Three Britons, students and professors of the Imperial College London, were fined 20,000 yuan (US$2,900) for illegally surveying areas of Aksu, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

The three Britons were caught collecting geographic information on more than 6,000 locations of the region without legal approval from the authorities.

Xinjiang authorities initiated an investigation in September 2008 and confiscated their GPS devices and the survey results.

(China Daily January 6, 2009)