HIGHER COSTS: Prices keep rising, yet consumers have no choice but to pay more for vegetables (LI GANG)

Excessive Volunteering

During the May Day holidays, a large number of volunteers rushed to elderly homes in Foshan, Guangdong Province, offering help. But the volunteers largely outnumbered those they wanted to help.

Volunteer service in China started only several years ago. Although volunteer organizations are mushrooming, most of them are active only during big events, such as the Beijing Olympic Games and the Shanghai Expo, or occasionally serve elderly homes and nursing homes for disabled children during holidays. Regular volunteer service is still rare. As a result, some people receive more than enough service while those who really need help are neglected.

In Western countries, where volunteer service first appeared, volunteers work around the clock in areas such as tutoring, poverty reduction and health services. They have well-developed institutions that are responsible for training and recruitment of volunteers.

If we have similar organizations, which know clearly where volunteer service is needed, volunteers will not all rush to homes for the elderly. Besides, if volunteer service focuses mainly on big events and celebrations, it goes against the basic volunteering spirit of making quiet and unselfish contributions.

Guangzhou Daily

Children's Safety

In April, four school and kindergarten attacks by knife-wielding men targeting small children in southern Fujian and Guangdong provinces shocked all of China.

The Ministry of Education has ordered all schools to upgrade security facilities and to employ guards. Police officers have also increased patrols near campuses.

Children's safety is a big concern for their families. But, in some places, educational institutions and local governments lack basic security awareness, while security facilities and precautions are very poor in schools and kindergartens. The loopholes allow some people to choose children without self-defense as targets of revenge against society.

Campus safety is not a matter for a family or a certain agency, but it is the whole of society's responsibility. Particularly, governments at various levels must take tangible measures to protect children.

At a time of rapid social transformation, we need pay more attention to people's livelihoods and their psychological health, helping them deal with daily difficulties, in case some people seek revenge on society because of personal grudges. Only when the overall social environment becomes safe can campus safety be ensured.

Beijing Times

Innocent Weather

A new round of vegetable price hikes is sweeping through China. In response, official explanations said the market was short-supplied because of low temperatures, snowfall and sandstorms in north China in spring and lasting drought in the south. In their words, the weather should be held accountable for rising vegetable prices and, because they are weather-related, the price hikes will not last long.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, vegetable prices increased 13.6 percent and 10.9 percent year on year in April 2008 and 2009, respectively. Although this year's statistics have not been announced yet, based on 50 cities' food price reports, vegetable prices rose no less than 10 percent last month over the previous year.

Even when the country's economy was at its lowest point because of the global financial crisis, vegetable prices kept going up and up. In January 2009, for example, vegetable prices rose 19.6 percent year on year.

On this basis, can government departments still blame bad weather and natural disasters for vegetable price hikes?

We cannot expect to buy cheap vegetables in a market operating under resources monopoly and when vegetable-loaded trucks on roads are blocked by an endless number of tollgates. Obviously, weather is not the main factor driving up vegetable prices.

The Beijing News

Destroyed Wheat

Hongniwan Township in Nanyang, central China's Henan Province, recently uprooted about 70 hectares of wheat along an expressway to plant trees allegedly in preparation for the National Farmers Games in 2012. The township also planned to afforest another 300 hectares of land, most of which are arable. Who had made the plan? Of course it was not local farmers, because farmland is what they depend on for their living.

China is the only country in the world that holds National Farmers Games, which reflects the government's emphasis on farmers' health. If the Games does not add to farmers' well-being but, instead, damages their interests, do we still need it? Besides, according to state laws and regulations, farming land is strictly protected, and should not be used for other purposes, including tree planting.

If local officials had taken the side of farmers, they would not have ordered the wheat uprooting. Unfortunately, they had attached more importance to a complete vanity project.

Zhujiang Evening News