Hong Kong - A mother who abandoned her 5-day-old baby on a hillside has been jailed for six months in Hong Kong, a court report said Saturday.

Pakistani Maria Bibi, 24, left her son wearing only a diaper on the hill near a road in October. He as found by workers 11 hours later, his body crawling in ants.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares rose for the fourth consecutive day Thursday, gaining 2.5 per cent, on optimism that the worst may be over.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index closed 336 points up at 13,888 points and ending the week 9.2 per cent higher than it started.

Turnover was 42.3 billion Hong Kong dollars (5.4 billion US dollars).

Analysts attributed the gains to optimism that December may be a better month following the announcement of another US bailout plan to boost consumer spending. The rally was also influenced by rate cuts announced by Beijing.

Hong Kong  - Organisers will hold the line on ticket prices for the expected return of Maria Sharapova to tennis in early January due to the world economic crisis.

The Russian is due to start her 2009 campaign at the "World Challenge" event, with a field which also includes Wimbledon champion Venus Williams and Serbia's world number one Jelena Jankovic.

The January 7-10 tournament with a 12-strong field will hold prices for punters to the same level as in past years in hopes of keeping the Victoria Park stadium full.

Prices are set to remain at the equivalent of 36 to 105 dollars per day.

Hong Kong  - Christie's was preparing Friday to host its first wine auction in Hong Kong in seven years with a collection of blue-chip wines aimed at tempting the most cautious collectors to spend in the current economic downturn.

The collection includes 127 lots of rare and vintage wines from the reserve cellars of Chateau Latour, which are expected to fetch around 1.2 million US dollars when they go under the hammer Saturday evening.

Hong Kong - A woman and her two children were found dead in a suspected murder-suicide, Hong Kong police said Friday.

The 42-year-old woman had a rope around her neck while her daughter, 13, and son, 17, showed signs of strangulation.

Police said the woman had been receiving treatment for mental illness and had only just been released from hospital where she was treated for depression.

The three bodies were discovered Thursday by the sister of the dead woman who had gone to their 14th-floor apartment to deliver food.

Hong Kong  - An expatriate stockbroker was Thursday beginning a three-year jail term in Hong Kong after being convicted of laundering almost 90 million US dollars from a global fraud.

Jerome Herzberg, 38, was arrested in June last year as he tried to process money received from so-called "boiler-room" frauds through four different Hong Kong accounts.

Hertzberg, a British national, was convicted of laundering 87 million US dollars generated from the fraud which claimed around 30,000 victims worldwide.