Peter Gabriel urges more Myanmar action

WASHINGTON - Musician Peter Gabriel and Sen. Mitch McConnell joined forces Tuesday in demanding stronger action by the United Nations against atrocities they say are being committed in Myanmar. McConnell, a leading Republican, said that misrule by the junta that governs Myanmar, also called Burma, "threatens the entire region, and the world community needs to get a lot more concerned than it has been." Gabriel praised U.S. sanctions against Myanmar's military regime and emergency relief efforts to help thousands of Burmese displaced inside their country.

These efforts, he said, "make the U.S. one of the few countries in the world willing to step up to this challenge." McConnell said that a rare U.N. Security Council briefing last year on the political and social deterioration in Myanmar is "not nearly enough, but at least it's a start." Gabriel and McConnell want the United Nations to pass a binding resolution demanding change in Myanmar, where the generals have kept pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in detention for 10 of the last 16 years. She is among some 1,100 political prisoners.