Hong Kong  - A clerk at a law firm has been sentenced to four months in jail after blackmailing a colleague over nude pictures taken during their sexual affair, a media report said Wednesday.

Shek Wing-hung, 38, was found guilty of blackmail and criminal extortion after his victim paid 200,000 Hong Kong dollars (25,600 dollars) to prevent the pictures being made public, the Standard said.

In mitigation, Shek said that he had been emotionally overwhelmed at the time of the offence.

Hong Kong  - Consumer satisfaction in Hong Kong has dropped to a six-year low based on a survey of 68 goods and services, a Media report said Wednesday.

The report by City University of Hong Kong showed satisfaction among consumers had fallen to 69.1 per cent, and analysts said that could hit consumer spending in the coming months, the South China Morning Post said.

The survey, which is used as a performance indicator for Hong Kong business and involved more than 10,000 interviews, showed 64.3 per cent of people were least satisfied with private housing rentals.

ong Kong - Hong Kong's economy is expected to shrink by 2 per cent this year, compared with a 2.5-per-cent growth in 2008, the Asian Development Bank said Tuesday.

But the bank said the contraction will only be temporary with growth forecast to return in 2010, when it projects the economy to expand by 3 per cent.

The bank's acting chief economist, Lee Jong-wha, said measures taken by the territory's government including tax cuts and moves to boost infrastructure spending to combat the current downturn are pointing the economy in the right direction.

Hong Kong  - A man who strangled a woman and later told her family to pay a ransom for her safe return has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murder, a media report said Tuesday.

A judge sentenced So Kam-tong, 25, to life in prison for murdering Yau Hiu-yin, 21, after a jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict, the South China Morning Post said.

So also received a concurrent jail sentence of five years and four months after pleading guilty to blackmailing Yau's family.

The judge described the blackmail as cruel since So knew the woman was dead.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares slumped 4.7 per cent Monday following weak results at some Chinese companies and wider concerns about the US economy.

The benchmark Hang Seng index closed at 13,456.33 points, down 663.17 points after its biggest one-day drop for three weeks. Turnover was almost 51.53 billion Hong Kong dollars (6.6 billion dollars).

Analysts said investor sentiment had been adversely affected by results from several top Chinese companies.

Manila - A Hong Kong journalist was under fire in the Philippines on Sunday for calling the South-East Asian country a "nation of servants" in a column about disputed areas in the South China Sea.

In his March 27 column for HK Magazine, titled "The War At Home," Chip Tsao denounced the Philippines' claims to the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed in whole or in part by China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia.