Han Zheng was elected secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Shanghai Municipal Committee on Friday.

Han, who has been Party chief of Shanghai since 2012, was elected to the post at the first plenary session of the 11th CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.

Han, born in 1954, is currently a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. He served as Shanghai mayor between 2003 and 2012.

At the session, Ying Yong, currently Shanghai mayor, and Yin Hong, were elected deputy secretaries of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.

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A total of 1,278 officials have been held accountable for inadequate environmental protection in the latest round of state inspections, according to a statement released Friday by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

In late April, seven teams reviewed local government work in the third round of inspections, which took place in areas including Tianjin Municipality and Shanxi and Liaoning provinces.

The teams have looked into a total of 3,324 cases and imposed fines totalling 90 million yuan (about 13.05 million U.S. dollars) in 1,531 of those cases.

Some 481 officials from Liaoning Province were found to have been at fault, the most of the seven municipalities and provinces investigated.

As of May 9, the teams had received a total of 14,479 public complaints, of which the most came from Hunan Province.

The inspected areas have been told to rectify the irregularities found as soon as possible. Their progress has been reported in local media on a daily basis to give the public a response on reported environmental violations.

The central government is fighting pollution and environmental degradation after decades of growth have left the country saddled with problems such as smog and contaminated soil.

The teams are currently inspecting prefecture-level cities to verify key issues that emerged from provincial level inspections.

In the radar force of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Air Force, some vehicles are mobile – as opposed to fixed stations on mountain tops – and they are called mobile radar forces.

The air force of the PLA Southern Theater Command, has such a mobile radar battalion. Its commander Major Guo Tao said on April 25 that they are “a necessary complement to fixed stations” in that they “patch up, reinforce and extend the colossal sky net” of the country’s radar detection ranges.

Established in May, 1991, this battalion was the first-ever modern mobile radar force in the PLA Air Force. Its creation followed the central military authority’s call for an effective response to high-intensity regional conflicts in modern warfare.

In modern warfare, combatting parties usually seek to paralyze each other’s air defenses first before conducting further operations. Radar installations, which are the eyes of the air force, are among the first and most vulnerable targets for enemy attacks.

Having no self-defense capabilities itself, once a radar is destroyed, it can tear apart the regional defensive monitoring network. Under such circumstances, the mobile radar forces must kick in and patch up the country’s defensive sky net of radar monitoring.

Likewise, there may be blind spots in radar detection ranges either affected by terrain or a radar’s own limitations, or a new battlefield out of the range of fixed radar stations. As for the solution, deploying a mobile radar unit in such blind-spots will instantly reinforce the PLA’s air defenses.

Throughout the 26 years since the battalion’s establishment, this mobile radar force has participated in more than 30 major exercises, and their tracks have reached 26 provinces nationwide.

“We stand ready to b deployed anywhere that the country needs,” said Senior Colonel Duan Zhibing, bridge political commissar, which supervises the battalion. He explained that the mobile radar force is also an extension of the country’s sky net.

China has activated emergency response procedures following a 5.5-magnitude earthquake in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region early Thursday morning.

The China Earthquake Administration activated level-III emergency response procedures earlier Thursday.

All departments concerned are on high alert, and will continue to monitor for aftershocks and evaluate damage.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China National Commission for Disaster Reduction have also initiated grade-IV emergency response measures and sent teams to assist relief work.

A grade-IV response, the lowest in China’s emergency response system, means a 24-hour alert, daily damage reports, and the allocation of money and relief materials within 48 hours.

Also on Thursday, China’s Red Cross Society activated level-III emergency response to the earthquake. Apart from sending a work team to assist relief, it has allocated emergency funds of 100,000 yuan (US$15,000) and sent supplies from its local branch to the affected region.

Eight fatalities have been confirmed and 23 people have been injured in the quake that jolted Taxkorgan County, Xinjiang, at 5:58 a.m. Thursday. Over 1,500 houses collapsed or were badly damaged.

Taxkorgan, some 1,250 kilometers from Urumqi, capital of the region, borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.