For a month from mid-January, heavy snow and sleet hit many parts of south China. The freakish bad weather seriously disrupted people's lives, with millions of homebound travelers stranded on highways and in railway stations and airports before the Spring Festival, power grids damaged and communications cut.

If this kind of heavy snowfall occurred in north China, the relatively well-developed snow response system might have been able to prevent it from turning into a disaster. But the snowstorms led to power grid failures in 17 southern provinces. The reason is that the power lines in these regions were designed to withstand a snow cover of at most 10 mm, while the actual thickness they were subjected to was 40 mm-60 mm. Besides, after snowy weather had lasted for more than two weeks, the short supply of coal forced the closure of a large number of power generators, resulting in blackouts in many places. It's more a result of the poor power-coal reserve system than of the bad weather. In China, most thermal power plants only keep a stock of coal for up to 12 days; while in the United States, thermal power plants usually have coal reserves for around 40 days, so disastrous weather usually has little impacts on their power generation.

The nation can draw on many lessons from its arduous fight against the snow, of which the most valuable is that the emergency and disaster-relief scheme must "be ready for the worst."

Qilu Evening News

National Library Sets Good Example

On February 7, the National Library of China in Beijing began to allow free entry of readers, only asking for their ID cards. While having free access to the library's services and facilities, readers can also enjoy discounts on document copying, archive delivery and CD burning. The central budget has allocated 178 million yuan ($24.7 million) to assist the program.

Various surveys show that Chinese are spending less time on reading, but this does not necessarily mean a decline in people's passion in this regard. For example, bookstores on weekends are always filled with readers. The key reason is that there are too few good public libraries: Either the books are too old or in poor condition or the fee charge is too high.

Against this backdrop, to offer free access to the National Library will help to encourage the public's passion for reading and thus improve the overall cultural quality of the nation. But the financial input by the Central Government alone is not enough. For society as a whole to enjoy a better cultural life, local governments are also expected to share the responsibility.

Dazhong Daily

Stop Gender Discrimination

Xinyang in central China's Henan Province announced in January that girls sitting for entrance examinations for senior middle schools or secondary vocational schools would have an additional 2 points added to their original scores, while female officials could also enjoy similar treatment in promotion-related examinations. Xinyang's practice is encouraging news, but whether it will help to improve females' current disadvantageous position in the job market is hard to say.

Many positions are preserved for males and when females are employed they are forced to accept such unfair terms as not being able to have children for several years.

Females are left behind, not because their IQ is lower than that of males or they do not work as hard, but because of their special physical and physiological features and relatively large share of house chores. As a result, many businesses and organizations even prefer to employ males with worse academic records than females. Therefore, what females need is not additional marks on their test paper, but an equal employment environment.

Xinyang's practice shows special concern for females, but this will not help to solve the problem fundamentally. The key to promoting female progress is to reduce and remove deep-rooted discrimination against females in recruitment and employment.

China Youth Daily

NGOs Need to Play Bigger Role

In the battle against the snow disaster in south China at the beginning of 2008, the government implemented almost all relief efforts, while nongovernment organizations (NGOs) were rarely seen, with far less than expected being involved.

The past three decades have seen rapid development of NGOs in China, both in scale and number. However, since their emergence, NGOs have been plagued with problems such as an underdeveloped legal system, lack of resources and low efficiency.

Modern society is a complicated network, where the government alone sometimes seems incapable of coping with all the troubles caused by natural disasters. Based on a self-management mechanism, NGOs are expected to play their unique and complementary role in coping with emergencies, as they usually understand the needs of individual residents better than the government.

In the case of this year's snow disaster, if more NGOs had acted effectively in the fight, not only could the pressure on the government be greatly relieved, but the losses and mistakes in the disaster relief process might have also been mitigated.

Changjiang Times