British number one Johanna Konta recovered from a slow start to reach the quarter-finals of the Shenzhen Open in China.
The world number 10 lost the first set to American Vania King, ranked 77th, and trailed 3-1 in the second.
But she regained her composure to beat her opponent 1-6 6-3 6-2.
Konta, who is the third seed at the event, will face either Kristyna Pliskova or qualifier Kai-Chen Chang in the last eight.
Meanwhile, fellow Briton Naomi Broady will have to wait until Wednesday to start her campaign at the ASB Classic in Auckland because of bad weather.
Broady, who is 90th in the world, had been due to face Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, ranked 20 places above her, but persistent rain ended Tuesday’s play early.
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HONG KONG, Jan. 3 (UPI) — Donald Tsang , Hong Kong’s chief executive from 2005 until 2012, has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges related to a luxury apartment in China.
Tsang, 72, pleaded not guilty to three charges of bribery and misconduct on Tuesday. Prosecutors allege Tsang did not declare numerous conflicts of interest, including renting a three-story luxury apartment in Shenzhen from businessman Bill Wong Cho-bau, a shareholder of the Wave Media broadcast company.
Prosecutors allege Tsang approved the company’s license applications. The apartment was later redecorated for free , while Tsang later nominated the apartment’s interior designer, Barrie Ho Chow-lai, for an honor, prosecutors said.
Tsang is the highest-ranking official to ever face a criminal trial in Hong Kong history. The trial will be determined by a panel of nine jurors.
Tsang faces up to 21 years in prison, as each charge carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years. He was initially popular when taking office, promising a „clean and efficient“ tenure, but his popularity plummeted amid corruption allegations in his last years in office.

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Chinese mainland markets finished up 1 percent on Tuesday, following a survey showing a pickup in China’s factory activities for December.
The Shanghai composite finished up 32.64 points, or 1.05 percent, at 3,136.28, while the Shenzhen composite added 16.84 points, or 0.85 percent, to 1,985.95. In 2016, the benchmark Shanghai index had tumbled 12.3 percent, registering its worst year since 2011.
China’s Caixin Manufacturing Purchasing Managers‘ index (PMI) rose to 51.9, compared with 50.9 in November and beating forecasts for 50.7, on the back of increased demand. A reading above 50 represents expansion in a sector, whereas a reading below 50 represents contraction.
The private manufacturing survey results came after figures at the weekend showed China’s official PMI fell to 51.4 in December, slightly weaker than expectations.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was up 0.71 percent in late afternoon trade, while gaming shares fell following a decline in Macau gambling revenues. The Hong Kong benchmark had struggled to finish in positive territory for 2016, ending the year up just 0.39 percent.
Macau government data showed on Sunday that gambling revenue fell 3.3 percent in 2016, which was in line with Reuters‘ poll of analysts‘ forecasts for a decline of around 3-4 percent. One bright spot in the data was that December revenue jumped 8 percent from the previous year.
Shares of Wynn Macau were down 0.32 percent, Sands China fell 0.74 percent and MGM China dropped 5.72 percent.
Meanwhile, Australia’s ASX 200 added 1.19 percent, or 67.4 points, to close at 5,733.2, supported by broad gains across all sub-indexes. The benchmark is currently at a 16-month high, after ending 2016 up 6.99 percent, its best annual performance since 2013.
Shares of ANZ were up 1.71 percent at A$30.94 each, after the Australian lender announced it had reached a deal to sell a 20 percent stake in Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank to China COSCO Shipping and Shanghai Sino-Poland Enterprise Management Development.
In South Korea, the Kospi gained 17.81 points, or 0.88 percent, to 2,043.97, likely due to the weaker Korean won, as it benefits exporters when overseas profits are repatriated.
South Korean automakers Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors were both higher, up 2 percent at 153,000 won per share and 3.16 percent at 40,750 won per share respectively.
On Monday, both automakers announced a higher combined sales target in 2017 of 8.25 million vehicles globally, compared with its 2016 goal of 8.13 million vehicles, which the two automakers missed.
„Hyundai and Kia’s December shipments were weak as expected, mainly due to the high base in 2015 driven by the end of the purchase tax cut. Considering the high base, we believe [both automakers‘] domestic sales were resilient,“ said Angela Hong, research analyst at Nomura, in a note on Monday.
Moreover, the annual growth targets set for both automakers will be hard to achieve. For Hyundai, South Korean and other emerging markets remain stagnant, while for Kia, there is still some uncertainty about whether Kia’s Mexican production will be able to be exported into the U. S., Hong said.
New Zealand, Japan and Thailand markets were shut for public holidays.
In currency markets, the dollar index , which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, was up 0.43 percent at 102.65 as of 3:11 pm HK/SIN, after falling for the past three sessions.
Against the dollar, the yen weakened to 117.66, compared with 116 levels seen last week, while the Australian dollar climbed to $0.7219 from levels below $0.7170 in the previous session. The dollar/won traded at 1,203.89.
The People’s Bank of China set the daily yuan midpoint at 6.9498 against the dollar, its first fixing after China changed the way the currency basket would be calculated to set the yuan midpoint. The yuan was trading at 6.9552 against the dollar as of 3:15 p.m. HK/SIN.
Over the weekend, Chinese regulators also announced new measures to curb capital outflows, which have been a growing problem since Donald Trump’s surprise election win spurred sharp dollar strength.
The new rules state that Chinese banks and other financial institutions will have to report all domestic and overseas cash transactions valued at more than 50,000 yuan, compared with 20,000 yuan previously. Banks will also have to report any overseas transfers by individuals of more than $10,000.
The government said these checks on transactions are targeted at cracking down on money laundering, terrorism financing and fake outbound investment transactions, and not normal, legitimate business activities, Reuters reported.
During Asian trade, U. S. crude rose 0.54 percent to $54.01 per barrel , while global benchmark Brent was up 0.55 percent at $57.13.
„There is limited upside at least in the first half of 2017, and a lot of it just hinges on what OPEC does and whether it will comply with the agreement it made late last year,“ Azlin Ahmad, crude oil editor of Argus Media, told CNBC.
Ahmad added that Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries production cuts will only be evident toward the end of January, which might mean volatile trading for the next few weeks.
Stateside, markets were shut for New Year holidays on Monday, but the Dow Jones industrial average last closed at 19,762.6, while the S&P 500 finished at 2,238.83 and the Nasdaq ended at 5,383.12.
— Antonio José Vielma contributed to this report

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The humble steamed bun is taking Hong Kong’s culinary scene by storm – and scooping up awards along the way.
May Chow, the owner of restaurant Little Bao, has just been voted Asia’s best female chef by a panel of over 300 experts.
The 32-year-old’s restaurant serves what she calls Chinese burgers: steamed white buns filled with braised pork belly, fried chicken or fish.
And there are even burgers for dessert, in the form of fried buns sandwiched with ice cream.
Winning the award is no mean feat, considering Asia’s competitive food scene, but the restaurant might not have started at all if Ms Chow hadn’t sneaked behind her parents‘ back.
She developed a love of cooking from watching her mother cook in Canada – where a typical meal involved serving more than 20 people in the extended family.
„Growing up I told my parents I wanted to be a chef,“ Ms Chow tells the BBC.
„But back then, cooking was considered low-class work, and my parents felt it would be a waste of my education. “
As a result, Ms Chow studied hotel management at university in the US instead, but says her love for cooking kept calling out to her. By her third year at university, she was ready to take the plunge.
„I didn’t tell my parents, but I started interning with restaurants. “
That paved her way to becoming a full-time chef at high-end restaurants in Hong Kong.
Her ambition didn’t stop at being a chef, either. She says: „The first day I started working at a restaurant, I decided that I wanted to open my own restaurant. “
Just a few years later, and after road-testing her dishes at local food markets, Ms Chow opened Little Bao.
Bao means bun in Chinese, and Ms Chow says she drew on her own identity, as a Chinese person who had grown up in North America, when designing her signature dish.
„If you define me, my food is exactly me,“ she says. „Am I really Chinese? Why do I sound so American? “
„That bao is me – Chinese but understands American culture – putting [the two sides] together in an honest way. “
She says she is happiest with the authenticity of her buns when her mother and grandmother enjoy them.
Their approval „comes from 30 years of eating bao – you have to stand up to that quality check“.
The dish has also proved a hit with Hong Kong diners and she has just opened a Bangkok branch of Little Bao, as well as a beer bar, Second Draught.
But there were plenty of challenges in the move to becoming a business owner, including the high rents and high build-out costs in Hong Kong.
„It’s almost been like taking a real-life business masters degree,“ she says. „I’ve grown a lot over the past three years. At first you get emotional, now you just look at things and try to fix problems. “
What does she think of being named Asia’s best female chef 2017?
It was „stressful“, and she jokes that her first reaction, when she learnt of the award, was: „Oh, I don’t want it. “
There is some pressure that comes with the title, because „there really are not that many female chefs [and] local chefs in that field to be talked about“.
She’s aware that some will find it strange there is an award specifically for female chefs, but also appreciates how the award has given her a platform to raise awareness about the industry.
She’s vocal about what she thinks needs to change to encourage more women, and local Hong Kongers, to join the trade.
Being a chef „is a very labour intensive job. The environment is hot, sticky, typically not a favourable environment. “
„Do we really need to work 70 hours a week? Are women allowed to have babies when they’re [working] in the kitchen? It’s so intense – it’s not like a desk job. There are things that need to be improved. “
There isn’t always „the freedom to dream“ in Hong Kong’s competitive education system, she adds.
In the past, vocational jobs were seen as jobs for people who couldn’t be doctors or lawyers, so there was „no recognition“ for jobs in the food and beverage industry.
Still, she argues that the internet, Michelin guides and growing awareness about fine dining has helped, while local chefs are increasingly learning from restaurants abroad.
On a more personal level, she credits her mother with part of her determination to do well in a male-centric field.
„Stereotypical Shanghai women are fierce and loud,“ she says with a grin.
Her mother’s influence, she adds, „let me be bold. I never grew up thinking I had to limit myself“.

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A view of downtown Shanghai shows severe pollution. (Peter Parks, AFP)
Cape Town – A condensed 13-second timelapse clip taken over a mere 20-minute period, shows smog rolling into Beijing and gives us glimpse of the pollution problem in China’s capital city.
Chas Pope, a British engineering consultant currently working in Beijing, shot the video and posted it to social media, where it has since gone viral – and for good reason. „Bank of AQI400+ smog rolling into Beijing just now – within 20 minutes,“ Pope wrote on Twitter on New Year’s Day.
An air-quality index released by China’s municipal environmental protection bureau, which measures potentially hazardous particles in the air, hit 482 just after New Year on Sunday, almost touching the 500 mark where the scale tops out, and far beyond the point deemed hazardous to health, according to the South China Morning Post .
HAVE YOU READ: WOW! 17 New Year fireworks celebrations around the world
The publication labelled the smog pollution as being ‚off the charts‘ and said that more than a dozen other cities including Tianjin and others in neighbouring Hebei and Shandong provinces also saw smog return to dangerous levels.
The clouds of smog have forced flights to be cancelled and roads to be closed and have effectively left some people trapped in their homes. Elsewhere in the northern hempishere, flights were also cancelled due to heavy fog.
Take a look Chas Pope’s timelapse of Beijing here:
The US embassy in Beijing also issued its own warning of air pollution in the capital, labeling it as „hazardous“.
„Everyone should avoid all physical activity outdoors,“ a warning accompanying the reading warns. „People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should remain indoors and keep activity levels low. “
What to read next on Traveller24 :
– #FindYourEscape: 2017 in public holidays
– #Throwback to the best – and worst – of 2016
– WOW! 17 New Year fireworks celebrations around the world

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