mostly peaceful demonstrations by tens of thousands led by Buddhist monks, and the government confirmed at least one demonstrator killed and three wounded. Activists reported the death toll was five.
This time, the world has been watching through television and still images smuggled out of Myanmar over the Internet - sometimes, Naing said, one frame at a time. Dramatic images arrive via e-mails to exiled activists and via mobile phone calls to journalists outside the country, also known as Burma. Hundreds of images are simply posted on the Internet for anyone to see.
Those inside Myanmar receive information about the protests on shortwave radio broadcasts.
"This time, compared to 1988, there are lots of new technologies to get the news out of Burma ... People are able to take pictures, videos to evidence what is going on. It is quite amazing for Burma, which is a very poor country," said Vincent Brossel, director of the Asia desk for Reporters Without Borders. "Technology is the most useful weapon you can use in such types of pacifist struggles."
Aung Zaw, editor of the independent Irrawaddy Magazine in Thailand, said that in 1988, "it took days, sometimes weeks, even months" to get images out. "Now, it's so fast."
"The world doesn't know where Burma is. Now they see images about the situation and want to know more. That's a huge difference from 1988," he said.
