China :: Shanghai

SHANGHAI Metro is gearing up for an anticipated record number of passengers during the National Day holiday period. Popular lantern shows at sites near Nanjing Road E., People's Square and Lujiazui stations will lead to service alterations and limits on passengers numbers. Nanjing Road E. station, shared by Metro Lines 2 and Line 10, will be closed after 4pm each day until Monday. Trains will not stop at the station and passengers will not be allowed to enter or exit. At People's Square and Lujiazui stations, the subway operator plans to limit passenger numbers if the volume becomes great by asking passengers to take alternative means of transport. Extra trains and tickets will be ready for the anticipated crowds, Metro officials said. Passenger numbers on the city's 11 Metro lines rose to 7.1 million yesterday. The last time the daily figure exceeded 7 million was about a year ago during the Shanghai World Expo. Metro Line 1 services were extended to after midnight las...

Cars are stuck in a major traffic jam at the intersection of Yan'an and Huashan Roads in downtown Shanghai this afternoon. Today is the last workday before the coming National Day Holiday and the traffic jam came earlier than usual and is expected to last till 8pm today.

THE 2010 Shanghai World Expo made a total profit of 1.05 billion yuan (US$164 million), boosted by ticket sales and sponsorships, according to a report released by the Shanghai municipal audit bureau today. The auditor said that no severe cases of misappropriated funds were found when the report was compiled. The report showed that the 184-day event pulled in operating revenues of 13 billion yuan, exceeding its original investment of 11.96 billion yuan. The expo received 73 million visitors, including 3.5 million from overseas. Ticket sales adding up to 7.3 billion yuan accounted for 56.52 percent of its operating revenues. Revenues from the sponsorship came out to 3.97 billion yuan. In addition, the construction of the Expo Park cost a total of 19.7 billion yuan, 1.7 billion yuan more than was previously budgeted, the report said.

PASSERSBY who went to the aid of an elderly man who had fallen in the street have been praised by the man's grateful son and the online community. The 86-year-old had taken a tumble on Shanghai's Nanjing Road West at about 1pm yesterday. His nose was bleeding and blood was dripping onto his clothes. A number of pedestrians rushed to help him. They got him to his feet, cleaned him up, offered him water, alerted the police and called for an ambulance. Passerby Zhou Yunyao took a picture of the scene and it attracted a host of comments online praising the people who had rushed to the old man's aid. At the hospital, the man's son said he wanted to thank everyone who had helped. He had told his father to stay put while he looked for a taxi but he had wandered off.

LOCAL theaters began to boycott the public release of a film that stars a famous acting couple who angered many with remarks of discrimination against homosexuals, New Express Daily reported yesterday. Lu Liping and her husband Sun Haiying's new film "Love Never Dies" won't be released in some theaters due to pressure from the gay rights groups. The film's distributor, known as "Dianyingyishu" on Weibo microblogging site, revealed that some theaters banned the film under pressure. The film's director, A'Nian, confirmed the boycott on his microblog and asked the public to treat it rationally. "The film has the right to be screened just as you (gay couples) have the right to love each other," he said. Some theater managers admitted that they had received an order to boycott the film, the newspaper said. Shanghai cinemas have not received a notice to ban the film and the film's local premiere is set on October 14, according to the Shan...

A woman who allegedly took 500,000 yuan (US$78,159) from a pawn shop by using a friend's property ownership certificate has been arrested on charges of fraud, Huangpu District prosecutors said yesterday. The 55-year-old woman surnamed An pretended to be the boss of an investment company and applied for a collateral loan of 500,000 yuan at a local pawn shop on March 23, 2010. To get the loan, An mortgaged an apartment on Xianxia Road in Changning District. She showed the pawn company all the required documents, including the ownership certificate, the attorney's letter with signatures of the house owner surnamed Zhang, his wife and their son, and a notary letter. The pawn company approved An's application after all the documents were confirmed real. On the same day, it transferred 500,000 yuan to An's bank account according to her request. However, when the company went to register the apartment at the housing exchange center, the notary letter turned out to be a fake. T...

Visitors to the Bund enjoy fireworks last night as 19 cruise boats and three fireworks-shooting vessels join an extravaganza to promote the ongoing Shanghai Tourism Festival and coming National Day break.