HONG KONG - Hong Kong dockworkers have accepted a 9.8 per cent pay increase, ending a 40-day strike that slowed traffic at one of the world's busiest ports. About 90 per cent of the workers voted late Monday in favour of the offer from four middleman contractors that provide staff to a container terminal operator controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying said Thursday a committee will probe the former head of the territory's graft busting unit who reportedly spent public money on lavish gifts and on treating mainland officials to expensive meals while in office. The former British colony has effectively cleaned up its widely corrupt image in the 1960s that was rampant within the government and the police force after then British Gov. Murray MacLehose set up an independent organization that has from the beginning operated directly under the government head's control.

Safety controls on passenger boats in Hong Kong suffer from "systemic failings" an inquiry found Tuesday after a ferry collision which claimed 39 lives in the city's worst sea disaster in decades. Pleasure boat Lamma IV was carrying more than 120 people to a fireworks display last October when it collided with the high-speed ferry Sea Smooth and partially sank near Lamma Island.

Result from the Asian Five Nations on Saturday: Hong Kong 0 Japan 38 Scorers Japan - Tries: Takeshi Kizu, Kosei Ono, Yuta Imamura, Toshiaki Hirose (2), Yoshikazu Fujita; Conversions: Ayumu Goromaru (4) Played Friday: UAE 10 South Korea 75 afp