Troops return to street of Burma

Troops are back on the streets of Burma in a bid to prevent pro-democracy demonstrations flaring up again.

Key Buddhist religious sites have been surrounded in the former capital Rangoon on the last day of the Buddhist version of Lent.

Security is tight at the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma's holiest shrine and the rallying point of dissident monks who started their protest marches exactly one month ago.

Armed police are also out in force at Sule Pagoda where the marches against deepening poverty and 45 years of military rule came to an end.

There are no barricades but police have coils of barbed-wire at the ready to seal off the streets, a tactic used when soldiers were sent in last month to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators.

State media said ten people were killed in last month's crackdown, although Western governments say the real toll is likely to be far higher.

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