Hong Kong  - Hong Kong police have issued a warning to parents to be on their guard against prostitution rings recruiting teenage girls online after a man was jailed for one year for operating an online brothel, a news report said Thursday.

The 25-year-old had posted pictures and contact details of girls online and transported them to meet clients, charging them a commission of 60 US dollars per client from their earnings.

Hong Kong - The tax on cigarettes in Hong Kong was pushed up 50 per cent Wednesday to try to curb a worrying increase in smokers in the former British colony.

Financial Secretary John Tsang announced in his annual budget speech that the duty on each cigarette sold would be increased from 80 Hong Kong cents to 1.20 Hong Kong dollars (10 to 15 US cents).

The increase pushes the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes to almost 5 US dollars, still around half the price of cigarettes in Singapore or Australia.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Wednesday announced plans to accelerate public works and create 62,000 new jobs over the next three years to tackle the severe economic slump.

In his annual budget speech, John Tsang warned that the former British colony's economy would shrink by between 2 and 3 per cent in 2009, its first contraction since the Asian economic crisis of 1998.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares fell almost 3 p

Hong Kong  - A rapist was Tuesday beginning a 10-year jail term in Hong Kong after being traced by his DNA nearly a decade after attacking a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

Truck driver Chung Chi-wing, 30, posed as a policeman to lure his young victim to a parked van and violently rape her as she walked home from school on an afternoon in November 1999.

He was only identified as the attacker when a police officer found a match between DNA in the semen found in the victim and a DNA sample taken from Chung when he was arrested for car theft in 2001.