China customs said Tuesday it will work closely with other departments including border defence, coast guards and environmental protection agencies to stop foreign garbage smuggling.

In the first half year, China customs seized more than 260,000 tonnes of solid waste in 146 cases, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

More than 70 percent of cases since 2013 occurred in the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze and the Pearl River Deltas, according to GAC spokesman Zhang Guangzhi at a press conference.

By the end of 2017, China will have ended imports of solid waste that cause great environmental damage and raise public concern, according to the State Council, China’s cabinet.

The State Council plan came after China notified the World Trade Organization last week that it will ban imports of 24 types of solid waste, including plastics, unsorted paper, textiles and vanadium slag by the end of 2017.

China started to import solid waste as raw material to make up for the domestic shortage of resources in the 1980s, but some companies illegally smuggle foreign garbage into the country for profit, damaging the environment and public health.

The government is stepping up the fight against pollution and environmental degradation as decades of fast growth have left the country with smog, polluted water and contaminated soil.

China’s medium-sized and large cities imported 47 million tonnes of solid waste in 2015, down 5.3 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

On July 1, the MEP began a campaign against imported waste processing, with 60 teams of inspectors conducting investigations.

Hong Kong Ocean Park announced on Tuesday that female giant panda Ying Ying has started displaying typical pregnancy symptoms.

Ocean Park has artificially inseminated Ying Ying by using male giant panda Le Le’s fresh semen and An An’s frozen semen to increase the chance of pregnancy, after Ying Ying and Le Le failed in their natural mating attempts during the breeding season, which was around late March to early April.

Howard Chuk, Senior Curator of Terrestrial Life Sciences of Ocean Park, said that since early July, Ying Ying has started displaying some typical pregnancy symptoms, including reduced food intake, increased resting time, a swollen vulva, and corresponding hormonal changes.

These symptoms, however, can also be indication of pseudo-pregnancy, Chuk said, adding that the park will continue to work closely with experts from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong of Sichuan Province to follow Ying Ying’s condition.

“We hope to bring some good news to the people of Hong Kong this year,” Chuk said, telling the media that the gestation period of giant pandas can last from around 70 to 300 days.

Ocean Park started to arrange mating opportunities for Ying Ying and Le Le since 2011 and Ying Ying had experienced pseudo-pregnancy.

There are a total of three giant pandas in Ocean Park, with Ying Ying and Le Le turning 12 this month, and An An, at the age of 31, has officially become the world’s oldest male giant panda under human care.

Chinese paleontologists have announced that they have discovered a group of nearly 100-million-year-old fossils of dinosaur footprints in southeastern China’s Zhejiang Province.

The fossils scattered on a hill in Yiwu city are believed to be the largest group of fossilized dinosaur footprints in southeast China, according to researchers with Zhejiang Museum of Natural History.

They were first spotted in 2007, and researchers started surveying them in 2014. So far, more than 80 footprints have been found.

The footprints dating back to the early late cretaceous period belong to theropods, sauropods, pterosaurs and other dinosaurs, according to Jin Xingsheng, deputy curator of the museum.

The footprints of theropods are mostly less than 20 centimeters long, while those of sauropods can be as long as one meter. The most interesting finding was a pterosaur footprint upon a sauropod footprint.

Most of the footprints are single. However, some of the ornithopods were in pairs, showing the dinosaur walking.

The dinosaur footprint fossils contain information that skeleton fossils cannot show and can help with research on biodiversity and biological migration and behavior, as well as the evolution of ancient creatures, Jin said, adding that the site could be developed into a science visitor base.

Four people died and 48 others were injured after a bus collided with a truck Tuesday in north China’s Tianjin Municipality, local authorities said.

The bus overturned after colliding with the truck loaded with cement at an intersection in Wuqing District, according to district authorities.

All the injured people have been sent to hospitals. They are not in critical condition.

China will never compromise on its sovereignty, security or development interests, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday at an Army Day celebration.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at the ceremony to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, which falls on Aug. 1.

“The Chinese people love peace. We will never seek aggression or expansion, but we have the confidence to defeat all invasions. We will never allow any people, organization or political party to split any part of Chinese territory from the country at any time, in any form,” Xi said.

“No one should expect us to swallow bitter fruit that is harmful to our sovereignty, security or development interests,” he said.

The people’s army should firmly safeguard the CPC’s leadership and the socialist system, protect national sovereignty, security and development interests as well as regional and world peace, he said.

He urged the PLA to focus on war preparedness to forge an elite and powerful force that is always “ready for the fight, capable of combat and sure to win.”

There are various means and choices to safeguard peace and security and prevent war, but military means should remain the final guarantee, he said.

The life of the people’s military lies in combat ability, he said, urging the PLA to strengthen its awareness of being prepared for any eventualities.

“All thoughts must be put on combat, and all work should focus on combat so the military can assemble, charge forward and win any time the Party and the people need them to,” he said.

The level of military training should be raised to actual combat standards, he said.