Foxconn Technology Group, Apple’s main supplier in Asia, released a statement on Tuesday in response to a Financial Times report that said the company had been illegally employing students, working them overtime to help assemble the iPhone X.

The company said it will not allow interns to work more than 40 hours per week on program-related assignments.

The report quoted six high school students who said they would usually work 11-hour shifts to help manufacture Apple’s flagship phone at a factory in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Such hours would breach Chinese law governing the use of student interns.

“We offer a short-term internship program to local governments and a number of vocational schools in China. And interns represent a very small percentage of the workforce,” the statement said.

Foxconn said it has taken steps to correct the situation and will continue to regularly review the internship program to ensure that it’s in compliance with all relevant policies and regulations, and that the problem will not be repeated.

The internship program is designed to provide students with an opportunity to gain practical work experience through on-the-job training in a number of areas in the Foxconn operation. The program supports students’ efforts to find employment after their graduation, according to the company.

“Student interns are also given priority should they wish to join the company as full-time employees upon graduation,” the statement said.

It emphasized that its policies regarding all participants in the China internship program are clear, that all interns enter the program voluntarily and that they are informed of all their rights, including the right to leave the program at any time.

“Unfortunately, there have been a number of cases where portions of our campuses have not adhered to this policy,” Foxconn said.

Du Zhenyu, a staff member at Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School, said more than 2,000 graduates of the school have taken part in internships at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant, in Henan province, a place once again buzzing with activity after Apple unveiled three new products – the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X.

“The students work at the plant for about two or three months,” Du said.

The rail transit school said it would abide by the principle of voluntary participation, and that students would be allowed to terminate the practical study program without punishment. More than 100 students have left the program, it said.

“In addition, working overtime follows the voluntary principle. Students are paid by companies if they work overtime,” it said.

Construction of a large hydropower station on the upper section of the Yangtze River, the Suwalong project, is going smoothly, local authorities said Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the sluice gate on the Jinsha River was closed in preparation for further building work.

The Suwalong project is located at the junction of Mangkam County of Tibet Autonomous Region and Batang County of Sichuan Province, in southwest China. It will be the largest power station in Tibet upon completion.

With a total cost of nearly 18 billion yuan (2.77 billion U.S. dollars), the station is undertaken by China Huadian Corp.

A total of 1,462 people need to be relocated for the project, and 631 of them have moved, said Hu Guiliang, chairman of Huadian Jinsha River Upstream Hydropower Development Co., Ltd.

The power station has a designed capacity of 1.2 million kilowatts and will be able to generate about 5.4 billion kwh of electricity per year.

A 112-meter-high dam will be built to form a reservoir that can store about 674 million cubic meters of water. Generators are expected to start operations in 2021.

Suwalong project is a major project to send electricity from the west to eastern areas in China, said Wang Zhengtao, director of Qamdo City resources development and relocation bureau.

It will make the energy structure greener, reduce pollution and raise incomes for local residents, Wang said.

Located in an arid valley, the land along the upper section of Jinsha River has a fragile ecology so the Chinese government requires a thorough environmental impact assessment of a hydropower station.

It takes around 10 years to conduct surveys, map out designs and assess environmental impacts of the Suwalong project, the first hydropower station on the upper section of Jinsha River.

Construction of further hydropower stations will not be allowed within 12 km of river around the Suwalong station. Facilities will be installed to let fish pass and a fish breeding center has been set up to increase the fish reserve in the river.

Hu said that the company has also reached an agreement with government to improve local employment. “We asked our construction firms to hire at least 40 percent of labor force from within the region,” said Hu.

Duan Shichang, Party secretary of Surdeshod Township, pointed out that residents in two villages of the township earned more than 14 million yuan from employment by the project last year.

Chinese legal scholars acknowledged the significance of the inclusion of the “right to dignity” in the report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The Party congress report pledged to protect “people’s personal rights, property rights, and right to dignity.”

Yang Lixin, professor of Renmin University of China, said inclusion of the notion in the report reflects the Party’s fundamental purpose of wholeheartedly serving the people, in an interview with People’s Daily.

The interview, involving three professors, was published Wednesday.

“This is also the CPC’s response to the new ‘principal contradiction’,” said Liu Shiguo, professor of Fudan University in Shanghai.

According to the CPC congress report, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved into one “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.”

“The rapid development of science and technology has posed new challenges to the protection of people’s right to dignity,” said Yang, noting that the Internet, big data and Artificial Intelligence have made people more vulnerable to the leaking of personal information and other violations for their rights.

Abuse of public power could also infringe on their rights in this regard, said Liu Kaixiang, professor of Peking University.

The professors called for more specific measures for protecting the right to dignity.

Twelve people have been detained for trafficking 55.6 kg of heroin in southwest China, according to police in Yunnan Province.

In early September, police received a tip-off that a man from Sichuan Province had contacted drug dealers in Myanmar, planned to transport heroin to Sichuan via Yunnan, which borders Myanmar.

An investigation followed, and last week, two suspects were caught in Yunnan’s Dehong prefecture. Another ten suspects were then caught in other parts of Yunnan and Sichuan.

The investigation continues.

Five people have been killed and another four injured in a traffic accident involving drunk driver in east China’s Jiangsu Province, authorities said Wednesday.

The tragedy happened on a highway near Tangshe Village in Yancheng City, when the passenger car of an intoxicated driver, surname Wang, crashed into the victims, according to the local publicity department.

The driver has been detained, and the investigation is ongoing.