Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

FUZHOU, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Cold functional tests began Saturday on a reactor of China's first nuclear power project using Hualong One technology, a domestically developed third-generation reactor design.

The test was conducted on a circuit of the No. 5 nuclear power unit in the city of Fuqing, eastern China's Fujian Province, to evaluate the performance of the circuit system and its supporting facilities under high-pressure conditions, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).

BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese economy has shown more signs of firming up, with its major industrial firms posting a 13.9-percent growth in profit in March from a year earlier.

The figure marked a drastic rebound from the 14-percent decline in the January-February period, according to data released Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Thanks to the improving performances in March, these firms posted a 3.3-percent decline in aggregate profit for the first quarter, 10.7 percentage points less than that in the January-February period.

BEIJING (AP) — President Xi Jinping called for more countries to join China’s sprawling infrastructure-building initiative as other leaders expressed support Saturday for a project Washington worries is increasing Beijing’s strategic influence.

LOS ANGELES, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The 2019 China-California Business Forum will be held in June in Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California.

The forum will be held to promote California's trade and investment cooperation with Chinese provinces, and encourage business leaders from California and China to explore and develop business opportunities.

BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Four government agencies on Friday jointly launched the "Sword Net 2019" campaign targeting copyright infringement on the internet, especially "paraphrasing plagiarism" by so-called "we media" accounts and illegal and irregular activities by image agencies.

Initiated by the National Intellectual Property Administration, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security, the operation is set to run from the end of April to the end of October.

BRUSSELS, April 26 (Xinhua) -- When Hungary signed a cooperation document with China on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015, it was the first European country to do so.

Almost four years later and ahead of the ongoing Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, 22 European countries had inked BRI cooperation documents with China.

26 Apr 2019; DW: Peace on the Korean Peninsula "will entirely depend on the US future attitude," Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying by North Korea's official news agency KCNA on Friday.

WASHINGTON, April 25 (Xinhua) -- A privately owned deep-sea search vessel with U.S. Navy salvage team on board has departed for Okinawa, Japan to assist search operations for a downed Japanese F-35A fighter, U.S. Navy said in a statement Thursday.

The Vessel, DSCV Van Gogh, is a multipurpose diving support and construction platform equipped with U.S. Navy remotely operated vehicles and a towed-pinger locator system, said the statement.

LHASA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The world's highest highway tunnel was open to traffic on Friday at an altitude of over 4,750 meters above sea level in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

The two-way tunnel is over 5.7 km long, which is a part of the 400-km highway linking the regional capital of Lhasa with Nyingchi in the southeast of Tibet.

Construction of the tunnel started in 2015 on the 5,018-meter-high Mila Mountain, and it was completed on Monday, helping shorten the 18-km distance over the mountain to 5.7 km.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping promised Friday to set high standards for Beijing’s sweeping infrastructure-building initiative as fellow leaders praised the effort despite worries it is saddling some countries with too much debt.

Xi avoided mentioning debt in a speech at a Belt and Road forum celebrating his signature foreign initiative. But he promised changes in response to complaints about costs, dubious payoffs from the projects and possible environmental damage.