This is People’s Daily Tonight, your news source from China.
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U.S. ban "unfair," "unacceptable": ZTE
Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp. said in a statement on Friday that it will not accept a ban by the United States on the company, calling the decision "unfair."
"The ban will not only severely impact the survival and development of ZTE, but also cause damage to all partners of ZTE including a large number of U.S. companies," said the statement, which came after the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed a denial of export privileges against ZTE for alleged violations of the Export Administration Regulations earlier this week.
It is "unacceptable" that the U.S. side insists on unfairly imposing the most severe penalty against ZTE, even before the completion of an investigation, the statement said.
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China, Japan agree to speed up preparations for air, marine contact mechanism
China and Japan agreed to speed up preparations for launching an air and maritime contact mechanism in their ninth round of high-level consultations on maritime affairs held in Sendai, Japan, from Thursday through Friday.
Officials from the two countries' ministries on foreign affairs, defense, security, natural resources, environment, transportation, agriculture and some other departments attended the talks.
The two sides held a plenary meeting for the consultation mechanism and four working group meetings on politics and law, maritime defense, maritime law enforcement and security, as well as maritime economy.
The two sides exchanged views on issues related to the East China Sea and discussed ways for maritime cooperation.
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China to extend anti-dumping measures on pulp imports
China's Ministry of Commerce said on Friday it will extend anti-dumping measures on pulp from the US, Canada and Brazil.
The announcement says the measures include imposing an anti-dumping duty for five years on pulp imports from the three countries, which was originally announced in the ruling issued on April 4, 2014.
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China’s unmanned submersible Qianlong-3 conducts first dive
China's most advanced self-developed 4,500-meter-level unmanned submersible Qianlong-3 completed its first dive in the South China Sea on Friday.
It successfully reached the projected depth of 3,750 meters at 6 am and started its tests after sinking at a speed of 50 meters per minute.
The orange clownfish-shaped autonomous underwater vehicle is 3.5 meters long, 1.5 meters high and weighs 1.5 tons.
Qianlong-3 is on a 9-hour diving journey and will reach 3,900-meters in the afternoon, before it returns to sea level at 3 pm, according to Liu Jian, chief designer of the submersible.
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S. Korea, DPRK open hotline of direct dialogue between leaders: Blue House
South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) opened the hotline of direct dialogue between the leaders of the two Koreas, the Blue House of South Korea said Friday.
Yun Kun-young, director for the Blue House's government situation room, told a press briefing that the hotline was connected between the Blue House and the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un agreed to have their first conversation via the hotline before holding their first summit meeting on April 27 in the border village of Panmunjom.
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WWII bomb to spark mass evacuation in central Berlin
The disposal of an unexploded World War II bomb scheduled on Friday will force a mass evacuation from the central part of the German capital Berlin as police attempt to defuse the 500kg explosive.
The British bomb was discovered during construction work near the city's central railway station.
According to local authorities, buildings in an exclusion zone with an 800-meter radius of the site will be evacuated starting at 9:00 am local time (0700 GMT).
Many thousands of residents are asked not to return until the bomb is safely defused.
When the police bomb squad starts operating on the bomb, local buses, trains, trams and some flights will be halted.
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Over 95 percent of world's population breathes polluted air: study
An estimated 95 percent of people live in areas exceeding the World Health Organization's guidelines for healthy air, according to a study published this week.
The annual State of Global Air Report 2018 by the Health Effects Institute showed that air pollution was estimated to contribute to 6.1 million deaths -- about 11 percent of the total global deaths in 2016.
Air pollution is a complex mixture of particles and gases. Ambient particulate matter (particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 micrometers in aerodynamic diameter, or PM2.5), one component of air pollution, ranks as the sixth-highest risk factor for early death, the study showed.
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And that’s People’s Daily Tonight. Thanks for joining us
(Produced by Ni Tao, Wu Kai and Qiao Wai)