He said he had never mentioned to anyone the money alleged to have been paid to him.

Another major witness, So Sau-chung, who went on a hunger strike to protest against the Star Ferry increases, was jailed for contempt by the commission when he refused, for the third time, to take the prescribed oath.

Barrister Albert Sanguinetti, appearing for Mrs Elliott applied for an order by the commission that statements be supplied to him in advance, as some had been supplied to counsel for the government and the police.

He argued that his client had as much right to a preview of the statements as did the other parties to help sound out the truthfulness of any testimony.

In London, the Daily Mail praised the 'courage, tenacity and sincerity' of Mrs Elliott, who was there seeking a government inquiry into alleged corruption in the Crown colony.

She was the subject of a feature article entitled: 'The curious case of Elsie Elliott.'

She had set up headquarters on the fourth floor of one of the least expensive hotels in Bloomsbury, had seen the secretary of state for the colonies, the Commonwealth secretary for the Labour Party and two Conservative MPs and was meeting others.

The article said she went around armed with a case full of well-document evidence and wondered if she could win her battle and get her government inquiry.

It concluded: 'If courage, tenacity and sincerity are enough, she can.'

Mrs Elliott told a press conference she would organise a campaign of 'civil disobedience' if the British government gave no date for starting a commission of inquiry into Hong Kong.

Of the 14 scientists known to have been prominently associated with the recent nuclear test in China, seven held doctorates from British universities - three from Cambridge, two from Edinburgh and one each from Manchester and Liverpool.

No fewer than 12 received a substantial portion of their scientific training in the west. Most of them were in Britain from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, when there was a politically inspired mass return to China.

American cotton textile manufacturers reacted with mixed feelings to a new textile agreement between the colony and the US government.

Informed sources said it envisaged annual cotton textile imports from Hong Kong of between 320 million and 350 million square yards.

A 17-year-old pupil of Diocesan Boys' School finally made his selection after having been offered nine American college scholarships valued at a total US$25,400.

Frank Seng-kie Tija decided to accept the scholarship offered by Harvard University.

A retired British colonel complained about a ghost in his mansion because it coughed too much.

Julius Birch, 82, said at his home at Olney in Buckinghamshire: 'It's not a bad ghost and I'll end up getting used to it, but my word, it does cough a lot.'

The colonel said he had not been able to tell from the coughing whether his uninvited guest was male or female but commented: 'I suppose it's the ghost of a priest because there's a little secret cell in my bedroom that once must have been a confessional.'

Boxing: Cassius Clay retained his world heavyweight boxing title when he stopped Britain's champion, Henry Cooper, in the sixth round of their 15-round contest in London.

The fight was stopped when Cooper became covered down to his waist with blood from a cut to his left eye.