  Based on the low-energy effective Hamiltonian with the generalized
factorization, we calculate the new physics contributions to the branching
ratios of the two-body charmless hadronic decays of $B_u$ and $B_d$ mesons
induced by the new gluonic and electroweak charged-Higgs penguin diagrams in
the general two-Higgs doublet models (models I, II and III). Within the
considered parameter space, we find that: (a) the new physics effects from new
gluonic penguin diagrams strongly dominate over those from the new $\gamma$-
and $Z^0$- penguin diagrams; (b) in models I and II, new physics contributions
to most studied B meson decay channels are rather small in size: from -15% to
20%; (c) in model III, however, the new physics enhancements to the
penguin-dominated decay modes can be significant, $\sim (30 -200)%$, and
therefore are measurable in forthcoming high precision B experiments; (d) the
new physics enhancements to ratios ${\cal B}(B \to K \etap)$ are significant in
model III, $\sim (35 -70)%$, and hence provide a simple and plausible new
physics interpretation for the observed unexpectedly large $B \to K \etap $
decay rates; (e) the theoretical predictions for ${\cal B}(B \to K^+ \pi)$ and
${\cal B}(B \to K^0 \pi^+)$ in model III are still consistent with the data
within $2\sigma$ errors; (f) the significant new physics enhancements to the
branching ratios of $B \to K^0 \pi^0, K^* \eta, K^{*+} \pi^-, K^+ \phi, K^{*0}
\omega, K^{*+} \phi$ and $K^{*0} \phi$ decays are helpful to improve the
agreement between the data and the theoretical predictions; (g) the theoretical
predictions of ${\cal B}(B \to PP, PV, VV)$ in the 2HDM's are generally
consistent with experimental measurements and upper limits ($90% C.L.$)

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology