Hong Kong - A baby seal lies helpless on the ice. Towering above it, a man wields a club, poised to land the blow that will smash the seal's skull.

Moments later, the seal is dead, its body dumped on a mound of freshly-skinned carcasses. Its skin is thrown on a pile of bloody furs to be shipped back 270 kilometres to the Canadian east coast to be sold for around 42 US dollars each.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong people were gloomy Wednesday about the city's economic prospects for the Year of the Ox after Chinese New Year festivities were overshadowed by bad omens.

As celebrations to mark the New Year took place across the city of 6.9 million, which slipped into recession at the end of 2008, headlines were grabbed by two seemingly ominous events.

Hong Kong - Scores of pro-democracy legislators and activists in Hong Kong Tuesday marched to demand universal suffrage in the former British colony by 2012.

The demonstrators marched from the city's Legislative Council building to Government House, calling for democracy and criticizing the territory's chief executive Donald Tsang.

Beijing-appointed Tsang earlier this month put off a planned public consultation on political reform in the city of 6.9 million, saying the government needed to focus on the economic crisis.

Islamabad, Jan. 26 : The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has come out with a shocking tale of the brutal rape of a Baloch woman at the hands of military authorities.

According to the Daily Times, journalist and TV producer Munir Mengal, encountered the hapless woman at a detention centre in Karachi, where she was stripped naked and hurled into his cell.

He claims that he was tortured when he refused to rape the woman, a fate she had already suffered multiple times at the hands of her captors.

The case has not figured prominently in the local media. There has not been any official opinion either on what happened and why.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang Monday issued a bullish assessment of the city's prospects for recovering from the global economic downturn in the Year of the Ox.

In his Chinese New Year address to the city of 6.9 million, Beijing-appointed Tsang said: "Hong Kongers are no strangers to adversity. We are used to thriving on challenges.

"I believe that if we pull together as a community, no challenge will be too big for Hong Kong."

Hong Kong  - A taxi driver and five men travelling home to their families in Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year holiday died Friday when their vehicle was crushed by a lorry.

The 41-year-old lorry driver, who was reportedly on the wrong side of the road, failed an alcohol breath test after the accident near Hong Kong's Lok Ma Chau border crossing with China at around 7:30 am.