China

According to China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang, China is willing to work with Vanuatu to earnestly implement the important consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and leaders of Vanuatu in 2014 to push bilateral relations to a new stage of rapid development.

Zheng paid a working visit to Vanuatu last week where he met with President Baldwin Lonsdale and Acting Prime Minister Ham Lini and held a working consultation with Foreign Minister Bruno Leingkone.

Deputy Director-General of the Information Department at the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Xining, said China has taken a lot of measures to address global warming.

These include penalising enterprises violating the environment protection law in order to bring up a more sustainable economic development module.

Xining explained during a dialogue with Asia Pacific journalists that China has stressed out innovative ways to put the green elements into the economic growth.

Deputy Director-General of the Information Department at the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Xining said China has taken a lot of measures to address global warming.

These include penalising enterprises violating the environment protection law in order to bring up a more sustainable economic development module.

Xining explained during a dialogue with Asia Pacific journalists that China has stressed out innovative ways to put the green elements into the economic growth.

Chinese authorities have described the success as a major breakthrough.

Methane hydrates, also called "flammable ice", hold vast reserves of natural gas.

Many countries including the US and Japan are working on how to tap those reserves, but mining and extracting are extremely difficult.

What is 'flammable ice'?

The catchy phrase describes a frozen mixture of water and gas.

China's Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang, who is on a visit to Vanuatu, said the ships will be on their way home after active duty protecting international waters from pirates off the coast of Somalia.

RNZI reports there are to be cultural activities to reflect the strengthening of ties between China and Vanuatu.

In discussions with the acting Prime Minister Ham Lini, Mr Zheng said he was satisfied with the progress Chinese funded development projects in Vanuatu were making.

Climate Action Tracker, an umbrella group for three climate think tanks, said sweeping policy changes by US President Donald Trump would flatten out a recent US trend of falling greenhouse gas emissions, unless cancelled out by other events.

"The highly adverse rollbacks of US climate policies by the Trump Administration, if fully implemented and not compensated by other actors, are projected to flatten US emissions instead of continuing on a downward trend," said Professor Niklas Höhne, from one of the think tanks, NewClimate Institute.

A commentary in the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun vowed North Korea would not give up its nuclear program. It accused China of "dancing to the tune of the US" and providing Washington excuses to deploy more military assets to the Korean Peninsula.

Companies that publish, share or edit news will need a government licence, and senior editors must be approved by the authorities.

Other staff will be required to undergo government training and assessment, and receive official accreditation.

The legislation will bring online news providers into line with traditional news media operating in the country.

Officials said more than 20,000 people had been hired to work on the project, which will feature 300,000 entries at about 1,000 words each.

Unlike Wikipedia, it will be created by selected scholars from state-run universities rather than being openly editable by volunteers.

Wikipedia is available in China, but some of its content it blocked.

The Encyclopaedia of China "is not a book, but a Great Wall of culture", Yang Muzhi, the editor-in-chief of the project, who chairs the Book and Periodicals Distribution Association of China, said in an update earlier in April.

A day after North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister said Pyongyang would test missiles weekly and use nuclear weapons if threatened, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing was "gravely concerned" about North Korea's recent nuclear and missile activities.

In the same press conference, spokesman Lu Kang praised recent US statements on the North Korean issue.