Hong Kong  - Letters calling for higher pay signed by 19,000 Hong Kong police officers, more than two thirds of the city's force, were Thursday handed to a government advisory body.

The letter campaign is the biggest in the force's history and follows a long fight for better pay rates by associations representing rank and file officers in the former British colony.

Staff associations are calling for new pay scales that would add an average of 230 US dollars a month to the pay packets of the city's 27,000-strong police force.

Tokyo - Asian stocks took a big dive Thursday, reacting to a sharp fall overnight on Wall Street and wiping away gains from earlier in the week.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average plunged 6.53 per cent to 8,899.14 while the broader Topix index of all first-section issues also lost 5.96 per cent to close at 909.3.

The plunge came on the heels of a Wall Street decline brought on by a report showing rapidly rising job losses.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 5.05 per cent to 9,139.27. The broader Standard and Poor's 500 Index was down 5.27 per cent to 952.77, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 5.53 per cent to 1,681.64.

Bangkok - Democrats Abroad members will be gathering in special venues throughout Asia, from a secret "watering hole" in alcohol-free Kabul to a popular barbecue house in Bangkok, to watch the US election results on Wednesday, Asia time.

If pre-election interest is anything to go by, the turnout to watch the televised results abroad is expected to break records for Democrats Abroad - the official arm of the Democratic Party for Americans living outside of the United States.

"Democrats Abroad in Thailand has more than tripled our membership in the past 10 months," said Phil Robertson, chairman of Democrats Abroad Thailand. "I've never seen such excitement over an election."

Bali, Indonesia - Lawyers for relatives of three Indonesian Muslim militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings launched a last-minute appeal Monday, in a new move to save the condemned men from imminent execution.

The three militants - Imam Samudra; Mukhlas, alias Ali Ghufron; and Amrozi - face a firing squad for their roles in the bombings of two nightspots on the popular tourist island that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Lawyer Imam Asmara Hadi said the appeal was filed in Bali's Denpasar district court because the three convicts have not been properly informed of the rejection of their previous appeal.

Tokyo - Markets across the Asia-Pacific on Thursday saw the roller-coaster ride they have been taking in recent weeks make an upward surge with key markets jumping more than 10 per cent on news of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average ended trading up nearly 10 per cent after the US central bank's rate cut as well as boosted profit prospects for Japan's exporters as the yen weakened against the dollar.