Military-ruled Burma is heading towards a humanitarian crisis, while its authoritarian rulers jail political dissidents and deny its citizens basic human rights, a top United Nations official told the Security Council in its first briefing on conditions in the south-east Asian country.

Ibrahim Gambari, the UN political chief, told Security Council members on Friday that Burma, which the junta calls Myanmar, had made no significant progress towards political reforms over the last decade. "The people of Myanmar continue to have many of their essential rights and calls for democratic reform denied," he said.