STUDENTS DIE IN GUINEA UNREST!

Guinea unrest after students die.

The students are angry that the strike has suspended their examsClashes have continued in Guinea a day after security forces shot and killed about 10 student protesters. Police again fired teargas at hundreds of people manning barricades and burning tyres in the capital, Conakry. Sporadic gunfire could also be heard but eyewitnesses say police appeared to be firing above protesters' heads. The students are angered at a strike which has led to the suspension of their exams; the government says they were manipulated by the opposition. Government spokesman Moussa Solano said the authorities regretted Monday's deaths, but blamed opposition parties for "orchestrating and manipulating" the protests, AFP news agency reports.

The BBC's Alhassan Sillah in Conakry says BBC says four people died there and three more in the northern town of Labe on Monday. "Soldiers opened fire on a group of students who were marching on the governor's residence. Two people died there and a third student was killed at the Oumar Drame primary school," a witness of the violence in Nzerekore 970 km (600 miles) south-east of Conakry told Reuters news agency.

In Conakry on Monday, the students ransacked local education centres and set up barricades using school desks, chairs and tyres. The teachers' action is part of a nationwide general strike which began last Thursday in protest at fuel and food price rises. Nearly 100,000 students were due to sit their baccalaureate pre-university exams at the beginning of the week.

Unions began the industrial action in protest at massive increases in the price of fuel and other basic goods. Police in Conakry said the protesters had attacked market traders who had broken the strike on Monday. But our correspondent says most traders had resumed business on Tuesday with only a handful of shops still closed. Government offices, banks and Guinea's two main hospitals are all still observing the strike.

BBC NEWS REPORT.