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.

Hong Kong  - Asia's richest woman, according to court testimony, was the lover of a feng shui master for 14 years before leaving him her entire multibillion-US-dollar fortune, a news report said Saturday.

Lawyers for feng shui master Tony Chan said he and Nina Wang shared a "long-lasting, close and affectionate love" from 1993 to her death last year, the South China Morning Post reported.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong has fallen into recession after recording a second consecutive quarter of contracting economic growth between July and September, according to government figures Friday.

The rate of gross domestic product growth in the city of 6.9 million fell from 4.2 per cent between April and June to 1.7 per cent in the third quarter compared to the same quarters last year.

The figure represented a 0.5 per cent contraction in growth from the previous quarter, the second consecutive quarterly contraction, meaning Hong Kong is now in a technical recession.