This is People’s Daily Tonight, your news source from China.

______

Chinese envoy urges pragmatic results from 2020 NPT review conference

A Chinese envoy to the United Nations said the international community should steer the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons toward pragmatic results.

Ma Zhaoxu made the remarks at a Security Council meeting on supporting the treaty ahead of the conference.

Ma called for abandoning the Cold War mentality, upholding the multilateral arms control regime, and strengthening dialogue and consultations and safeguarding the treaty regime. (Xinhua)

______

China tightens supervision over after-school training institutions

China's Ministry of Education will tighten supervision of after-school training institutions in 2019.

A campaign was launched last year targeting irregularities in after-school classes and training. It formed a list of licensed institutions and ensured that the institutions followed basic rules and orderly practice, Chen Dongsheng, an official with the education ministry said on Tuesday.

Education authorities together with other departments will focus the supervision on key areas and key periods of time, such as winter and summer vacations, and seriously deal with such malpractice, according to Chen. (Xinhua)

______

Theresa May seeks delay to agree deal with Labour Party

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday she would ask the European Union for a further delay to Brexit beyond April 12 to give her time to sit down with the opposition Labor Party.

This, in a bid to break the impasse over Britain's departure.

In a hastily arranged statement from her Downing Street office after spending more than seven hours chairing crisis cabinet meetings on how to plot a way out of the Brexit maze, May said she was seeking another short extension to Brexit.

Nearly three years since the UK voted to leave the EU in a shock referendum result, British politics is in crisis and it is unclear how, when or if it will ever quit the European bloc it first joined in 1973. (CGTN)

______

S.Korea's online shopping logs double-digit growth in February

Online shopping among South Korean consumers logged a double-digit gain in February, a government report showed Wednesday.

The most demand comes from food delivery services and air purifiers amid severe air pollution.

Shopping in the cyberspace amounted to 9.6 trillion won (8.5 billion US dollars) in February, up 16.4 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.

It came amid the continued growth in food delivery orders using smartphones. Online food delivery services surged 90.2 percent in February from a year ago. (Xinhua)

______

China to cap crude steel production capacity in Hebei, Tianjin: paper

Crude steel production capacity in Hebei province and Tianjin will be capped at 200 million metric tons and 15 million tons by 2020.

This, as China strives to optimize the iron and steel industry.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region takes up only 2.2 percent of China's territory, but accounts for one fourth of the nation's crude steel output.

Most of the steel firms in the region still use blast furnaces which pollute more than electric furnaces. (Xinhua)

_____

New round of inspection to oversee central gov't departments, SOEs

15 teams of disciplinary inspectors have been dispatched to three central government departments and 42 state-owned enterprises by Monday. 

This is the third round of routine disciplinary inspections launched by the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee. 

The inspection teams will be stationed at the departments and state firms for two and a half months, and will receive complaints about violations of Party disciplinary rules from the public. (Global Times)

_____

After the Moon in 2024, NASA wants to reach Mars by 2033

And NASA has made it clear they want astronauts back on the Moon in 2024.

Now, they are zeroing in on the Red Planet.

The US space agency confirmed it wants humans to reach Mars by 2033.

Many experts and lawmakers are concerned that NASA cannot make the deadline, especially given the major delays in the development of its new heavy-lift rocket, which is being built by aerospace giant Boeing. (CGTN)

_____

And that’s People’s Daily Tonight. Thanks for joining us.

(Produced by David Nye and Bai Yuanqi)