Hong Kong - More than 1,600 Hong Kong companies filed for bankruptcy in February, the highest monthly figure since 2004, the government announced Friday.

The figure is more than double the number that filed for bankruptcy in January and highlights the growing impact of the global recession on the wealthy city of 7 million.

Hong Kong - Life would be meaningless and not worth living without the internet, nearly one in seven Hong Kong youngsters said in a survey released Friday.

Just under 14 per cent of 1,800 respondents aged 12 to 25 insisted they could not live without the internet while 80 per cent described it as essential.

One-quarter of respondents in the high-rise, high-tech city of 7 million, where 77 per cent of households have broadband access, said they used the internet for more than four hours a day.

Hong Kong  - Twelve passengers were injured Friday when a commuter ferry collided with a ship as heavy fog enveloped waters around Hong Kong.

The ferry was travelling from the outlying island of Cheung Chau to Hong Kong when the accident took place about 20 minutes before the ferry was due to dock at the city centre.

Visibility was low at the time of the dawn accident on a second day of heavy fog in the high-rise city, which on Thursday saw visibility reduced to around 500 metres.

Hong Kong - A Hong Kong teenager who robbed seven prostitutes at knifepoint, in some cases after having had sex with them, was jailed for six years Thursday.

Li Ka-chun, 18, carried out a series of robberies in June 2008 in inner-city flats where the prostitutes worked by themselves.

He admitted seven robberies and was jailed at a hearing in Hong Kong's High Court Thursday by judge Gareth Lugar-Mawson who told him his crimes were very serious.

Hong Kong - A Hong Kong policeman on Thursday began a 28-month jail term for mugging a woman to get money to clear his gambling debts.

Leung Wai-hung, 44, snatched a 53-year-old woman's handbag in July, then kicked her as she lay on the ground as he tried to get money to pay off gambling debts of more than 50,000 US dollars.

Bizarrely, Leung is the third police officer in his family to be arrested for a serious crime, according to evidence presented Wednesday at his sentencing hearing in Hong Kong's District Court.

Leung's father, a former sergeant, was charged with murder after fatally shooting his chief inspector in 1994 but was acquitted after claiming the gun went off accidentally.

Hong Kong  - A humpback whale separated from a migrating group of the marine mammals was trying to find its way out of busy shipping lanes around Hong Kong, enthralling the former British colony.

The plight of the 10-metre adult whale made television and newspaper headlines in the normally money-obsessed city, providing a welcome distraction from a tide of bleak economic news.