Hong Kong - Nearly half of Hong Kong women gamble regularly and 2 per cent of them are pathological gamblers, according to a survey released Monday.

Interviews with almost 1,500 women and teenage girls found that 48 per cent admitted to gambling regularly, compared to 35 per cent three years ago.

Playing the Chinese board game mahjong, card games and lotteries are the most popular form of gambling for women, researchers at a rehabilitation centre for problem gamblers found.

Hong Kong - The typhoon that raged past Hong Kong last week was so powerful it spun a stationary jumbo jet around, officials at the city's international airport said Sunday.

The Boeing Classic 747-200 cargo plane was rotated a full 90 degrees by the wind during the height of Typhoon Hagupit's Hong Kong landfall early last Wednesday.

The Ocean Airlines jet, now the property of a financier, has been left on a parking bay near the control tower of Hong Kong's airport since July 2007, shortly before the Italy-based airline went under.

Hong Kong - Banking giant HSBC said Friday it will cut 100 jobs in Hong Kong as it slashes its global workforce by 1,100 in response to the worldwide economic crisis.

Hong Kong - Panic died down Thursday among customers of Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia who a day earlier had rushed to withdraw their savings amid rumours the bank was facing collapse.

Long queues of hundreds of customers died away Thursday morning after Hong Kong's chief executive, the head of its central bank and the bank's chairman all insisted the institution was not in difficulty.

Text messages widely circulated from Monday said the bank was on the brink of collapse, sparking a rush to withdraw funds from the bank's 130 branches in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong  - Panicked customers queued up Wednesday to withdraw their savings from branches of the Bank of East Asia in Hong Kong as rumours circulated that the bank was facing financial problems.

The rumours were categorically denied by the bank's management, which nevertheless had to extend business hours by 30 minutes to cope with the queues of anxious customers.

The Bank of East Asia, owned by one of Hong Kong's wealthiest families, blamed "malicious rumours" that it said had been circulating in the market since Monday and questioned the bank's financial stability.

Hong Kong - At least 58 people were injured when Typhoon Hagupit roared past Hong Kong Wednesday, grounding flights and closing schools.

Trees were felled and roads were flooded as torrential rains and gale-force winds lashed the former British colony, shutting the airport for 12 hours starting at 9 pm (1300 GMT) Tuesday.

By 6 am Wednesday, a government spokesman said 58 people, aged 6 to 89, had been treated at accident and emergency hospital units across the territory from injuries received in the storm.