Recently, Kunming Daily, a leading news publication in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province, published telephone numbers of major municipal leaders. There is also detailed information on the respective government duties of the listed leaders. Copies of the newspaper were in such demand on that day they sold out resulting in a reprint.

The positive reaction to this public announcement reflects the eagerness of the public for an avenue through which to check those in authority.

The transparency of government affairs is not satisfactory in China. However, with the improvement of people's democratic and legal awareness, the public has begun to realize the importance of keeping tabs on what the government is doing.

At the same time, a growing number of government agencies have realized this development. They are offering the means for the public to exercise supervision and the Internet and information technology are also employed to help in these efforts.

Given the current social development, it's necessary for governments at various levels to take steps to increase transparency of governance so that the work can be better checked by the people-an effective way to prevent corruption.

China Youth Daily

Playing Your Cards Right

Nowadays, college students in China are becoming increasingly dependent on credit cards, which are convenient and more importantly allow overdraft. Although students welcome this convenience, parents are afraid that the fashionable payment method is actually encouraging excessive consumption. Besides, it is the parents who have to pay off the debt on the cards, as without stable incomes, most students have no where else to turn.

Knowing that the parents will bail out their kids, banks are always eager to provide college students with credit cards. As for the ordinary public, apart from ID cards, they have to offer certificate of income from employers to banks, so as to make sure they can pay back their debts. However, banks make it much easier for college students to open a credit card account by only asking for the copies of their ID cards and student ID cards. In addition, with certain credit cards, students can enjoy discounts in some stores.

For those who can pay back the debt on time, maybe credit cards are helpful, but most students still can't manage this. In this case, some have to draw crash from one credit card to pay the debt in another one, but crash withdrawals from such cards charge high interest rates. As a result, cardholders slip into serious financial debt.

Therefore, college students should act in a more sensible way when it comes to credit cards. After all, they are still unable to live on overdraft alone.

People's Daily

Expensive Garbage

During the Spring Festival, carefully-made attractive packages for festival gifts are found to be nothing more than beautiful garbage, which not only poses a threat to the environment and recycling efforts, but also waste quite a lot of resources.

Sellers spare no efforts on making fine and even luxurious packaging for gifts, to boost sales, but such packaging does not help the quality of the goods contained within.

Nowadays, it's almost impossible to find simply-packaged gifts and people have to pay for items that are overpriced due to unwanted packaging. Recipients always surprisingly find that what is inside the luxurious packages is totally different from what they expect to see.

Excessive packaging of festival gifts is a worrying tendency that goes against the conservation culture. Therefore, it's very important to make producers and sellers realize the serious waste so as to reverse this unacceptable trend.

Guangzhou Daily

Worthless Job Tests

According to a circular issued by the General Office of the State Council, from April 30, various unauthorized or informal professional competence tests and follow-up fee charges will be cancelled.

It is now found increasingly that numerous professional competence tests are actually posing obstacles in the job-hunting process, instead of being helpful. Besides, the large number of tests are also providing opportunities for corruption.

Nowadays, job-hunters have to take a pile of certificates with them when going to the job market and sometimes, people are asked to take tests that have nothing to do with their career, which is a big waste of money and resources.

Originally, professional competence tests were adopted as a way to further improve people's professional quality and standardize the employment market, but as a result, it's becoming a means of making money for some test organizers. They issue all kinds of certificates, which are said to be necessary in getting certain jobs. In some cases, companies that need new workers even conspire with certificate issuers, with the former demanding a certain certificate and the latter giving job applicants relevant training, with the benefits being shared by the two.

The demand for various qualification certificates is actually preventing the free flow of human resources among different sectors and fee charges are adding financial burdens to job applicants. It's really time to say farewell to the many unnecessary tests.

Workers' Daily