A well-known English language institute in Shanghai has unexpectedly closed. And now angry students are demanding refunds on their tuition fees, while teachers have been left with their salaries unpaid.

Students and teachers at Kai En English Training Center were left stranded when it suddenly closed last week. The center's Irish founder has reportedly disappeared without a trace, with the center thought to have had financial difficulties over the past eight or nine months, due to a sharp drop in student intake.

Property managers in the city's Xuhui district where the school's headquarters are located, say the center – one of the biggest language institutes in Shanghai – owes nearly 30-thousand dollars in rent, dating back to May. A notice announcing classes have been suspended was posted at the reception, but no further information was given.

The Chinese city of Tianjin has signed an official agreement with the World Boxing Organization to set up Asia's first boxing center. When complete, the center will be the third largest of its kind in the world, behind Las Vegas and New York's Madison Square Garden.

The World Boxing Organization is headquartered in Puerto Rico and boasts a large number of branches in more than 160 countries and regions. The organization holds more than 100 boxing matches annually.

CHINA'S POP-CULTURE CENTER SHIFTS

Macao may be world famous for its casinos and gaming industry, but the new Macao Science Center aims to attract a different sort of tourist to the island: those interested in science, technology and space travel.

BON recently reported on new data from the independent Pew Research Center in the US, which shows how Americans view China. In Center's report, 44 per cent of Americans think China is the largest economic power in the world, more than voted for any other country.

That compares with last year, when just 30 per cent of Americans thought China was the largest economic power.

Fifty three per cent of the American public surveyed think China is a main threat to US security. But just 21 per cent of American foreign policy experts polled think China is America's biggest threat, down from 38 per cent in 2001, and 30 per cent in 2005.

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An openly gay blood donor is suing a Beijing Red Cross Center after it turned down his offer to donate blood. The man, who works in publishing and uses the pen name Wang Zizheng, said he was gay in a health questionnaire filled out when he went to donate blood last month. He was then told he could not be a donor.

China's investment in stem cell therapy has soared in recent years. Now the country has opened its first stem cell therapy clinic, in the southern city of Fuzhou.

Stem cell therapy is the replacement of diseased, dysfunctional or injured cells with either adult or embryonic stem cells.