Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares soared to their highest levels in four months Tuesday as confidence surged through the market on the city's first day of trading after the Easter holiday. The blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 678.75 points, or 4.55 per cent, in brisk trading to close at 15,580.16, the highest level since early December.

Turnover was 75.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (9.72 billion US dollars), sharply higher than in recent weeks as traders raced to catch up with gains in the US and China markets following the four-day Easter break in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong people sent 14 times as much mobile data in January than they did in the same month two years ago, according to figures released Tuesday. The rise in the sending of mobile data from phones and hand-held computers also represented a four-fold increase on the figure from January 2008, the territory's telecommunications authority said.

People in the hi-tech city of 7 million are among the world's keenest users of mobile technology to transmit files, images and SMS messages.

Hong Kong - The Hong Kong government Monday issued a travel warning for its residents to stay away from Bangkok as anti-government protests escalated in the Thai capital. Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee said the government of Hong Kong was the first to issue such a severe warning.

Lee called on tour operators and individuals to scrap their plans to Thailand due to the political unrest and said several tour operators had already cancelled packages.

Hong Kong - In a sign of the worsening impact of the global slump on Asia's aviation industry, pilots with a Hong Kong airline said Monday they had been fired for not accepting drastic pay cuts. The pilots - four first officers and five captains - say they were sacked by Hong Kong Airlines after declining new contracts that cut their basic salaries to as little as 2,250 US dollars a month.

Hong Kong- A Hong Kong anti-smoking campaigner who for a quarter of a century has been a thorn in the side of the tobacco industry in Asia was Sunday celebrating a major international award for her crusading work. Dr Judith Mackay, labeled one of the three most dangerous people in the world in a leaked tobacco industry document in the 1980s, has received the British Medical Journal Group's first ever lifetime achievement award.

Hong Kong - The number of seizures involving smuggled cigarettes has soared 127 per cent in Hong Kong since the government increased the tobacco tax by 50 per cent in its February budget, a news report said Friday. A total of 287 cases of smuggling, distribution, selling and storing of illegal cigarettes were detected in March, compared with 126 in March 2008, the South China Morning Post said.