Hong Kong - Hong Kong has fallen into recession after recording a second consecutive quarter of contracting economic growth between July and September, according to government figures Friday.

The rate of gross domestic product growth in the city of 6.9 million fell from 4.2 per cent between April and June to 1.7 per cent in the third quarter compared to the same quarters last year.

The figure represented a 0.5 per cent contraction in growth from the previous quarter, the second consecutive quarterly contraction, meaning Hong Kong is now in a technical recession.

New York, November 14 : U. S. President-elect Barack Obama was once again the locus of discussions at Thursday''s Time lunch, where guests agreed that the Democrat had a lock on becoming the magazine''s Person of the Year.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator from North Carolina John Edwards, said that Obama had come to seem "more like a symbol than a man ... I hope he''s big enough to get us through the hard times," reports the New York Daily News.

Geneva - Continuing fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has prompted the UN to make plans to transfer 60,000 displaced people to a new camp farther away from the front lines, officials said Friday.

The new site is located about 15 kilometres to the south-west of the existing camps. Most of the transferees will have to make their way on foot.

"The voluntary transfer will be complicated," said Ron Redmond of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He added the transfer was expected to start next week.

"We hope to complete it very quickly, within a few days," Redmond said.

Yangon - A young female journalist who attempted to cover a protest by a group of Myanmar's Cyclone Nargis victims was sentenced to two years in prison Friday, legal sources confirmed.

Eine Khaing Oo, 21, was arrested on June 10 when she tried to cover a rare protest in front of the head office of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Yangon by a group of Nargis-victims from South Dagon Township, a new satellite town for the poor.

Tamwe Township Court found Eine Khaing Oo undermining national security.

She had worked as a junior reporter for Eco Vision magazine for two weeks prior to her detention, media sources said.

New Delhi, Nov. 14 : The World Economic Forum’s 24th India Economic Summit, held in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), will take place in New Delhi next week from November 16 to 18.

Nearly 700 participants from over 35 countries will work under the theme Securing India''s Future Growth.

Seoul - For the first time South Korea's Supreme Court ruled Friday that Chinese nationals have the right to apply for asylum in South Korea.

South Korea's Supreme Court ruled against the Ministry of Justice appeal and ordered that asylum be granted to a three-member Chinese family who fear persecution at home, Yonhap news agency reported Friday.

Yuan Wenrui, 54, along with his wife and son, "belong to a category of people who 'have a well-founded fear of being persecuted' as defined by the UN refugee convention," the presiding judge said in the verdict.