Beijing - Police in north-western China's Xinjiang region on Tuesday stepped up security following a deadly attack against paramilitary police which authorities suspected to be a terrorist plot by ethnic minority Uighurs.

A Washington DC-based association of exiled Uighur Muslims from China on Tuesday called for independent accounts of the attack, saying details remain unclear.

The attack Monday against a group of armed police while they were jogging outside their barracks in Kashgar city left 16 officers dead and 16 others injured, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Xinhua said the two attackers, both Uighurs, have been arrested.

Bei

Beijing - The Internat

Beijing - A new 120-kilometre long train line between the Chinese cities of Beijing and Tianjin was officially opened Friday.

Beijing - An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Ritcher scale shook a large area of south-western China's Sichuan province on Friday afternoon, the government said.

The quake was recorded at 4:32 pm (0832 GMT) Friday with an epicentre close to several of the areas worst-hit in the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, the State Seismological Brueau said on its website.

Severe landslides and major rockfalls were reported near Pingwu county and Nanba township in northern Sichuan, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Beijing - An explosion Friday in a coal mine in central China killed 14 miners and trapped another 11, local media reported.

The explosion at Pingyu mine in Yuzhou city, Henan province, occurred early Friday, reported Xinhua news agency.

Rescuers were attempting to find the 11 trapped miners. The cause of the explosion was unknown.

On Thursday, nine of 38 coal miners working underground in central Shanxi province were trapped, Xinhua said, without disclosing further information.