China no longer willing to pay environmental cost

Only those who profit from the practice are likely to disagree with the proposition that those who damage the environment should bear the costs of remedying the harm they cause.

Practical move to get NGOs to play bigger role in poverty alleviation work

THE STATE COUNCIL, China's Cabinet, recently issued guidelines for governments at all levels to encourage social organizations to more widely participate in the ongoing poverty-alleviation work, so as to finish the job of lifting all poor people out of poverty by 2020. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

The unbearable lightness of obligations

A 42-YEAR-OLD PROGRAMMER threw himself out of the window of the 26th floor of an office building of a telecommunications company in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, last week. Beijing News commented on Monday:

Barrier-free cities require more than govt investment

A RECENT SURVEY of more than 100 cities by the China Consumers Association and China Disabled Persons' Federation found the construction and management of barrier-free facilities still leaves much to be desired. Yanzhao Metropolis Daily comments:

Hot words

Shanghai-London Stock Connect

Cartoon

Time to make the best of carbon trading

Since the Kyoto Protocol, the idea of trading carbon emission quotas has been generating high hopes for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. During the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, last month, China's special representative on climate change Xie Zhenhua said the country's carbon market is near completion and will be probably the world's largest.

Easing Beijing's burden a long-term process

Editor's note: Tongzhou, Beijing's new administrative sub-center, will receive its first batch of "newcomers" and officially start functioning on Dec 20. An estimated 400,000 people are expected to shift east of Beijing to Tongzhou. Two experts share their views with China Daily's Zhang Zhouxiang and Liu Jianna on what the administration's shift means for Tongzhou and Beijing. Excerpts follow:

Powerful future awaits digital economy

The theme of the 4th World Internet Conference, held recently in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, "Developing digital economy for openness and shared benefits - Building a community of common future in cyberspace", points to the direction of future global economic development, which among other things requires advanced technologies and a smarter production system.

Compromise allows UK's divorce from EU to progress

Within six months, Brussels and London have more or less sorted out the initial terms of their divorce and beginning January, the talks will focus on how to spend the two years of transitional period and what the future relations will be like.

Parties must say no to war and chaos on Peninsula

As the only party to come up with a relatively comprehensive prescription for ending the protracted wrangling over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear weapons program, with its proposal that the United States and the Republic of Korea suspend joint military drills and Pyongyang to suspend nuclear/missile tests, Beijing is trying everything possible to make sure that war and chaos do not materialize on the Korean Peninsula.

Ministry right to turn up the heat on local governments

Over the past couple of days, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has sent out 839 groups on fact finding missions to determine how heating is supplied in Beijing, Tianjin and 26 cities around the two municipalities.