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.

Tokyo - The Japanese government plans to file a protest with China if a report about police brutality against two Japanese journalists was confirmed, media reports said Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Japan would "protest strongly" if the attack against the journalists was verified.

A Japanese reporter from the Nippon Television Network Corp and a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper were detained and beaten by paramilitary police late Monday as they were covering an attack on police by two Uighur men in Xinjiang in north-western China that left 16 officers dead, the two news organizations said.

Sydney - Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe will not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics because he was told by China's Communist Party to stay away, the Sydney Morning Herald daily reported on Tuesday.

Citing sources, the paper said that "high-powered lobbying from political leaders who will be attending the ceremony prompted the highest levels of the Chinese Government to convince him not to attend."

New Delhi - Six Tibetan activists entered the second week of a hunger strike in New Delhi to protest the upcoming Beijing Olympics and "occupation" of Tibet by China, a spokesman said Monday.

The activists from the Tibetan Youth Congress staged their protest at the capital's Jantar Mantar area in the central business district of Connaught Place.

"The hunger strike has entered its eighth day today," the group's vice president, Dhondup Dorjee Shokda, said. "Their health has deteriorated rapidly as they have lost over 11 kilograms on an average."

He said the activists had so far resisted pleas by local police to take them to hospital.

London, Aug. 4 : China’s Sinopec has reportedly made an approach to the London-listed oil and gas explorer, Imperial Energy, which could derail takeover talks between that group and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

The Chinese state-owned oil group, also known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, made an approach to Imperial last week and is in the process of conducting due diligence on a formal offer.

The move is the latest sign of China’s ambition to buy natural resource assets. Imperial is expected to confirm it has received a second approach when the London stock market opens on Monday, reports the Financial Times.

Washington - US President George W Bush heads to Asia later Monday for a seven-day journey that will take him to South Korea, Thailand - where he is to deliver a major policy speech and liaise with Myanmar dissidents - and finally China for the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics.

Bush was to arrive Tuesday in Seoul, where he will meet with President Lee Myung Bak, who visited the US in March at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. The two men are marking the 55th anniversary of US-South Korean ties.