Morning News | April 30
语音播报

Welcome to morning news! 

It is April 30, Friday. 18-29℃, sunny.

 

China

 

1. Starting from May 1, Guangdong is going to implement the bulk-buy program for the fourth batch of drugs initiated by the national centralized procurement campaigns, according to Healthcare Security Administration of Guangdong Province. Comprising of 45 types of medicines aiming at diseases like hypertension, diabetes, diseases of digestive tract, mental illness and malignant tumors, the total cost for the involved patients is expected to decrease by 1.375 billion yuan after the project's execution.

 

2. China's financial regulators on Thursday summoned 13 domestic internet platform companies including Tencent, JD Finance and ByteDance for talks on their financing businesses.

 

3. Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China's western region, in actual use, surged 91 percent year on year in the first quarter of this year, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday.

 

4. The Chinese mainland reported 13 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Thursday, all imported.

 

5. Baidu said on Thursday it will launch China's first robotaxi service in Beijing on May 2 and charge passengers for the driverless rides, marking a new step in efforts to run autonomous vehicles as a business in the country.

 

6. Tianjin has taken multiple measures to speed up the coronavirus vaccination rollout for foreigners.

 

7. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank officially opened an office in Tianjin on Thursday. The move out of its headquarters in Beijing has significance for supporting steady operation of the AIIB and promoting Tianjin's higher-level opening-up, officials said.

 

World

 

1. Italy on Thursday approved a recovery and resilience plan worth 222.1 billion euros (269 billion U.S. dollars) which aimed at restarting the economy affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

 

2. Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on Thursday announced a phased plan to further ease the country's current COVID-19 restrictions starting from next month.

 

3. NATO has started the withdrawal of its mission from Afghanistan following a decision by President Joe Biden to bring US forces home, an alliance official said Thursday.

 

4. India's COVID-19 infections crossed the 18 million mark on Thursday (Apr 29) with almost 380,000 new cases, breaking another world record for new daily infections.

 

5. The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) of Pakistan on Thursday recommended the country's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to ban inbound flights from May 5 to May 20 for curbing the fast-spreading third wave of COVID-19, an NCOC statement said.

 

6. US health regulators pledged again Thursday to try to ban menthol cigarettes, this time under pressure from African American groups to remove the mint flavor popular among Black smokers.

 

7. A massive stampede at a densely packed Jewish pilgrimage site killed dozens of people in northern Israel on Friday, leaving emergency workers scrambling to clear the area and evacuate the critically injured.

 


Editor: Liu Liu

Source: Xinhua, China Daily, CGTN, People's Daily Online