2021年CRI 智飞生物/中国科学院微生物研究所重组新冠疫苗获准紧急使用（在线收听）

President Xi Jinping has sent a video message to an event held by Bangladesh celebrating the 50th anniversary of the country's independence and commemorating the 100th birth anniversary of its founding father.

On behalf of the Chinese government and Chinese people, Xi Jinping extended greetings and wishes to Bangladeshi leaders, and the Bangladeshi government and people.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian says the upcoming high-level China-U.S. strategic meeting will include discussions over issues related to Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

He says China will be clarifying its stance on multiple issues at the meeting in Alaska.

The meeting will be attended by senior Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi, Foreign Minister Wang Yi as well as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

That will be their first in-person meeting since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.

Chinese central authorities have held over 60 symposiums, made visits and arranged interviews this week to solicit opinions about implementing the decision of the country's top legislature on improving Hong Kong's electoral system.

Senior officials from the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, the liaison office of the central government in Hong Kong, and the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the National People's Congress Standing Committee attended the meetings and participated in the activities.

Over 1,000 representatives from a wide range of sectors in Hong Kong offered their suggestions.

The participants agreed that it is imperative and urgent to improve Hong Kong's electoral system and remove related deficiencies and risks at the state level for the comprehensive implementation of the "patriots administering Hong Kong" principle, for Hong Kong's political stability and security, for the steady and sustained implementation of "one country, two systems," and for Hong Kong's long-term stability.

The representatives called for efforts to expedite the legislative process so that the new electoral system for the selection of the chief executive and the formation of the Legislative Council will come out at an early date.

China has approved the emergency use of a self-developed recombinant protein subunit vaccine against COVID-19 that was jointly developed by the Institute of Microbiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Company.

The developers say the level of neutralizing antibody elicited by the vaccine is comparable to other COVID-19 recombinant protein vaccines and mRNA vaccines in the world.

Recombinant protein subunit vaccine does not need a high-grade biosafety laboratory for manufacture, and can quickly achieve large-scale production.

Phase-3 trials for the vaccine have been underway since November 2020 in China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Ecuador and Indonesia, expected to involve up to 29,000 adults.

At least 58 people are dead after an attack by gunmen in a volatile corner of Niger.

Officials say the victims were returning home from a large livestock market near the border with Mali. The attackers also destroyed nearby granaries that held food stores.

The attack echoed a January massacre that left 100 people dead in two villages in the same region that hadn't been claimed by any extremist group or militia.