Ankara has deemed it ironic that France is preparing to punish those who express a particular view of history at a time when Turkey is under heavy EU pressure to change some of its own laws which are viewed as restricting freedom of expression. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, yesterday referred to the proposed law as a "systematic lie machine". Turkey recalled its ambassador to France in May after the Socialist party first presented the bill in parliament.

Turkish politicians have since warned that French-Turkish trade links will suffer if the bill is adopted, and some are discussing possible retaliatory measures, including criminalising the denial of genocide in Algeria which France ruled from 1830 to 1962. One Turkish MP suggested expelling all illegal Armenian immigrants if the bill was passed.

Mr Erdogan said he would not engage in tit-for-tat measures but said France should reexamine its colonial past before pronouncing on history elsewhere. He repeated calls to Armenia to jointly research the killings by opening the historical archives of both countries to historians.

Turkey's official policy is to acknowledge that large numbers of Armenians were killed by Turks, but to reject the overall estimate of 1.5 million deaths as inflated. It maintains that deaths occurred as part of civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and thousands of Turks also died. Saying otherwise in Turkey can lead to criminal prosecution.

Yesterday Turkey's foremost Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, who has been repeatedly tried for "insulting Turkishness" by urging Turkey to come clean on its part in the massacres, said passing the French law would be a mistake. "I will go to France to protest against this madness and violate the [new] law if I see it necessary. And I will commit the crime to be prosecuted there so that these two irrational mentalities can race to put me into jail," he told Reuters. He said the French draft law and the Armenian issue was being exploited by those in France and the EU opposed to Turkey's EU entry.

Other Turkish writers criticised the French bill, including Elif Shafak, who was acquitted last month after she was charged with "insulting Turkishness" over one of her fictitious characters who referred to the Armenian "genocide".

According to the French state-owned SNCF rail company, "around ten" people on the passenger train died, as well as the drivers of both trains and a person working on the track.

Emergency workers officially confirmed 10 dead, and said some 20 were injured.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Transport Minister Dominique Perben were travelling to the scene.

The two trains were a double-decker Luxembourg-operated regional express train travelling from the grand duchy to the French city of Nancy, and a freight train heading for Luxembourg.

"As a result of the work only one track was open instead of two, and trains were supposed to wait their turn to go on it. For reasons that are not clear, these two trains came together head-to-head," an SNCF spokemsn said.

Bertrand Mertz, vice-president of the Lorraine regional council, told France 3 television that railway signallers in Luxembourg were to blame.

The prefect -- or state-appointed governor -- of Moselle department triggered a standing emergency plan, and large numbers of rescue workers from both France and Luxembourg were at the scene.

If the death toll of 13 is confirmed the accident would be the deadliest in France since a collision between a train and an oil tanker on a level crossing killed the same number of people in the southern Dordogne region in September 1997.

Detailed accounts of the attack are beginning to filter through despite what the British newspaper, The Independent, described as an attempt by Chinese authorities to silence the many Western climbers and Sherpas who witnessed the shooting.

A Tibetan monk who managed to reach Nepal was quoted in the paper as saying: "We started walking early through the Nangpa La Pass. Then the soldiers arrived. They started shooting and we ran; there were 15 children from eight to 10; only one escaped arrest.

"I just ran to save my life by praying to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I think the soldiers fired for 15 minutes."

"They were shouting, but I did not hear them ... I just heard gunshots passing my ears. I don't remember how many people were shot."

Another said: "When the Chinese started shooting, it was terrifying. We could only hear the gunfire and our friends screaming. We tried to take care of the seven-year-old girl with us."

Steve Lawes, a British police officer and mountaineer who was about 300 metres from the soldiers, told The Independent: "One person fell, got up, but then fell again."

An Australian climber, who did not give his name, told Reuters: "I looked through the telescope. I saw two objects - the first one looked like it was a backpack and the second one was definitely a body."

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said a young Tibetan nun was confirmed dead while there were unconfirmed reports that a young refugee boy was killed.

The organisation said it also had fears for the safety of about 10 Tibetan refugee children who were arrested by the Chinese soldiers after fleeing from the gunshots.

Mr Lawes told The Independent that the children were marched single file through the base camp.

"The children were in single file, about six feet away from me. They didn't see us - they weren't looking around the way kids normally would, they were too frightened. By that time, advance base camp was crawling with soldiers. We were doing our best not to do anything that might spark off more violence."

Another climber, Sergiu Matei from Romania, gave his account of the incident at a mountaineering website, MountEverest.net.

"I heard machine-gun bursts - I was having my black tea in the chicken tent," Mr Matei said.

"It was actually the Chinese militias hunting Tibetans on to the glacier ... They were shooting Tibetans like rats, dogs, rabbits - you name it."

He said he gave one refugee boy, who was found hiding in the climbers' base camp toilet, food and clothing before the boy continued on his way across the pass towards Nepal.

Some staff at mountaineering companies operating in the area were reportedly keeping quiet about the incident for fear that commenting might jeopardise their permits to enter the Tibetan region.

"Most of them won't go on record and give their names because they are working for international organisations that want to keep their rights to climb in the region," the executive officer of the Australia Tibet Council, Paul Bourke, told smh.com.au.

Mr Bourke said he was "stunned" by the shootings.

"It's quite common for Tibetans to use this path back and forth and this seems like it wasn't an accident. It seems like they were deliberately fired upon."

At least 43 of the refugees managed to reach Nepal but the whereabouts of about 30 others was not known, the ICT said.

Hundreds of Tibetans cross the Himalayas every year to Nepal, many making their way to Dharamsala, a town in northern India where their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, has been living since 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.

Nepal is home to more than 20,000 Tibetan refugees. But recent arrivals are not allowed to stay in Nepal and must travel to neighbouring India.

Communist troops entered Tibet in 1950 and overthrew the Buddhist theocracy.

The arrival of the religious ruling class on Iran's blogosphere is ironic in view of the harsh crackdown launched by the authorities against bloggers who have used it to voice political dissent. Scores of bloggers have been jailed in recent years while many sites have been blocked using US-made filtering technology.

Iran is estimated to have between 75,000 and 100,000 bloggers, most of them avoiding politics to concentrate on matters like social affairs, culture and sex.

The trend began among the political reformist movement in 2001 as a response to the closures of dozens of liberal newspapers and magazines on the orders of religious hardliners. It has since become a phenomenon among the computer-savvy younger generation.

Mr Ahmadinejad jumped on the bandwagon last month when he launched a blog attached to his presidential website. His first entry set out his personal background and political philosophy and asked if the US and Israel were intent on starting a third world war.