China media: Anti-corruption drive
Newspapers in China continue a high-profile anti-corruption campaign as officials quash speculation in the Hong Kong press over former regional leader Bo Xilai's corruption trial.
The front page of party newspaper People's Daily rings another "alarm bell" on the "shocking" impact of corruption within the party.
"History tells us that worsening corruption will inevitably ruin the party and ruin the country in the end," the newspaper warns.
Global Times says pressure is mounting on officials after several mayors in southern Guangdong offered to publicly disclose their assets if requested to do so.
But China Youth Daily says that such offers are "evasive" and officials should just go ahead and declare assets without waiting for orders.
Despite the frugality drive against lavish banquets ahead of Chinese New Year next month, the Beijing News says the leadership's crusade against extravagance and wasteful spending could actually drive local officials to be more secretive when spending public funds.
"This highlights an alarming trend - using public funds to eat and drink and indulge in extravagance is going underground from blatant corruption on the street and turning into secret corruption," the newspaper warns.
Elsewhere, a report that former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai would go on trial for corruption in Guiyang on Monday is shot down. Official channels dismiss the news as "rumours" to the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po's reporter
There is little reaction on Monday to North Korea's recent threat of a nuclear test in defiance of UN condemnation.
At the weekend, People's Daily reporter Ding Gang told North Korea that the international community, including China, was "unanimous" in backing the latest UN resolution denouncing North Korea's nuclear programme, despite the resolution's lack of teeth.
"North Korea must understand that the hostile situation on the peninsula will escalate once it possesses nuclear weapons, and North Korea will be more isolated both politically and economically," Ding wrote in a commentary in Global Times.
China Youth Daily welcomes a visit by the Japanese prime minister's special envoy to Beijing last week, but complains that Japan keeps "containing China" with its military expansion and history textbooks that "distort historical facts and stir up trouble on territorial issues".
Turning back to China, Liberation Army Daily and the Beijing News report that China successfully carried out a land-based, mid-course missile interception test at an undisclosed location within its borders, but says the test did not target any country.
In other defence news, an editorial in bilingual Global Times hails China's successful test flight of its first heavy transport aircraft Y-20 as an "important step forward" in military modernisation.
Beijing Daily and the South China Morning Post report that residents in Beijing are advised to stay indoors as much as possible in the next few days as toxic smog hits the capital again for the fourth time in a month.
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