BEIJING, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday urged Canada to immediately release Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou and the United States to withdraw its arrest warrant for her.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks at a regular news briefing after the United States informed the Canadian government that it planned to proceed with a formal request to extradite Meng.

23 Jan 2019; AA: Former world number one Serena Williams was knocked out in the Australian Open by seventh seed Czech Karolina Pliskova on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old Czech beat the 37-year-old American 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 to advance the semifinals. Williams missed four match points.

World number seven Pliskova will face world number four Naomi Osaka in the semifinals.

Naomi Osaka also defeated Ukrainian Elina Svitolina to advance to the semifinals in the Australian Open on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. federal courts are expected to run out of money on Feb. 1 after deferring non-critical operating costs and utilizing court filing fees and other available balances, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said Tuesday.

"No further extensions beyond Feb. 1 will be possible," the administrative agency said in a statement. "Most of the measures are temporary stopgaps, and the Judiciary will face many deferred payment obligations after the partial government shutdown ends."

23 Jan 2019; AFP: Cristiano Ronaldo avoided jail on Tuesday but was ordered by a Spanish court to pay 3.57 million euros ($4.1 million) for committing tax fraud when he was at Real Madrid.

The court sentenced him to a two-year jail sentence that it immediately reduced to a fine of 365,000 euros, which adds on to another penalty of 3.2 million euros, the sentence read.

MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. Russia’s media watchdog (Roskomnadzor) has unblocked 2.7 mln IP addresses belonging to Amazon, says a statement from the watchdog.

"Roskomnadzor experts have figured out that the Telegram messaging service stopped using those subnets to ensure its functioning a long time ago," the statement reads.

According to the RNS news agency, the Ariston company earlier reported that owners of Ariston water heaters and gas boilers were facing issues using the Ariston Net app for remote control purposes.

GAZA CITY, Palestine; 23 2019; AA: Since 2000, Israel has destroyed roughly 35 percent of the farmland in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian rights group said Tuesday.

In a statement, the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said that, since the eruption of the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) -- also known as the “Al-Aqsa Intifada” -- in late 2000, Israeli occupation forces have established “buffer zones” in the strip’s easternmost and northernmost areas.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- The opening of China's market is likely to increase the competitiveness of the Chinese economy, which could serve as a future driver of global growth, experts attending the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting said Tuesday.

Attending a penal discussion titled "Rethinking Global Financial Risk," Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said that the Chinese economy may slow down in 2019 but "it won't be a collapse."

22 Jan 2019; AA: Russian presidential envoy for Afghanistan welcomed on Tuesday contacts between the representatives of the U.S. and the Taliban, local media reported.

Speaking to RIA, a Russian news agency, Zamir Kabulov said Moscow is "positive" about the talks between the two sides regarding the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Kabulov said U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad is expected to visit Moscow in February.

Lucknow, Jan 22 (PTI) BSP supremo Mayawati Tuesday demanded that the upcoming Lok Sabha polls be held using ballot papers instead of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The demand comes after a self-proclaimed US-based Indian cyber expert Monday made a sensational claim that the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were "rigged" through the EVMs, which, he said, can be hacked.

MASAITI, Zambia, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Construction works of a dam in Zambia's Masaiti district on the Copperbelt Province funded by the Chinese government was on course, the contractor said on Tuesday.

Construction works of the 450 million U.S. dollars Kafulafuta Dam was commissioned in October last year by President Edgar Lungu.

Bruce Zhu, a business manager with the China National Complete Engineering Corporation, said about 23 percent of works have so far been done and that everything was on schedule.

BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank Wednesday injected 257.5 billion yuan (37.8 billion U.S. dollars) of funds into the market via the targeted medium-term lending facility (TMLF) to maintain liquidity.

The funds have a maximum maturity of three years and an annual interest rate of 3.15 percent, 15 basis points lower than the existing medium-term lending facility (MLF), the People's Bank of China said on its website.

The TMLF tool was introduced in December 2018 to encourage loans to small and private businesses.

DAVOS, January 22. /TASS/. Prolonging the deal to cap oil production within the OPEC+ structure until the end of 2019 makes economic sense because it maintains the oil market’s balance within the range of $60-70 per barrel, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev told TASS on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Davos Forum.