Hong Kong - Hong Kong was Tuesday ranked the world's freest economy for the 15th consecutive year in a survey by the US think-tank the Heritage Foundation.

Singapore was again ranked second in the annual study, followed by Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. The US was ranked sixth, one place lower than last year.

At the opposite end of the survey, North Korea was ranked the world's most restricted economy, followed by Zimbabwe, Cuba, Myanmar and Eritrea.

Hong Kong  - Hong Kong shares dipped below the 14,000-point barrier Monday after tumbling for a fourth straight day on grim US job figures and earnings warnings from locally-listed companies.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index lost 406.44 points, or 2.83 per cent, to end the day at 13,971. Turnover was a relatively low 46.2 billion Hong Kong dollars (5.95 billion US dollars).

Hong Kong  - A Hong Kong driving instructor has been arrested for allegedly swapping seats with a woman pupil who knocked down a schoolboy on a pedestrian crossing, police said Monday.

The 69-year-old instructor allegedly told police he was the driver after the accident which left the schoolboy seriously injured, a police spokesman said.

The accident took place on Sunday in Hong Kong's Kwai Chung district in an area where learner drivers are not allowed to drive, according to police.

Hong Kong  - Parts of Hong Kong have been coated in early-morning frost as the sub-tropical city shivers through what weathermen said Monday were the coldest temperatures in 16 years.

Overnight frost covered fields and cars in the parts of the New Territories north of Hong Kong island on Sunday and Monday mornings as temperatures of nearly minus one degree Celsius were recorded.

Officials at the Hong Kong Observatory, which monitors weather conditions, said the temperatures were the lowest in the territory for 16 years.

Hong Kong  - A mystery dog poisoner who has killed scores of Hong Kong pet dogs over the past 20 years has begun targeting cats, animal welfare experts warned Monday.

The body of a ginger and white cat was found last week off Bowen Road in Hong Kong's Mid Levels district, the regular haunt of the poisoner who lays tainted meat and has evaded capture for two decades.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said the dead pet it was found by police close to where a jogger had reported seeing suspicious pieces of meat the same day.

Hong Kong  - Police in Hong Kong were Sunday investigating a murder-suicide case in which a 27-year-old man threw his toddler niece to her death from a high-rise apartment block.

The 2-year-old girl and her uncle were both found dead at the foot of the block of flats in the city's Sheung Shui district after falling from a ninth-floor balcony on Saturday morning.

The girl's mother told police that her husband's brother snatched the girl and threw her from the balcony before jumping to his death. Police believe he may have suffered a mental breakdown.