On April 20, Shanghai World Expo held the first trial operation to ensure all preparations for the event are in order.The organizers will hold parts of the performances in Expo garden. Some of emergency drills will also be performed, including contingency plans for natural disasters and accidents.

An estimated 200,000 visitors crowded into the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai for the first public preview day on Tuesday, forcing organizers to abandon security checks and causing chaos on a nearby subway line.

Police in World Expo host city Shanghai detained more than 6,000 people in a crime sweep, state press said Tuesday, as they ramp up security ahead of the huge event's May 1 kick-off.

When a Taiwan music ensemble performed its reconstruction of Chinese imperial court music last year in Beijing, it marked not just a cultural milestone, but a political one. It was also a chance for people from both sides of the long-divided Taiwan Strait to compare notes on which parts of their joint Chinese heritage have been preserved, or not.

Organisers of Shanghai's World Expo gave members of the public a preview of the massive event Tuesday as they tested facilities and public transportation 10 days before the official start. More than 1.25 million people were expected to visit over the six preview days before the official May 1 opening, with about 70 percent of the pavilions ready to welcome visitors, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Regimes trying to limit the damage from the Internet information explosion are only too well aware that their greatest enemy today is less from an outside military force, than from populations empowered by information about their own country and by the ability to communicate and organize via new cell phone technologies.

Ties between Taipei and Shanghai are growing closer in the lead up to Expo Shanghai 2010, following historic exchanges between top-level officials and businessmen from both sides of the Strait.

U.S.-China relations have been at a low point in recent months due to tensions over American arms sales to Taiwan, President Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, disputes over the value of the yuan, the Copenhagen climate conference, and the U.S. government's support of Google's criticism of Chinese censorship.