Another hotspot is the Chinese National Human Genome Centre in Shanghai.

ECONOMIST: Chinese biotechnology

Its old one is outclassed by the cool efficiency of Lianhua's distribution centre in north-west Shanghai.

ECONOMIST: Retailing in China

Peel director Lindsey Ashworth said the idea for the centre came from the 2010 Shanghai Expo, where the UK was represented by Liverpool and Peel acted as a sponsor.

BBC: Wirral Waters

Cai Jian, deputy director of the Centre for Korean Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University, disagrees and tells Global Times that a large-scale military conflict is unlikely to break out because North Korea's threats are largely just psychological warfare against the US and South Korea.

BBC: China media: Views on North Korea

Correspondents say that the carcasses are embarrassing for the city's authorities, who want Shanghai to be seen as an international financial centre.

BBC: China pig deaths: Toll from Shanghai rivers nears 14,000

The red brick and stone, the smoke and soot, and the sounds and smells of Old Shanghai provide sharp relief to the shiny new Pudong financial centre across the river.

BBC: Reliving Shanghai��s 1930s past

As a new independent global city state, joining Singapore and Dubai, and soon to be joined by Shanghai and others, London would be controlling its own destiny at the centre of a future club of truly global nations.

ECONOMIST: Letters

Its new research centre is a smaller version of others in New York, Bangalore and Shanghai.

ECONOMIST: Some rare good news from Germany

Moreover, Mr Thant puts Myanmar at the centre of things exactly midway between Delhi and Mumbai to the west and Shanghai and Hong Kong to the east.

ECONOMIST: How Myanmar is moving ever closer into China��s orbit