Hong Kong - Hong Kong's leading English-language newspaper was protesting Thursday to officials in neighbouring Macau after one of its photographers was refused entry to the territory.

Felix Wong of the South China Morning Post was detained and then sent back on a ferry to Hong Kong when he attempted to travel to Macau to cover a corruption case involving a former transport secretary.

Wong had been given a Macau government permit to cover the trial but claims he was sent back to Hong Kong after being made to sign papers saying he had been denied entry under internal security laws.

Hong Kong  - A Hong Kong chef on Thursday began a 20-month jail sentence for attacking a woman diner with a meat cleaver after she complained about his food.

Cheng Chi-wai, 50, hit the 47-year-old woman on the head with the cleaver after she grumbled about the meal she was served in the seafood restaurant in the city's Wan Chai district.

He ran into the kitchen and emerged with two meat cleavers after she remarked on the poor quality of his cooking and hit the woman on the forehead with the blunt side of one of the cleavers.

Hong Kong  - Police seized a shipment of cocaine valued at 1.3 million US dollars smuggled from South America in cocoa boxes, officers said Wednesday.

Agents arrested six men and seized 12 kilograms of cocaine in the raid Tuesday which followed a two-month surveillance operation against an international drug trafficking syndicate.

Police and customs officers kept tabs on a consignment of cocaine flown to Hong Kong from Ecuador via Panama and Amsterdam and hidden inside 20 boxes of coca powder.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong police on Wednesday were investigating a school brawl involving 50 students after a video of the melee was uploaded onto the YouTube website.

Tens of thousands of people have viewed the 2.5-minute clip, which shows two groups of teenage students attacking each other on the grounds of a housing estate in the city.

The video appears to have been filmed from the window of a high- rise apartment block overlooking the scene of the brawl, which took place Monday in the inner-city Ho Man Tin district.

Hong Kong  - Drunk drivers in Hong Kong are being offered the chance to phone the Automobile Association (AA) and get a tow home for the price of a taxi ride, the rescue service said Wednesday.

The AA has set up a team of vans and drivers to take late-night calls from members, pick them up and then either drive them in their own car or arrange a tow truck to take their car home.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's unemployment rate has jumped to 4.6 per cent, its highest level in nearly two and a half years, officials said Tuesday.

The jobless rate in the city of 7 million rose from 4.1 per cent in the October-to-December quarter to 4.6 per cent in the quarter from November to January. Figures are announced on a monthly basis.

The rise added another 16,000 people to the jobless total, which now stands at 157,000, the most since September 2006, government figures showed.