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

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China decreases holdings of US Treasuries in April

China's US Treasuries holdings declined to 1.11 trillion US dollars in April.

That’s the second consecutive month in which the holdings dropped, according to the US Treasury Department.

Japan's holdings also dropped to 1.064 trillion dollars in April from 1.078 trillion dollars in February.

China and Japan combined hold more than one-third of the total foreign holdings of US Treasuries.(Xinhua)

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China's home prices remain stable in May

Home prices in 70 major Chinese cities continued to stabilize despite slight increases in May, official data showed Tuesday.

New house prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- increased 0.3 percent month on month in May, down from the 0.6-percent increase in April, said the National Bureau of Statistics.

Prices of new houses climbed 0.8 percent in May from the previous month in 31 second-tier cities and 35 third-tier cities.

Meanwhile, prices of resold houses saw slower or flat growth compared with a month earlier in Chinese cities, showing some signs of cooling down.(Xinhua)

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Stock link opens, joins two global capital hubs

The long-awaited Shanghai-London Stock Connect was finally launched in London on Monday.

The connect brings together one of the world's largest domestic capital markets — the Shanghai Stock Exchange — with one of the world's leading international markets - the London Stock Exchange.

This is the first time foreign companies will be able to list in the Chinese mainland, and the first time LSE-listed companies will be able to raise capital abroad through instruments exchangeable with their domestic shares.(Chinadaily)

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Blackout in South America raises questions about power grid

The huge blackout that left tens of millions of people in the dark in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay over the weekend raised serious questions about the vulnerability of the power grid in South America.

Energy officials said the findings would not be available for 10 to 15 days, and they had no immediate estimate of the economic damage from Sunday's 14-hour power failure.

Argentine energy experts said that operational and design errors probably played a role and that the system should have isolated the local failure before it cascaded so disastrously.(AP)

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WFP head blasts Houthi rebels for diverting aid in Yemen

The head of the World Food Programme on Monday lashed out at Houthi rebels in Yemen for misappropriating aid supplies.

David Beasley said the Houthi rebels have repeatedly refused to allow the WFP to operate independently, which is a necessary condition to ensure that aid reaches the people in real need.

He warned that the WFP will have to begin a phased suspension of food assistance, most likely toward the end of the week, unless it receives the necessary assurances from the Houthis.(Xinhua)

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China continues to claim most supercomputers on Top500 list

China continues to dominate a list of the world's fastest supercomputers by the number of systems, according to a semi-annual ranking of the Top500 published Monday.

China tops the supercomputer list with 219 systems, nearly one half of the total, followed by the United States with 116, and Japan ranks third with 29 systems.

The top 500 list is considered one of the most authoritative rankings of the world's supercomputers. It is compiled on the basis of machine performance on the Linpack benchmark by experts from the United States and Germany.(Xinhua)

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6 hikers punished for crossing nature reserve without permission

And six of seven hikers were punished for crossing a nature reserve without permission in southwest China.

The seventh hiker died accidentally during the trip to the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province.

In March, one of the hikers posted a thread on the Internet about hiking the highest mountain in the provincial capital Chengdu. 

The other six hikers joined the trip earlier this month.(Xinhua)

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

(Produced by David Nye and Bai Yuanqi)