In case you didn't think our cities were crowded enough, an official has predicted that some 300 million Chinese currently living in rural areas will move into urban centers during the next 15 to 20 years. 300 MILLION, aka the population of the United States aka half the population not living in cities right now. The official was pretty upbeat about it, arguing that the fast pace of urbanization will create at least 1 trillion yuan in annual investment opportunities - building water supplies, waste treatments, heating and other public utilities. We're not anti-city by any means, but this sounds like a disaster. Not only do we already have some of the world's densest cities, but weren't we all about encouraging farmers to stay on the land last year? What's with the sudden about face? Source: China Daily

All ye lucky yuletide souls whose employer's lack of the Scrooge gene has enabled ye to escape Shanghai over the Xmas break, rejoice! Those of you flying back into China after January 1 no longer need to fill in that pesky health declaration form. Although Shanghaiist kind of enjoyed the pre-landing self-diagnosis ritual. Just how many avian flu carrying fowl had we fraternized with over the past month? And could the hail of sputum from the guy sitting next to us develop into full-blown SARS? These questions, along with which fellow passenger to scrounge a pen off, took our thoughts away from the strip of tarmac hurtling at horrific speed towards our plunging aircraft. According to the national quarantine watchdog and civil aviation regulator (