The investigation of Zhou, a former Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, for suspected “serious disciplinary violations” will be conducted by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

Top leaders are resolved to target both high-ranking “tigers” and low-ranking “flies” in their anti-corruption effort. After taking the helm at the CPC in November 2012, Xi Jinping has led efforts in fighting corruption, calling on the whole Party to stay on full alert, and describing corruption as a threat to the Party’s very survival. Xi vowed that there would be “no exceptions”: No leniency will be meted out no matter who is involved.

The downfall of a “big tiger” like Zhou could have a deterrent effect on Party members and corrupt officials who believe they are immune.According to the CCDI website, around 40 officials of provincial and ministerial level or higher have been investigated for corruption or other serious disciplinary violations since November 2012.

Xu Caihou, former vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, was expelled from the CPC for bribery last month and may face prosecution.

Also in June, authorities announced the investigation into Su Rong, then vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, who was previously Party chief of several provinces.

The Ministry of Transport (MOT) said in a guideline that China aims to expand highways in the autonomous region to 110,000 kilometers by 2020.

China plans to complete a primary network of railways by then with 1,300 kilometers of rails in operation. The country will also build more airports in Tibet.

Building roads connecting rural areas has become the policy focus. The authorities plans to make sure that by 2020, every village in Tibet has at least one road connecting with the outside.

To that end, the MOT will beef up support to the construction of transport infrastructures in Tibet and make specific plans to ensure the accomplishment of these targets.

Tibet has received about 83 billion yuan (13 billion U.S. dollars) in transport investment during the last 20 years.

In ancient times, it usually took months even years for people living in the country’s middle and eastern regions to get to Tibet.

Although airlines, railways and expressways have made travels to Tibet much more convenient, the transport infrastructures in the autonomous region are still outdated.

“The development of transport in Tibet is crucial to China’s national security and lasting prosperity in the autonomous region,” said the MOT guideline.

Kim examined the test-fire plan which mapped out the location of the U.S. military bases in South Korea before the exercise started. The drill, which simulated battles to strike those U.S. forces in South Korea, proved the high combat capability of the fire strike unit and the perfect performance of the tactical rocket, said the KCNA dispatch.

Kim expressed great satisfaction with the drill and said the U. S. harsh hostile policy toward the DPRK has not changed at all since the 1950s.

“Whoever dares challenge the just cause of the service personnel and people of the DPRK is bound to meet a final ruin,” he stressed, calling for wiping out U.S. forces in South Korea and their followers at an early date and realizing national reunification.

It was the DPRK’s 6th launch of ballistic missiles and 15th firing of missiles or artillery shells this year, according to South Korean local media.

The KCNA reported on July 10 that the DPRK had conducted a tactical rocket firing drill of the strategic force of the KPA, and its top leader Kim Jong Un gave field guidance on the drill.

The Korean War came to a ceasefire on July 27, 1953, when the Armistice Agreement was signed in Panmunjom on the border of the DPRK and South Korea. But the war is not officially over because no peace treaty has ever been signed.

Total profits of industrial companies with annual business revenue of more than 20 million yuan (3.2 million U.S. dollars) reached 2.86 trillion yuan, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

The profits growth was markedly up from the less than 10-percent increase recorded in the first five months.

The faster-than-expected growth pace was due to strong growth in June, when industrial firms raked in 588 billion yuan in profits, up surprisingly by 17.9 percent from a year ago.

He Ping, statistician under the NBS, attributed the increase to rising sales and dropping costs of industrial firms in June and admitted that the low base in the same period last year also contributed to the high growth.

In the Jan-June period, profits of foreign-funded enterprises and companies with funds from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan rose the most by 15.3 percent year on year to 691.76 billion yuan.

State-owned and state-holding industrial enterprises amounted to 761.35 billion yuan in profits, up 5.6 percent from a year ago; profits of private firms climbed 13.5 percent year on year to 910.49 billion yuan; joint-stock enterprises took in total profits of 1.69 trillion yuan, up 10.8 percent year on year.

By sector, industrial enterprises in mining industry reached profits of 340.05 billion yuan in the first half, down 14.6 percent year on year. Companies in manufacturing sector saw 15.6-percent year-on-year growth to hit 2.3 trillion yuan in the period.

Of the total 41 industrial sectors, profits of 35 sectors rose, one remained flat and five dropped in the first half from the same period last year.

The manoeuvre with troops is part of the Chinese army’s routine training, the ministry said in a statement.

As the largest trade event in south Xinjiang, the three-day fair has attracted 1,600 businessmen and delegates of trade and commerce associations, including 446 from six foreign countries, including Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to the organizers.

A total of 1,480 indoor and outdoor stands will showcase the latest products, technologies and investment opportunities in agriculture, textiles, light industrial machinery, culture, tourism and other fields.

An international forum on the Silk Road Economic Belt and sessions will be held in an effort to upgrade the fair.

Long Yongtu, China’s former chief negotiator for WTO entry and former secretary general of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), Thomas J. Sargent, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and many government officials, scholars and experts will attend the forum and give speeches.

The annual trade fair was first held in 2005 and has since become one of the most important international trade fairs held in Xinjiang. Contracts worth a combined total of 42.46 billion yuan (6.9 billion U.S.dollars) were signed at the ninth fair in 2013.

The area of the lake was 4,373 square km during the dry season in a satellite survey carried out between the end of May and early June, said Wang Yuan, deputy head of the Qinghai Provincial Basic Geographic Information Center.

The lake is approaching its record size of 4477.53 square km recorded in 1974, said Wang on Sunday.

Abundant precipitation, grassland restoration, reforestation, wind blocking and sand fixation contributed to the expansion of the lake, he said.

The lake is situated in northwest China’s Qinghai Province. It has fluctuated in size but kept increasing since 2005.

About half of new foreign-invested projects went to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone.

Twelve multinational corporations (MNCs), including Volvo, Zegna and Danone, have set up their regional headquarters in the zone.

Shanghai retains its role as China’s most MNC-concentrated city, home to 470 MNC regional headquarters and 375 MNC research centers.

In Pudong alone, MNC regional headquarters and subsidiaries generated more than 800 billion yuan (128 billion U.S. dollars) in revenues last year and paid more than 50 billion yuan in taxes.

Yang Dongliang, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said collieries with an annual capacity under 90,000 tonnes will be shut down in 50 coal-rich counties in 12 provincial-level regions.

But he did not give a specific timetable of the shutdown.

In the first half of 2014, 51 coal mine accidents in these counties killed 122 people. Small collieries in China usually have outdated safety-control measures and are vulnerable to flooding or gas explosion.

Yang said work safety authorities must step up supervision and hold local governments accountable for coal mine accidents.

China’s VAT reform, which was implemented as part of China’s structural tax cuts, has included replacing turnover tax with a VAT in the transportation industry, railway transport, postal services, telecommunications and some service sectors.

VAT refers to a tax levied on the difference between a commodity’s price before taxes and its production cost. Turnover tax refers to a levy on a business’s gross revenues.

The widening VAT reform has helped ease tax burdens for over 96 percent of affected taxpayers, according to the administration.