Fines and fees fall heaviest on the smallest companies

Editors note: The State Council, China's Cabinet, has urged State-owned banks to lower the interest rate for loans to small and micro-sized enterprises by 1 percentage point in the fourth quarter. Columnist Qin Shuo comments in a post:

Keep watchful eye on tricks of the apps

ON WEDNESDAY, the China Consumers' Association released a report on 100 smartphone apps, which found that the majority of them are suspected of collecting privacy and personal information that is unnecessary for their use. Beijing News comments:

Cartoon

G20 must promote fair climate governance

Climate change poses one of the biggest risks to sustainable development.

Moscow, Kiev should work to restore peace

Editor's note: The skirmish between Russia and Ukraine near Kerch Strait has further escalated tensions between the two sides. Russia seized three Ukranian ships near the Kerch Strait that separates the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov on Sunday, saying they had entered Russian waters ignoring warnings, while Ukraine warned the incident could lead to a full-scale war. Why has the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensified? And how will the incident play out? Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily's Liu Jianna. Excerpts follow:

Law ought to ban smoking in all public places

Over the past half a year since I moved to Beijing to be the World Health Organization representative in China, I have seen for myself and have been encouraged by the progress made by cities to make public spaces smoke-free.

Cooperation has much more to offer than hostility

The mood I felt during my visit to Spain and Portugal the past week was quite different from the months covering the contentious China-US trade conflict before I was posted to Brussels in early November. The message from European officials and pundits is largely centered on how to expand and elevate cooperation with China, just as the Chinese often say: make a bigger cake so everyone has a bigger slice.

Insights from interior monologue of Mars

ON TUESDAY, InSight, NASA's Martian exploration device, successfully landed on its destination site. Guokr.com comments:

Strict oversight over use of funds to get real results

Editor's note: At Caijing magazine's annual meeting in Beijing on Nov 14, Dong Yunting, head of the expert committee of the China Information Technology Industry Federation, said that by the end of last year, China had a total of 7.14 million patents, among which 90 percent were probably only props to appropriate project funds or innovation bonuses. An editorial of 21st Century Business Herald comments:

Restraint required to prevent Kerch Strait row exploding

Tensions between Ukraine and Russia have escalated quickly this week, drawing global concern. The two parties need to exercise utmost restraint so as to prevent the situation from spinning out of control. After all, a war on any scale would not serve the interests of either.

Safety the priority; profits cannot come before lives

The explosion outside a chemical factory in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, which killed at least 23 people early on Wednesday, sounded another alarm for workplace safety nationwide.

Slowdown in global wage growth result of developed countries' protectionism

THE AVERAGE GLOBAL GROWTH RATE for wages dropped from 2.4 percent in 2016 to 1.8 percent in 2017, the lowest since 2008, according to the Global Wage Report issued by the International Labour Organization on Monday. The report also indicates the real wage growth rate of the G20 members has fallen to 0.4 percent in 2017 from 0.9 percent in 2016. Beijing Youth Daily comments: