Hong Kong  - An illiterate Hong Kong fisherman is suing the Bank of China for the return of 800,000 Hong Kong dollars (102,560 US dollars) he invested with Lehman Brothers, claiming he was deceived, a media report said Thursday.

Lai Kam-fook, who filed a writ in a district court, said he and his wife were advised by a bank executive to make a risk-free, five-year deposit with a higher interest rate, the South China Morning Post said.

Lai said he had never received or read any documentation from the bank.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's flagship airline Cathay Pacific was Wednesday facing a rebellion from its 7,000-strong cabin crew over an offer of unpaid leave to offset the effects of the economic slump.

The airline last week offered all cabin crew unpaid leave of between two weeks and 12 months because of a downturn in business brought about by the global financial crisis.

Pilots on the airline, which earlier this year recorded its first operating loss since 2003, are also being offered unpaid leave with immediate effect as routes are trimmed.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong has the safest roads in Asia with less than one fatality every two days last year, the head of a government committee said Wednesday.

The city recorded 160 road deaths last year, the lowest level in Asia and the seventh-lowest in the world, said Hong Kong Road Safety Campaign Committee chairman Lawrence Yu.

The figure was also the third-lowest death toll recorded in the former British colony in the past 49 years, even though roads in the city of 6.9 million are becoming busier.

Hong Kong  - The widow of a Hong Kong man killed in a car crash as he travelled across Thailand to try to catch a flight out of the country was due to arrive back home Wednesday.

Fung Man-wai suffered only minor injuries in the minibus accident on Monday that killed her husband David Yick Hok-wing and a Canadian man and also left a British woman tourist seriously injured.

Fung and Yik were passengers in a minibus taking tourists from stricken Bangkok airport to the southern resort island of Phuket to try to catch flights out of Thailand when it crashed at 3 am Monday.

Hong Kong  - All 21,000 tickets to see three Chinese astronauts who performed the country's first spacewalk were snapped up in a matter of hours in Hong Kong Tuesday.

Thousands of people queued up at 21 distribution outlets across the former British colony to get the free tickets for the appearance by the astronauts at the Hong Kong Stadium on Sunday.

The astronauts are due to fly into Hong Kong on Friday for a four-day visit, after which they will go to the gambling resort of Macau, a one-hour ferry ride from Hong Kong.

The spacewalk by Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng in September generated patriotic fervour that Beijing appears keen to capitalize on.

Hong Kong - A detective constable appeared in a Hong Kong court Tuesday accused of sex attacks on four young women inside one of the city's police stations.

Leung Lai-chung, 29, first appeared in court last week charged with raping a 19-year-old theft victim after she went to the police station to report her stolen purse.

Three other young women later came forward to accuse Leung of indecently assaulting them at the same station in Hong Kong's inner-city Mongkok district.

All the alleged offences took place in a 10-day period between November 14 and 24 before Leung was arrested on the complaint of rape, the court heard.