A man was shot dead after security forces in strife-torn western Myanmar opened fire as unrest broke out in a camp for displaced Muslims, authorities said Friday.

Police were called to a displacement camp near the Rakhine state capital Sittwe on Wednesday, as a group of inhabitants attempted to attack two local brothers, aged 13 and 21, who they accused of theft.

China's increasing assertiveness in maritime disputes was at the heart of Southeast Asian regional talks Friday as diplomats began a series of meetings also expected to highlight concerns over host Myanmar's reform progress.

Myanmar President Thein Sein began the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign minister meetings with a plea for the regional bloc to strengthen its ability to push for "peaceful settlement of disputes and differences".

Myanmar's opposition said on Wednesday almost five million people had signed a petition seen as a step towards ending a constitutional ban on veteran activist Aung San Suu Kyi running for president.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) hailed the petition, publicized in rallies across the country as part of its efforts to amend the country's charter, which was drafted by the former junta.

Top U.S. diplomat John Kerry will travel to Myanmar, Australia and the Solomon Islands later this month, the State Department said Saturday.

The August 8 to 13 trip will kick off in the Myanmar capital of Naypyitaw on August 9 where Kerry will meet government leaders and attend a series of gatherings, including the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit ministerial.

Myanmar's army has freed 91 children and young people from its armed forces, the United Nations said on Friday, in the country's latest move towards ending the use of child soldiers.

The reformist government of the formerly junta-run nation committed to ending the recruitment and use of children in its "tatmadaw" army in a June 2012 pact with the U.N.

Myanmar's plans for the future of a western region torn apart by Buddhist-Muslim unrest could result in "permanent segregation" of the two religious groups, a U.N. expert warned Saturday.

The United Nations' human rights envoy to the country, Yanghee Lee, said there was a "deplorable" situation in displacement camps in Rakhine state, where deadly clashes two years ago have left some 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims.

Bangladesh said Thursday it has barred official marriages between its nationals and Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya refugees, whom it claims are attempting to wed to gain citizenship.

Law minister Syed Anisul Haque said he has ordered marriage registrars not to officiate any unions between Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas and also between Rohingyas themselves, thousands of whom have fled to Bangladesh.

A Myanmar court on Thursday sentenced five journalists to a decade in prison with hard labor over a newspaper report alleging that a military facility was producing chemical weapons, their lawyer said.

The reporters for the Unity Weekly News were jailed by a court in central Magway region under the former junta-run country's official secrets act, amid concerns that Myanmar is backsliding on press freedoms.

The Dalai Lama Sunday reiterated his plea to Buddhists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka to halt violence against Muslims, in a speech to tens of thousands of devotees to mark his 79th birthday.

In front of the massive crowd that included Hollywood film star Richard Gere in northern India, the Dalai Lama said the violence in both Buddhist-majority countries targeting religious minority Muslims was unacceptable.

Muslims in Myanmar's second-largest city accused police on Saturday of standing by as a Buddhist mob went on a rampage, torching a school and other buildings.

Angry mourners, some carrying crude weapons, rioted in Mandalay after the funeral of a 36-year-old Buddhist victim of the country's latest eruption of religious unrest, witnesses said.