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Beijing confirmed Friday that a longtime British businessperson in China had been sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 on an espionage charge.

Ian J. Stones was convicted of being bought off to provide intelligence to "external forces," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said when asked about the case at a daily briefing. He did not provide any specific details about the charges.

Both the United Kingdom and United States governments have warned about the risk of detention under China's national security laws. A Japanese pharmaceutical company employee was detained last year on suspicion of spying. A new version of the law that took effect July 1, 2023, has heightened concerns about operating in China.

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Stones' case was not publicly known until reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. The American business newspaper said that Stones is about 70 years old and has worked in China for about 40 years. His employers included General Motors and Pfizer before he set up up a consulting firm, Navisino Partners, about 15 years ago, the Journal said.

Foreign business organizations and governments called for greater clarity last year on what foreign firms are allowed to do under what is now known as the anti-espionage law. Of particular concern are tighter restrictions on the transfer of data to other parties, and what data is considered related to national security under the law.

Raids on the offices of three foreign companies, two consultancies and one due diligence firm, have further unnerved the business community.

The British government warns about the risk of arbitrary detention in China and the broad scope of the national security law. "You may be detained without having intended to break the law," it says in its foreign travel advice for the country.

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The U.S. travel advisory says that Chinese authorities "appear to have broad discretion to deem a wide range of documents, data, statistics, or materials as state secrets and to detain and prosecute foreign nationals for alleged espionage."

It says that foreigners who have been detained for alleged national security law violations include businesspeople, former government officials, academics, journalists and relatives of Chinese involved in legal disputes.

Stones appealed his conviction, but a court upheld the original ruling in September, Wang said.

He said that the case was handled "in accordance with the law, ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of both Chinese and foreign parties involved."

War-torn Ukraine says it plans to start building four new nuclear power reactors later this year to bolster its energy capacity as its conflict with Russia drags on, according to Reuters. 

All four reactors will be built at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in the west of Ukraine with construction set to get underway this summer or autumn, according to Energy Minister German Galushchenko.

Two of the units - which include reactors and related equipment - will be based on Russian-made equipment that Ukraine wants to import from Bulgaria, while the other two will use Western technology from power equipment maker Westinghouse.

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"We need vessels," Galushchenko said, referring to the reactor pressure vessels that will have to be imported. We want to do the third and fourth units right away."

Ukraine currently has three nuclear power plants which churn out more than 55% of the country's electricity needs, but the country has lost significant energy capacity due to its war with Russia.

A fourth nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant, is currently under Russian occupation and poses a serious risk as Russian forces placed explosive mines near the facility last summer, according to the chief of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The mines, which Russia has said are for defensive purposes, were located in a buffer zone between the plant's internal and external barriers and were facing away from the facility.

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Russia gained control of the facility after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and its six nuclear reactors are now idled.

"With the 3rd and 4th (Khmelnytkyi units) we want to compensate for Zaporizhzhia, and now we are in the talks with our Bulgarian partners on the two reactors we want to take," Galushchenko said.

"If we received the reactor vessels today, I think it would be two and a half years and we would have a third reactor on line," Galushchenko said.

Ukraine continues to embrace nuclear energy despite the 1986 Chernobyl disaster where the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near the city of Pripyat in the north of Ukraine, exploded, causing one of the biggest nuclear disasters in recorded history.

Reuters contributed to this report.

King Charles has been admitted to hospital where he will undergo treatment for an enlarged prostate, Buckingham Palace said Friday.

Charles, 75, was transported on Friday to the London Clinic private hospital, where he will undergo the procedure, the BBC reported.

It is not immediately clear how long he will remain in the hospital.

The London Clinic private hospital is the same facility where Charles' daughter-in-law, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, was admitted for planned abdominal surgery last week.

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According to the BBC, the king visited Catherine in the hospital on Friday morning before his own scheduled treatment.

Buckingham Palace initially announced the "corrective procedure" for his enlarged prostate last week.