The New Nation - Internet Edition

BBC News

The authorities in Tibet have given anti-Chinese demonstrators until Monday to surrender, following violence that officials say left 10 people dead.

"The plot of the separatists will fail," the head of Tibet's government warned as security forces patrolled the main city, Lhasa. State media said the 10 killed in Friday's clashes had included business people who were "burnt to death".

But exiled Tibetan leaders put the death toll higher and blamed China. "There have been 30 confirmed deaths until today, and over 100 unconfirmed deaths," the Tibetan government in exile, which is based in northern India, said.

James Miles, a British journalist in Lhasa, said there were some clashes on Saturday morning, were not on the same scale as Friday. Police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators defying a curfew in the old quarter of the city, he said. Police later cordoned off the centre. "Lhasa is completely closed and there is Chinese military all over," Danish tourist Bente Walle told Reuters news agency. In a statement quoted by the state-run news agency Xinhua, the Tibetan government urged "the lawbreakers to give themselves in by Monday midnight" and promised that "leniency would be given to those who surrender". Tibetan government Chairman Qiangba Puncog denounced the "plot of the separatists".

"We will challenge them firmly, according to law," AFP news agency quoted him as saying. He said no shots had been fired by police since the start of the unrest.

Officials told Xinhua that those killed on Friday were "all innocent civilians" - among them hotel employees and shop owners. Western countries have expressed concern at the clashes, and US officials called on the Chinese to act with restraint. The violence - the worst in Tibet since 1989 - erupted on the fifth day of largely peaceful protests that began on Monday's anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.

Fires broke out near the Jokhang temple, one of the most sacred sites for Tibetan Buddhists, and Xinhua reported that shops, banks and hotels were destroyed.