Hong Kong - A 22-year-old Chinese gigolo who tried to blackmail his wealthy married Hong Kong lover with a video of them having sex began serving a two-year jail sentence Saturday.

Peng Jun threatened to expose the affair using a secretly filmed video unless the 50-year-old woman gave him 1 million Hong Kong dollars (129,000 US dollars).

Peng, from China's poverty-stricken Hunan province, met the woman in 2007 at a nightclub in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese border city where Hong Kongers regularly go for entertainment and affairs.

Hong Kong  - A 46-year-old hiker was recovering in hospital Saturday after falling 20 metres into a Hong Kong reservoir while running away from a monkey trying to steal her food.

The woman was hiking with friends on Friday when a large adult monkey tried to snatch a bag of nuts she was carrying, according to a spokesman for the emergency services team who rescued her.

She ran away and tumbled down a steep bank before ending up in the reservoir. The woman was taken to hospital with injuries to her head, arms and legs.

Hong Kong - Wealthy people might be wearing long faces but poor people appear to be happier as the world economy goes into meltdown, a Hong Kong survey found Friday.

In what may be a case of schadenfreude - delighting in the misfortune of others - researchers found that while the middle-classes get maudlin in a downturn, the spirits of the poor prosper.

Using a so-called happiness index, they recorded a 4.8 per cent increase in happiness last month compared to October 2007 among Hong Kong people earning less than 1,100 US dollars a month.

By contrast, people higher up the earnings scale with pay of around 3,000 US dollars a month were 3 per cent less happy than last year, however, the team from Lingnan University in Hong Kong found.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares staged an impressive rebound to close nearly 3 per cent higher Friday after falling by 3 per cent in the first half hour of business.

At one stage, the Hang Seng Index had jumped by nearly 1,000 points from its morning low to post a 4.5 per cent gain before tailing off slightly in afternoon trading.

The blue-chip index ended the day up 360.64 points or 2.93 per cent to end another turbulent week at 12,659.20 points. Turnover was a weak 50.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (6.5 billion US dollars).

Hong Kong - A Hong Kong student taken away by police after unfurling a Tibetan flag during the Olympic torch relay through the city in May launched a legal challenge against her detention on Friday.

Christina Chan, 21, was bundled into a police van and detained for several hours after wrapping her body in the Tibet flag as the Olympic torch was paraded through Hong Kong in May.

She complained bitterly that she had been unfairly detained while police said at the time that they acted to protect her from angry pro-China crowds gathered along the route of the torch.

Hong Kong - A Hong Kong internet user has been prosecuted for posting a message on an online forum warning that a bank was facing financial problems, a news report said Friday.

Jobless Leung Kin-wai, 34, was arrested by police after going on an internet forum to warn people to withdraw money from the Hong Kong-based bank, the South China Morning Post said.

He was charged with accessing a computer with dishonest intent and at a court hearing Thursday was put on a one-year good behaviour bond, according to the newspaper.