Cathay fires hundreds of airline staff

One of the leading airlines in Asia, Cathay Pacific, says it's making seven- hundred-and sixty staff redundant, more than half of whom work at its base in Hong Kong.

The cut is about five per cent of the Cathay workforce and reflects the decline in tourism in the territory since it was handed back to China last July.

The BBC correspondent in Hong Kong says it's the latest in a series of high-profile redundancies there in recent months, mostly affecting the finnancial sector and areas hit by reduced consumer spending.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service