City News

Shanghai closed schools Wednesday as a precaution against heavy rains and high winds from Typhoon Kompasu, while authorities monitored potential damage at the World Expo.

The storm was forecast to remain offshore, swinging to the northeast and passing over the Korean peninsula later this week.

Back in the 1930s it was known to foreigners as “The Paris of the East” – a place full of romance and excitement – and a survey just released has revealed that the international community’s love affair with Shanghai has not dimmed over the years.

The southern metropolis has been voted as the best city in the nation, scoring 105 points out of a possible 120 in a poll passed to 7,980 foreigners living both in China and abroad, across six continents.

Spring Airlines said it will on Sept. 15 start offering 4,000 yen tickets for one-way charter flights between Shanghai and Ibaraki airports.

The Chinese budget carrier will start accepting reservations for the flights on Aug. 30 via its Web site. The 4,000 yen seats account for about 10% of the total on each flight, as the carrier also offers seats for 8,000 yen and 12,000 yen.

China Everbright Bank Co.’s (601818.SH) shares ended up 18%, after rising as much as 20% earlier in the day, on their first day of trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday, amid renewed enthusiasm for newly listed shares following the recent recovery in the domestic stock market.

The mid-sized bank’s shares ended at CNY3.66, up from their initial public offering price of CNY3.10 but off their intraday high of CNY3.72. The lender’s shares opened up 8.7% from their IPO price. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ended down 0.2% at 2666.30.

Thirty-three rare snakes meant to be sold illegally in an aquatic products market in Shanghai were seized after a dealer was bitten by a poisonous species.

The snakes were confiscated from the market in Putuo district after a snake breeder named Guo Yupeng, 27, nearly died after being bitten by a narrow-banded krait, the Shanghai Daily reported Wednesday.

Tiger Woods says he will play in November?s World Golf Championships event in China.

Woods offered a simple “yes” on Wednesday when asked if he would return to the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai.

Shanghai Airlines will leave Star Alliance at the end of October, after bigger rival China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) took it over for $1.3 billion last year, state media said on Thursday.

Shanghai-based China Eastern (0670.HK) joined SkyTeam earlier this year, a global airline alliance that includes China Southern Airlines (1055.HK)(600029.SS), China’s largest carrier by fleet size.

Restoration of Shanghai’s parade of landmark buildings – the Bund – passes a key milestone this week as the famed Peace Hotel throws open its doors.

When it was completed in 1929, tycoon Victor Sassoon’s art deco hotel-residence, known as the Cathay Hotel, was among the most famous properties worldwide. Sassoon lived beneath its green pyramid roof and outfitted rooms with luxurious details like Lalique glass in shaving mirrors. The hotel’s downstairs Jazz Bar set the stage for Shanghai’s jazz age.

The internationalization of the yuan will be pushed ahead with Hong Kong and Shanghai working together as offshore and onshore markets, officials of both cities said yesterday – on the fifth anniversary of the yuan exchange rate regime reform.

Shanghai vice mayor Tu Guangshao said in a financial forum that the two cities could boost the mainland currency’s internationalization process.

World Expos were originally created in the 1800s to show off technical innovations in industrializing countries. By the late 1900s many displays were accurately predicting what the world would look like in a few decade’s time. So what is the Shanghai 2010 Expo predicting for the future.

Most of this 2010 pavilion is not open to the public. The real technology is hidden in a VIP room where Cisco receives government delegations from China and abroad every week. There they discuss turning this vision into reality.

“We are here to show how IT can play a vital role in the mass urbanization to come in China,” says Anthony Elvey, Cisco’s World Expo 2010 director.