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SHANGHAI prosecutors have approved the arrest of Jian Fan, a self-styled financial guru who called himself the city’s “Oracle of Omaha,” borrowing the nickname of super-investor Warren Buffet.

Jian was charged with contract fraud, but prosecutors declined to say how much money was allegedly involved. Earlier police reports said investors claimed they lost more than 20 million yuan (US$2.9 million) in dealings with Jian.

Among his promotional exploits, Jian spent US$50,000 to have dinner with Jim Rogers in 2007 when the well-known stock investor and financial professor came to Shanghai for a visit.

Jian, 35, formed Shanghai Xinglue Investment Co Ltd in 2006. He claimed the firm was associated with “an international investment company that had long been engaged in stock investment in the United States,” and “the operation group members came from the Wall Street.”

The company said it had long-term strategic cooperation with Rogers.

Jian gave frequent lectures to tout his claims of successful stock picks, and he published regular weekly columns on investment in a local newspaper.

He later began recruiting clients for his stock investment services, with middle-aged and elderly people the major targets, the Shanghai Law Journal reported.

Jian also conducted training classes, charging from 5,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan a month, and offered stock investment service to his students.

He encouraged investors to send money to his accounts for investment in stock index futures and gold futures, according to the newspaper.

When the nation’s stock markets plummeted, investors who entrusted their investments to Jian reportedly suffered major losses and were unable to retrieve their capital.

More than 200 people complained to police. Jian was apprehended on March 12.

The exact amount of money involved in the case remains under investigation by prosecutors.

SHANGHAI will use specially trained frogmen, helicopter security forces and ships to guard against possible sea-based attacks targeting the 2010 World Expo.

The special forces and other improved military equipment will be dispatched by the city’s frontier police.

The agency announced the Expo defense plan on Thursday as it conducted training in Luchao Harbor on the coast of the East China Sea along with some 30 naval vessels from other parts of China.

Two top specialists have been selected for the frogmen detachment, which will be responsible for dangerous tasks including covert investigations and underwater assault and capture.

The divers are now being trained by naval police, officials said.

Six members of the helicopter detachment are receiving special training so they can descend on attacking ships, said Wei Jing, media coordinator for the Shanghai frontier police.

The underwater and air detachments are part of a bigger specialist defense force whose members are skilled in swimming, diving, shooting and moving quickly from one vessel to another.

The frontier police will also deploy four ships to watch the waters around Jinshan District, the Donghai Bridge, Pudong International Airport and the Yangtze Bridge-Tunnel during the World Expo, police officials said.

Security equipment has also been improved since early this year. Maritime police will use water guns and cannons that can shoot up to 100 meters. Weapons that fire large fishing nets will also be deployed to snarl propellers and stop attacking vessels.

SHANGHAI police said yesterday that they’ve recovered the body of a mechanic who had been missing since a helicopter from China’s polar explorer ship went down at the city’s Waigaoqiao Port on April 12.

Fishermen discovered the remains yesterday morning near the muddy banks of Changxing Island. Officers found identification on the body that belonged to the missing chopper crewman, 56-year-old Yang Yongchang. Final confirmation will come after a tissue sample is analyzed for a DNA match.

The ill-fated helicopter was carrying four men when it plunged into the sea only a minute after taking off from the ice breaker Snow Dragon, which was moored at the port near the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Pilots Yang Hua and Li Baohui and Tang Lijun, another mechanic, survived with minor injuries after being pulled out of the water by nearby ships. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

The Snow Dragon arrived in port two days earlier after completing a research mission to the Antarctic. Its management had rented the chopper from the Harbin-based China Flying Dragon General Aviation Co to support the polar exploration voyage.

The body was discovered lodged in the underwater structure of a dock owned by the Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co at 8:50am, 6 to 7 kilometers from the crash site, police told Shanghai Daily.

Police brought the body onshore about 10am, and investigators conducted a preliminary examination, which they said ruled out foul play.

Officers retrieved a mobile phone and business cards that belonged to Yang, and the height of the body and the clothing matched that of the missing mechanic, authorities said. Yang’s family has been informed and is scheduled to visit the funeral home where the man’s body was taken, police said.

Yang was a native of Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. He was also an official of the helicopter company, police said. He had served on the 173-day scientific expedition to Antarctica, the longest since China began exploring the South Pole.

After months of slowly releasing teaser videos and photos, Porsche finally unveiled at the Shanghai motor show its first four-door sports car that can truly fit four full-sized adults.

The Panameras will be available with two engine options, a 400-horsepower, 4.8-liter V-8 and a 500-horsepower, twin-turbocharged version of the same block, according to an earlier CNET post, that goes from 0-60 in 4 seconds flat.

The Porsche is also standard-equipped with a PDK double-clutch transmission. In a nod to CAFE standards, the Panamera uses Start/Stop technology that turns the engine off when it’s not needed, such as at stoplights or idling in traffic, and automatically restarts when the car needs to accelerate.

The 2010 Porsche Panamera will go on sale this October in the U.S., starting at $89,000 and up to $132,000 for the turbo model.

IT will be cloudy for the next few days as a rain belt moves east over the city, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau reported today.

Temperatures will rise today and tomorrow then drop again on Thursday and Friday as a weak cold front moves in.

Today is expected to be cloudy with temperatures ranging between 14 and 22 degrees Celsius today. Tomorrow the temperature will be between 15 and 25 degrees, dropping to 11 to 20 degrees on Thursday and 12 to 21 degrees on Friday.

The weekend is expected to be cloudy with temperatures back around 24 degrees.

The dense fog that has been affecting Shanghai ports rolled back in this morning leaving visibility less than 1,000 meters. The fog will disappear with the arrival of the cold front on Thursday.

SHANGHAI aviation authorities were examining the wreckage of a helicopter yesterday to determine what caused it to crash, while rescuers said hope was running out for the copter’s missing mechanic.

Three maritime patrol boats and a rescue ship were cruising the crash site last night as they searched for 50-year-old Yang Yongchang.

“It’s been more than 24 hours since the crash, and the frigid waters are life threatening,” said Wang Zuyi, an official with the Shanghai-based Donghai Rescue Bureau.

The search range was extended above and below the crash site at Waigaoqiao Port. But intermittent fog that has disrupted shipping traffic on local waters since Friday prevented the launch of a rescue chopper to reinforce the search effort.

The helicopter plunged into the sea at 11:20am on Sunday, a minute after taking off from the Snow Dragon, or Xuelong, China’s only ice breaker, which had just returned from a scientific research trip from the Antarctic. The downed chopper was one of the two rented aircraft that had been used in the South Pole mission.

Leased from a Harbin-based firm, the helicopter was flying back to its base when it crashed about 70 meters from the ship.

Pilots Yang Hua and Li Baohui, and Tang Lijun, another mechanic, were pulled from the sea by maritime patrol boats and other ships that witnessed the crash at the port. The survivors were in stable condition yesterday at a Shanghai hospital.

Qin Gang, an official with the Civil Aviation Bureau of East China, said crash investigators would talk soon with the survivors to gather clues that might help them determine the cause of the mishap.

Witnesses said they heard strange engine noises from the chopper as it circled the Snow Dragon several times before plunging into the water.

Aviation investigators were examining the wreckage yesterday and were also trying to determine whether the copter was carrying an operating “black box.”

A sonar system detected the wreckage nearly four hours after the crash, said the rescue bureau’s Wang Zuyi.

A rescue ship equipped with a winch pulled the wreckage out of water Sunday night. It was spotted lying bottom-up on the sea bed nearly 1.7 kilometers from the crash site.

SHANGHAI will put a food poisoning warning system on its daily television and Website weather forecasts, the city’s food and drug watchdog said yesterday.

The city started researching an early warning system for toxins last year and set up a mathematical model and treatment procedures, said Xie Minqiang, vice director of the Municipal Food and Drug Administration.

“We analyzed and compared food poisoning incidents and weather data for the past few decades and found they were closely connected,” Xie said.

Weather conditions with the right temperature and humidity that continue for three days or more can be a catalyst for bacteria forming in food and the early warning system can help advise the public of this, Xie said.

Xie said the system had been almost completed and an internal trial will be held this month.

The food poisoning warning system will be published from June along with the weather forecast and advice on morning exercising and laundry, Xie said.

It would not be published every day, just during the period when there was a danger of food poisoning, mainly from April to October, Xie said.

Food safety was a major concern during the city’s annual parliamentary session after several food contamination scandals last year, including the fatal melamine-tainted milk scandal last September.

There were 17 mass food poisoning incidents last year, up 30.77 percent from a year before, involving 467 people but no fatalities.

Fifteen incidents involving 403 people were caused by bacterial contamination.

HOME prices declined in March compared to a year earlier in 70 Chinese cities as they extended losses for a fourth consecutive month, the country’s top economic planner said yesterday.

Prices in 70 medium and large cities fell 1.3 percent year on year last month, the National Development and Reform Commission said on its Website. Prices dropped 1.2 percent in February, 0.9 percent in January and 0.4 percent in December.

Around the country, prices of new and second-hand homes dropped an average of 1.9 percent and 0.4 percent on an annual basis respectively, while on a month-on-month basis, they edged up 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent, according to the NDRC.

Shanghai’s housing prices fell 2 percent last month from a year ago while they gained 0.4 percent from a month earlier, according to the NDRC’s online report. The prices of new apartments slipped 2.7 percent year on year but recorded no change from February. The second-hand home prices withdrew 1.5 percent on an annual basis but were 0.8 percent higher than the previous month.

The prices of new homes in 21 cities tracked by the NDRC declined from a month earlier and over the same period, while 35 cities posted mild gains. Meanwhile, in the used-home sector, prices in 18 cities dropped while they gained in 39 cities, it said.

The National Bureau of Statistics also said yesterday on its Website that 448 billion yuan (US$65.6 billion) was invested in real estate in the first quarter, a year-on-year growth of 4.1 percent. Investment in new houses, excluding those designated for relocation uses, rose 3.2 percent from a year earlier to 342.2 billion yuan.

A total of 201 million square meters of units started construction between January and March, a year-on-year drop of 16.2 percent. In the same period, 99.22 million square meters of properties were completed, a 26.3-percent rise from a year ago.