Hong Kong - Two undercover policewomen posed as potential prostitutes to help crack an international sex syndicate that was sending women to work in overseas bars, a Hong Hong court report said Tuesday.

The two officers arranged a meeting with a man called Ho after answering an advertisement in a Chinese-language newspaper offering "quick money overseas by being public relationship officers in Japan, Taiwan and the United Kingdom" between December 2006 and June 2007.

At the meeting the women were told they could earn tens of thousands of dollars a month entertaining and having sex with customers in a bar in Chiba-Ken in Japan.

Hong Kong  - A Hong Kong golfer is suing a fellow player for 65 million Hong Kong dollars (8.3 million US) after being hit on the head by a wayward shot, a news report said Tuesday.

Computer expert Alan Deakins, 40, claims he has been unable to work since receiving head injuries in the incident on Christmas Eve 2006 at the former British colony's upmarket Clearwater Bay Golf and Country Club.

Hong Kong - Banking giant HSBC axed 450 jobs in Hong Kong Monday because of the impact of the global financial crisis, a government-run radio station reported.

The bank blamed the cuts among the 20,000-strong Hong Kong workforce on the deteriorating global economy and a pessimistic outlook for 2009, according to Radio Television Hong Kong.

Both front and back office staff have been affected by the job cuts, the radio station said.

Hong Kong - Scores of office workers were evacuated from central Hong Kong Monday as police detonated a suspected Second World War bomb unearthed on a building site.

The bomb was discovered on the site of the new government headquarters next to Victoria Harbour on Hong Kong island on Monday morning, police said.

Bomb-disposal experts were called in, the site was cordoned off and a section of the busy harbour-side road closed down while the detonation took place. No one was injured.

Hong Kong was heavily bombed throughout World War II as British and Japanese armies battled for control of the strategically located former colony.

Hong Kong  - Scores of construction workers staged a rally in Hong Kong Monday calling for government help after 4,000 of the city's labourers lost their jobs in neighbouring Macau last week.

The workers demanded that major government infrastructure projects be brought forward to prevent mass unemployment in the construction industry as a result of the slowdown.

Hong Kong  - Children are being pulled out of Hong Kong's top international schools in unusually high numbers as the global slump forces expatriates to quit the city, a news report said Monday.

Up to 50 students have left each of the wealthy city's most prestigious fee-paying international schools in recent months as expatriates are recalled, the Hong Kong Standard said.