Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares closed up more than 3.4 per cent Tuesday and edged close to the 14,000 points mark.

Buoyed by overnight gains on Wall Street, The blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 462.92 points or 3.44 per cent to 13,910.34 points. Turnover was 63.8 billion Hong Kong dollars (8.23 billion US dollars).

The gains followed a jump of nearly 5 per cent in prices Monday to take the index to a five-week high. Turnover Tuesday was also at its highest level for weeks.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong lawmakers and human rights activists on Tuesday called for the wife of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to be banned from the city after she was granted diplomatic immunity over an alleged assault.

Grace Mugabe, 43, escaped prosecution for allegedly attacking a British photographer who took pictures of her on a shopping trip to Hong Kong in January.

Hong Kong - Nearly one in five young people in Hong Kong is out of work as the city's jobless rate is driven higher by the economic crisis, according to official figures released Tuesday.

Eighteen per cent of the working population aged 15 to 19 were unemployed in the first quarter of 2009 compared to just 10.8 per cent in the same period in 2008, government statistics showed.

Hong Kong - Israeli diplomats in China have raised concerns over a national business awards contest with a logo that looks similar to the Nazi SS insignia, a news report said Monday.

Billboard posters for the China Top Brand awards scheme have appeared in Hong Kong with an logo that looks similar to the lightning-strike style insignia used by the German SS, a powerful paramilitary organization, responsible for many of the Nazi's worst crimes.

Hong Kong  - The wife of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has been granted diplomatic immunity over an alleged attack on a newspaper photographer in Hong Kong, officials said Sunday.

The city's Department of Justice decided 43-year-old Grace Mugabe is entitled to immunity despite a police investigation that concluded there was enough evidence to prosecute her over the January 15 incident.