Hong Kong  - Unions representing bank workers in Hong Kong were Monday planning protest action over mass job cuts that they believe could see 1,000 employees in the city fired.

Union representatives say they have information suggesting that around 1,000 of the 18,000 people employed by HSBC in Hong Kong will lose their jobs as early as this week.

Hong Kong  - Membership prices for elite clubs, symbols of prestige and wealth in Hong Kong, have crashed because of the widening global economic slump, a news report said Monday.

Dealers in second-hand memberships for clubs such as the Hong Kong Golf Club and Hong Kong Cricket Club say prices are down by as much as 30 per cent to 45 per cent, according to the South China Morning Post.

Hong Kong  - Police in Hong Kong were Sunday preparing to carry out random breath tests on drivers for the first time as tough new laws against drinking and driving come into effect.

From midnight on Sunday, drivers will be stopped at roadblocks and given random breath tests to find out if they are over the limit, a police spokesman said.

Motorists convicted of driving while drunk can be jailed for up to three years, banned from driving and fined a maximum of 3,200 US dollars under the legislation which comes into effect Monday.

Hong Kong - A 23-year-old man accused of murdering two Hong Kong prostitutes appeared in court Saturday following a wave of killings that terrified the city's sex workers.

Hong Tze-yee is accused of killing a 47-year-old prostitute from Hong Kong in the apartment where she worked on January 10 and a 38-year-old Thai prostitute in her flat on January 31.

Both women were murdered as they worked alone by a killer who posed as a client and stole money and other items from their apartments.

The murder of a third prostitute killed in a similar fashion on January 11 is still under investigation.

Hong Kong - For more than a week now a deadly tide has been washing out of China into the sea surrounding Hong Kong, bringing with it growing fears that China is in the grip of a covered-up bird-flu outbreak.

With each day that passes, more dead birds, ducks and chickens washed up on the beaches of Hong Kong, suggesting that H5N1-infected birds may have been dumped into the China's polluted Pearl River and carried by the tide to Hong Kong waters.

China has insisted there are no bird-flu outbreaks in China, despite eight human cases in January alone this year.

But experts fear the tide of death washing out of southern China shows that China is once again covering up another major public health catastrophe.

Hong Kong  - A model-aircraft fan in Hong Kong was facing a lawsuit Friday after crippling a fellow enthusiast by hitting him with a remote-controlled helicopter.

Lo Kwok-wah, 46, was in a coma for months and is now confined to a wheelchair after being hit on the head by the spinning rotor of a 1.5-metre-long model helicopter when it crashed into him in January last year.

The accident left a 20-centimetre gash in Lo's head and caused brain damage that left him unable to move his left arm and leg, a court was told Thursday.