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China has expressed serious concerns about Japan's decision to discharge contaminated water from Fukushima nuclear station into the Pacific Ocean.
The Japanese government decided to formalize plans to release the waste into the Pacific after a meeting on Tuesday morning.
The Fukushima plant has been generating massive amounts of radiation-tainted water since the nuclear accident triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It needs water to cool the damaged reactors.
A statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry says Japan made the unilateral move without sufficient consultation with neighboring countries or the wider international community.
It says evaluation by experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency shows that if the waste water containing tritium from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is discharged into the ocean, it will have an impact on the marine environment and public health in surrounding countries.
It adds that the existing treated wastewater still contains other radionuclides and needs to be further purified.
China's total imports and exports of goods surged 29 percent year on year to 8.5 trillion yuan, or about 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars, in the first quarter of 2021.
Exports jumped 39 percent from a year earlier while imports climbed 19 percent.
One person has been killed at a high school in Knoxville, Tennessee and a police officer was wounded when police confronted an armed suspect.
The incident marked the latest in a rash of shootings across the United States since the middle of March.
Knoxville police say the officer struck by gunfire is expected to survive.
Investigators did not identify the suspect or slain victim except to say they were both male. It was not yet clear if either was a student at Austin-East Magnet School.
The Knoxville high school community has been ravaged by gun violence in the last few months, with at least three students at Austin-East having been killed this year.
A 20-year-old man has been shot and killed by a police officer in a suburb of Minneapolis, triggering anger and protests.
Daunte Wright was shot on Sunday during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, a few miles away from where Derek Chauvin is on trial for George Floyd's death.
Video footage presented on Monday showed a struggle between Wright and the officer.
The shooting triggered protests through early Monday morning, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
U.S. President Joe Biden will nominate Chris Magnus, the chief of police in the city of Tucson, Arizona, to lead the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service.
Magnus was a critic of former President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
If confirmed by the Senate, Magnus would handle a record number of border crossings that are projected to increase in the coming months.
The United States is expected to encounter about 2 million migrants at the southern border by the end of the 2021 fiscal year, marking a record high since 2010.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has announced plans to ease social distancing measures and travel restrictions in the region.
She says the fourth wave of COVID-19 in Hong Kong which emerged in November is under control.
The existing social distancing measures due to expire on Thursday will be extended for another 14 days to observe whether the pandemic will rebound after the Easter holiday.
As part of the plans, restaurants are allowed to extend dine-in services to midnight with the cap on diners per table raised from four to six, provided that staff members have received their first dose of vaccine.
The restrictions will be further relaxed to 12 people to be seated at each table under the condition that staff members and customers have taken two doses of vaccines.
Meanwhile, the travel scheme that allows Hong Kong residents returning from Guangdong or Macao to be exempted from a 14-day quarantine will be expanded to other mainland provinces later this month.
