<SYSTEM_TASK:>
Solve the following problem using Python, implementing the functions described below, one line at a time
<END_TASK>
<USER_TASK:>
Description:
 def strip_html_comments(text):
 """Strip HTML comments from a unicode string."""

    lines = text.splitlines(True)  # preserve line endings.

    # Remove HTML comments (which we only allow to take a special form).
    new_lines = filter(lambda line: not line.startswith("<!--"), lines)

    return "".join(new_lines)