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TBILISI, May 2. /TASS/: Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili’s official visit to the United States has not been canceled and efforts are underway for holding it, the Foreign Ministry told TASS on Thursday.

"The report that allegedly the Georgian side’s request on the Georgian president’s visit to the US has been rejected, does not correspond to reality. The work on the president’s visit via diplomatic channels is underway. It’s early to say about the date of the visit," the ministry said.

TASHKENT, May 2. /TASS/: The site for the construction of the first nuclear power station in Uzbekistan under Rosatom’s project has been coordinated, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists on Thursday.

"An agreement was reached on the site [for the nuclear power plant’s construction]," he said.

BEIJING, May 2 (Xinhua): China has strengthened the intellectual property rights (IPR) protection of traditional culture, crafts and intangible cultural heritage, according to a report from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The report recalled the inscription of China's Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2018.

KUNMING, May 2 (Xinhua): Southwest China's Yunnan Province exported 7,108 tonnes of tea worth 33.1 million U.S. dollars in 2018, the provincial agriculture and rural affairs department said.

The planting area of tea in Yunnan reached 420,000 hectares, with a total yield of 16.7 billion yuan (about 2.5 billion U. S. dollars), said Wei Min, deputy head of the department.

Yunnan is a major tea production base in China, with the locally produced Pu'er tea being especially popular in China and abroad.

2 May 2019; AFP: Washington has signed more than $1 billion in new missile contracts in the three months since it announced plans to withdraw from a key Cold War-era arms treaty, campaigners said Thursday.

"The withdrawal from the INF Treaty has fired the starting pistol on a new Cold War," warned Beatrice Fihn, who heads the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

2 May 2019; DW: After a week and a half of protests in London by climate change activists, the British Parliament has declared a symbolic "environment and climate change emergency." Lawmakers backed a call by Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, for "rapid and dramatic action" to protect the environment.

2 May 2019; DW: Poland should stop treating the European Union as a source of financing and start making more of a financial contribution to the bloc, European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said on Wednesday.

"The EU is not just a money machine, a cow that you can milk. We are expecting a more substantial contribution from Poland for the future of Europe," Katainen told journalists in Warsaw.

Doha, May 1 (AFP) Iran expressed renewed support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Wednesday, as the opposition called for a huge May Day protest after armed clashes erupted in the capital Caracas.

Maduro said he had defeated an attempted coup on Tuesday night led by his opponent, self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido.

Manila, May 1 (AFP) Thousands of Philippine protesters marched in Labour Day rallies on Wednesday, torching a giant effigy of President Rodrigo Duterte as they attacked his economic policies' impact on the nation's poor.

Rows of marchers flew red banners and chanted near the presidential palace in Manila, where they set fire to the horned effigy adorned with Chinese and US flags -- the two competing powers in the Philippines.

BERLIN, May 2. /TASS/: Germany’s ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), backs the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, while understanding some countries’ concerns, its leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in an interview with DPA news agency.