Four senior officials have been fired and seven others disciplined over the Shanghai New Year’s Eve stampede that killed 36 people.

Major Chinese car maker Shanghai Automotive Industry Group (Corp) is still in takeover talks with Britain’s MG Rover Group, a senior official at China’s national planning agency said today.

Chinese car giant Shanghai Automotive is preparing to submit plans to acquire ailing Rover in the next few days, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has said.

The tracks under the world’s first commercial magnetic-levitation train are sinking, possibly threatening the €1.1bn Chinese project, a newspaper reported in Shanghai today.