IN BRIEF (Page 8)

Beijing

1,278 punished in inspections

A total of 1,278 officials have been held accountable for inadequate environmental protection in the latest round of inspections, according to a statement released on 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 3,324 cases and imposed fines totaling 90 million yuan ($13 million) in 1,531 of those cases.