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For fairness in education

Equal opportunities for education, compulsory education in particular, are an important part of social fairness. But this is no easy task since some officials with power in hand use their clout to send their children to the best schools, while wealthy families tend to do the same using money.

Japan's dangerous obsession

If a country claims that it sticks by non-nuclear principles but at same time hoards far more nuclear materials than it needs, including a massive amount of weapons-grade plutonium, the world has good reason to ask why, says a Xinhua commentary.

Earnest bid to end sex trade

Dongguan, an industrial hub in Guangdong province, has started a three-month long crackdown on prostitution. Dozens of entertainment centers, including some five-star hotels, have been closed, hundreds of sex workers and sex trade organizers arrested, and several local officials pulled up for dereliction of duty.

Education without thought is labor lost

The 2013 Global Talent Blue Book: Annual Report on Chinese Students Studying Abroad says the percentage of overseas Chinese students returning to the country increased by 46.56 in 2012. But 77.5 percent of the returnees who responded to a survey said their salaries were much lower than expected, with only 1.8 percent saying their pay was more than they expected.

Letters

Respect homeless people's wishes

From the Chinese Press

Budding artists need assistance

Paradigm of bilateral cooperation

At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain began a four-day state visit to China on Tuesday.

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Reforms will enhance growth potential

Since the beginning of December, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has declined 13 percent. The sell-offs in many emerging markets, especially Turkey, Argentina and Brazil, were triggered by their sharp currency depreciation as a result of the United States' tapering of its quantitative easing, as well as market fears of an external debt crisis, for example in Turkey; the negative impact of local rate hikes, for instance in Brazil and India; inflation in Argentina, Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa; and potential economic contractions, as well as political instability in Turkey and Thailand.

Untying cross-Straits knot

Just days after the historic meeting between the mainland's and Taiwan's chief overseers of cross-Straits ties, Lien Chan, honorary chairman of the Taiwan-based Kuomintang, arrived in Beijing with a group of Taiwan dignitaries.

Cultivate core social values

There is a perceived moral decline in society after decades of breakneck economic growth, and the Party issued an unusually detailed guideline in December to promote core social values, including civility and harmony, fairness and the rule of law; and integrity and friendship.