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Student protesters in Myanmar are clashing with riot police in Letpadan, 140km (100 miles) north of Yangon, the BBC reported. 

Several hundred students are trying to break through police lines preventing them continuing a march south.

The students say they want changes to be made to a new bill which they say centralises control over higher education.

Tensions have been rising in Letpadan since last week, after police gave them a deadline to disperse.

But there had been reports of negotiations since then, and earlier on Tuesday a breakthrough agreement between the two sides was announced.

The students were granted permission to continue on their journey to Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city and former capital.

Myanmar's Irrawaddy newspaper reports that despite this deal, conflict broke out when authorities refused to allow student flags to be hoisted.

Some 200 students are attempting to push through several hundred police officers and several have fainted or have cut themselves on the barbed wire barricades, the newspaper says.

The changes to the new education law called for by the students include decentralising the school system, giving students the right to form unions and teaching in ethnic minority languages.