August 31, 2005
Nancy Kissel case archive part 4

Covers the trial between August 20th and August 31st.

Other Kissel related material can be found in the Kissel category.

Update August 20th

* The Standard: Expert testifies on porn site search
* SCMP:

A dozen curious children made an appearance at Nancy Kissel's murder trial yesterday as a computer forensic expert explained how the defence came to suggest Kissel's husband had searched for homosexual and pornographic websites.
But the visit by the children, aged from six to 10, was cut short after defence counsel Alexander King SC asked Mr Justice Michael Lunn for a morning break five minutes earlier than usual when the group filed into the courtroom. He went to the public gallery to explain to the social worker taking the children on their first tour of the High Court that the material they would hear was not suitable for children.


Kissel, 41, is accused of bludgeoning top Merrill Lynch banker Robert Peter Kissel to death after drugging him with a sedatives-laced milkshake in their luxury Parkview flat on November 2, 2003.

She has admitted killing her husband but has pleaded not guilty to murder. She has told the court in her testimony that she had been subjected to sexual and physical assaults by her husband for years.

Benedict Pasco, the defence's computer forensic expert, was asked yesterday by Mr King if there was any danger of pop-ups or cookies for surfers of porn websites. The witness said it was very easy for those websites to scan the users' information, know when they were online, and then offer them certain images. Defence evidence had earlier suggested Kissel's daughter had seen pop-ups of pornographic images on a computer at home.

Using up-to-date forensic technology to trace internet use, Mr Pasco and his team had earlier rebuilt websites allegedly searched by the deceased on a computer and a laptop seized from the Parkview flat. The findings showed that Google searches on subjects such as "gay sex", "anal sex", "wife is a bitch", "Twinks", and "Paris gay massage" had been conducted on the computers.

In cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman, Mr Pasco said he received instructions from Kissel's solicitor's firm on the keywords he had to search for. "Tell us the general areas the keywords covered?" asked the prosecutor. "They primarily focused on the homosexual area," said Mr Pasco, who added that the keywords also included "custody", "divorce", "father" and "children".


Update August 23rd

* The Standard: Trial Refocuses on Porn Searches
* SCMP: Kissel Defense Rests, Final Witness Not Called

The defence counsel for Nancy Kissel closed his case unexpectedly yesterday after he finished his re-examination of a computer forensics expert in the Court of First Instance.

Alexander King SC said there would be no more defence witnesses after Benedict Pasco testified on his findings of alleged internet searches for pornography and homosexual websites by Kissel's husband, Robert Peter Kissel.

Mr King had never indicated in court the number of witnesses he would be calling.

Mr Justice Michael Lunn told the jury they would hear the final chapter of evidence today, when the prosecution gave rebuttal evidence on the roles of the baseball bat and the metal ornament seized from the Kissels' Parkview flat.

Kissel told the court earlier that her husband used the bat to beat her in their bedroom on November 2, 2003, the day she allegedly murdered him. She said she used a metal ornament to defend herself and recalled that one of the two figurines on the ornament flew off when the deceased struck the metal base with the bat.

But the prosecution says Kissel dealt five fatal blows to the head of the senior Merrill Lynch banker after drugging him with a sedative-laced milkshake. Kissel has admitted killing her husband but has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Prosecutor Peter Chapman and Mr King are expected to begin their final submissions towards the end of this week.

Mr Justice Lunn asked the jury to remove from their trial papers a report by Olaf Drummer, the defence's forensic expert from Australia, after Mr King indicated the expert would not be called to testify. The report contradicts some of the findings of the prosecution's forensic expert on the drug contents of Robert Kissel's stomach and liver.

The judge also told the seven jurors he would seek to double their allowance because of the length of the trial.

In cross-examination of Mr Pasco, computer forensic expert of PGI Consultants, Mr Chapman pointed out that the witness' findings showed "porn-dialler" software had been installed in a desktop computer in Kissel's flat on September 14, 2002, and April 23, 2003. The software allowed the user to dial up pornographic websites at high charging rates.

Mr Chapman showed Mr Pasco travel records that showed the deceased was out of Hong Kong during the two installation periods.

"Whoever is responsible for installing the software ... cannot be Robert Kissel," he suggested.

The witness agreed.

Mr Chapman said Mr Pasco's investigations covered internet use between January 2002 and November 2003. He asked him how many days in that period of almost two years he could find material relevant to porn site searches. Mr Pasco said about three hours over two days. He also agreed that he had no idea whether the user was the deceased or a house guest.

In re-examination of Mr Pasco, Mr King said there were a large number of similarities between the subjects searched on the desktop computer and those searched for on the deceased's laptop. Both computers had been used to search for "anal sex" and "anal sex in Taiwan". The witness agreed. Mr King pointed out that travel records showed the deceased went to Taiwan for a three-day trip on April 8, 2003. He suggested the user of the desktop computer appeared to be searching on April 4 and 5 for sex services in Taiwan.

Mr King also read out a large number of Google keywood searches for porn sites on the laptop. The witness agreed that some of those websites were viewed.

Update August 24th

* The Standard: Baseball Bat Evidence in Question
* SCMP: Experts Cast Doubt on Kissel Claims Over Bat

A baseball bat Nancy Kissel claims her husband beat her with on the day he died did not carry his DNA, nor had it been used to strike forcefully the ornament she claims to have used in self-defence, government forensic scientists testified yesterday.

Pang Chi-ming, a DNA-typing expert recalled by the prosecution to give evidence in rebuttal yesterday, said he could only find an unidentified woman's DNA on the bat handle. He also told jurors in the Court of First Instance he could find no bloodstains on the bat.

Kissel, 41, had earlier told the court that Robert Peter Kissel had beaten her with the bat in the master bedroom of their flat in Parkview, Tai Tam, on November 2, 2003, after telling her he had filed for divorce.

She claimed she had used a metal ornament to fend off blows from the bat. Prosecutor Peter Chapman has told the court that Kissel used the 3.7kg ornament to deal five fatal blows to her husband's head after drugging him with a sedatives-laced milkshake.

In cross-examination, Alexander King SC, for Kissel, asked Dr Pang: "Would you agree that not everyone who touches the end of the baseball bat leaves DNA material detectable to tests?"

The witness replied: "I can say a light touch with my fingertip on the microphone may not leave my DNA behind. But if I grab it tight and keep moving it here and there, I ... believe DNA would ... be left."

The defence counsel asked if DNA traces could stay on the bat for six months. Mr Pang said it depended where the article was kept.

"Are you saying that in the history of that bat, only one person has ever held the handle?" asked the counsel. "I did not say that," the witness replied. He agreed when asked by Mr King if he was informed by police that the bat would not be tested for fingerprints.

Kissel admits killing her husband, a banker with Merrill Lynch, but pleads not guilty to his murder.

Forensic scientist Wong Koon-hung, another prosecution witness recalled to give rebuttal evidence yesterday, said the ornament was made of almost pure lead, a relatively soft metal that would leave traces even on a piece of paper after contact. "Therefore I would expect to find some lead smear on the bat had they been in contact. But I found none," he said.

Neither did he find lead traces on a white pillow case in which the bat was kept for a time after being found in the flat by defence solicitor Simon Clark. The exhibit was handed by the defence to the prosecution in court a month ago for the government laboratory to perform tests.

There were no traces of paint from the bat on the ornament.

"There has also been a suggestion that the curvature of the [ornament] base was caused by impacts of the baseball bat on the base. Did you conduct further tests?" asked Mr Chapman.

The expert said the indentations on the base measured 1.4cm and 1.8cm respectively. Dr Wong said two baseball bats were used in control experiments to hit two pieces of 2kg lead sheet at a 90-degree angle, resulting in maximum indentations of between 1.4cm and 2cm.

The strikes also produced an arc of regular V-shaped curvature on the sheets, with wood grain pattern on the deepest part of the groove. Lead smear was left on the surface of the bats. But the shape of the ornament base was "too irregular" to have been produced by the impact of the bat admitted as evidence, said the forensic expert.

He was not able to suggest what had produced the indentation shapes on the ornament.

Dr Wong told the court that he could not rule out the possibility the bat had been in contact with the metal ornament. But he said: "It's conclusive that the piece of metal had not been struck with the baseball bat with significant force.

"To cause that level of damage would require quite a significant force. Under such force, I would expect at least some wood grain pattern pertaining to the bat on the metal ornament."

In cross-examination, Mr King asked Dr Wong how many pieces of lead sheet he had used. He said he had three lead sheets with him and explained that he had hammered the pieces flat for further tests if he was not satisfied with the results.

The defence counsel said that meant the witness had destroyed results of earlier tests, and argued that any wood grain residue left on the lead sheets when they were struck with the bats could have been hammered out.

Mr King asked for the other lead sheets used in Dr Wong's tests to be brought to court for examination.

The case continues today.

Update August 25th

* The Standard: Expert denies methods flawed
* SCMP:Kissel defence challenges bat tests

The defence sought to cast doubt yesterday on a government forensic scientist's findings that the baseball bat Nancy Kissel said her husband beat her with had never been used to strike forcefully a lead ornament she claimed to have used in self-defence.

Alexander King SC suggested in the Court of First Instance that Wong Koon-hung was too anxious to find a basis to support the prosecution's argument that he had failed to consider potential flaws in his tests.

Kissel, 41, had earlier told the court she was beaten by Robert Peter Kissel, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, in their Parkview bedroom on November 2, 2003. She has admitted killing him but pleaded not guilty to murdering him.

Dr Wong had been asked early this month to find out if the arch in the base of the 3.7kg ornament was caused by blows from the bat. He said on Tuesday his tests, using 2kg lead sheets and two baseball bats, found no evidence of contact between the two objects.

Mr King asked if Dr Wong had tested the hardness of the lead sheets and the bats against the exhibits in the trial. Dr Wong said he had made the attempt, but the objects were too soft for hardness tests with the equipment in the government laboratory. Mr King asked if he had asked for funds to buy suitable equipment. He had not, because of time constraints.

Dr Wong also had not tested the type of wood the bats were made from. "Was there any reason?" Mr King asked. "Because I was more interested in general overall appearance of bats and their weight," Dr Wong replied. He agreed with Mr King that different wood could have different hardness.

Mr King pointed out the base of the ornament was 1.7cm thick, while the lead plates used in the experiments were about 25 per cent thinner. The bat in evidence, 67cm long and weighing 689g, was heavier and shorter than those used in the experiments.

Dr Wong said the ornament - a base of 15cm x 8.5cm surmounted by two figurines - was more resistant to bending, compared to the flat lead sheets he tested. Mr King asked why he had not had lead ingots made for the experiments. "I did inquire. But again, there's a time factor involved," he said, adding that the making of ingots could be dangerous because lead emitted toxic fumes when melted.

The witness was criticised by Mr King on Tuesday for destroying earlier experiment results by hammering the lead back to its original shape for further tests. He said yesterday it was not the lab's practice to photograph every test result.

Mr King also questioned Dr Wong about the discrepancy between the conclusions written by him and his superior in his police statement of August 5, 2005. He said Dr Wong's drafted conclusion was that "the baseball bat in the case had not been in contact with any of the metallic objects". But his superior's conclusion, which replaced Dr Wong's drafted conclusion on the statement, was that contact between the two objects could not be totally excluded.

"However, [the findings] indicated that the ornament base had not been struck by the bat with a significant force. Otherwise, impression marks showing wood grain patterns of the bat would likely be found on the metal," the superior wrote.

Mr King said: "Let me suggest to you that you were anxious to provide the police with some basis upon which the prosecution could argue in some way that the baseball bat never came into contact with the ornament." Dr Wong said the conclusion was based on his findings and discussion with his superior. "Anxious is a very subjective view. I knew I had to provide some results at a given time. But I was not anxious," he said.

In re-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman, Dr Wong stressed he stood by the conclusion on his statement. He said he would expect to see some lead smear on the bat if it had struck the ornament. But he could find none.

Dr Wong said there was no wood paint left on the lead sheets he struck with the bats in his experiments - one of them painted, the other varnished. "It would never leave paint anyway, because there was no paint to leave," Mr Chapman said, in reference to the varnished one.

Mr Chapman will begin his closing submission tomorrow.

Update August 27th

* The Standard: Kissel case nears end
* SCMP: Prosecution gives closing argument in murder trial

A prosecutor gave his closing argument on Friday in an American housewife's murder trial, saying she was a cold-blooded killer who cheated on her wealthy husband before serving him a drug-laced milkshake and bashing in his head.

Speaking in a packed courtroom, prosecutor Peter Chapman rehashed much of the sensational testimony about alleged domestic violence, abusive sex, drug use and infidelity in Nancy and Robert Kissel's stormy marriage.

The nearly three-month trial has given the public a rare glimpse into the private world of wealthy expatriates.

Mr Chapman challenged the defense's argument that Nancy Kissel, 41, was defending herself against her violent banker husband who was armed with a baseball bat.

The lawyer said that the woman had planned the killing in the couple's luxury apartment in 2003.

"There was no provocation, no baseball bat," Mr Chapman said. "This is a cold-blooded killing."

Nancy Kissel allegedly beat her husband to death with a metal ornament.

"These injuries inflicted on Robert Kissel were not the result of a life-or-death struggle," he said. "There was no shouting, yelling, screaming."

Nancy Kissel has admitted dealing the fatal blows to her husband, a 40-year-old investment banker at Merrill Lynch. But she has pleaded innocent to murder, which involves premeditation.

Mr Chapman argued that the defendant planned the killing. He said she searched the internet for information about how to drug her husband.

Before the killing, she mixed Robert Kissel a milkshake laced with sedatives that disabled him, the prosecutor said.

After the killing, Nancy Kissel allegedly rolled her husband's body in a carpet and had maintenance workers haul it away to storage space rented by the couple.

The prosecutor also mentioned an affair that Nancy Kissel, who has three children, admitted to having with repairman Michael Del Priore, who lived in a trailer park near the couple's vacation home in the northeastern US state of Vermont.

"Nancy Kissel didn't want Robert Kissel alive anymore. She wanted the children, but Michael Del Priore was the man in her life," Mr Chapman said.

The prosecutor repeated testimony by witnesses, who said the victim was a loving, kind, soft-spoken husband who was well regarded by his company.

Nancy Kissel, dressed in black as she has been for much of the trial, was expressionless and often looked down at the floor as she listened to Mr Chapman's closing argument.

She has said her desperation and unhappiness in her marriage drove her to seek comfort in an affair, and that her husband was an abusive workaholic who used cocaine, drank too much and forced her to have anal sex.

She has testified that she cannot clearly remember what she did after her husband's death.

The victim was from New York. Nancy Kissel was born in Adrian, Michigan, but her family had also lived in Minneapolis, in the northern US state of Minnesota.

Update August 29th

* CNN:'Milkshake Murder' Trial Nears End
* The Standard: Moment of Truth Nears for Kissel

Update August 30th

* The Standard: Defence says police probe was 'substandard'
* The Standard: Prosecution case a farce
* SCMP: Kissel killed husband in self-defence, then 'melted down', says counsel

Nancy Kissel was "in fear for her life" as she beat her husband to death with a lead statue after he threatened to kill her, her lawyer told the Court of First Instance yesterday.

The defendant "melted down" after the trauma, leading her into a series of bizarre acts, including sleeping with her husband's body for at least two nights and calling his mobile phone twice, Alexander King SC said in his closing speech.

Mr King, who urged the jury to acquit Kissel of murder, argued that she had acted in lawful self-defence in the killing in November 2, 2003.

He said the prosecution, which alleged Nancy Kissel drugged her husband with a milkshake before dealing him five fatal blows, had failed to prove its case beyond doubt. It was the first time the defence had outlined its case since the trial began in early June.

Mr King said the fateful events were sparked when Robert Kissel, armed with a baseball bat, told his wife that he had filed for divorce and would be taking their three children.

"This was payback time. He was going to finally tell her that he was divorcing her, not her divorcing him. He had controlled every other aspect of her life. The one thing left in her life was her children," he said.

At the sight of the bat, the accused grabbed the lead heirloom from the dining room to protect herself. She was then dragged into the bedroom, where her husband demanded sex.

During the struggle, the deceased sat on his bed and found his forehead bleeding.

"Robert Kissel had never been hit before by his wife. It's always been him doing the beating. At that time, he lost his temper. He said: `I am going to f***ing kill you ... you f***ing bitch'," Mr King said.

He asked the jury to consider the shape of the injuries to Robert Kissel's head, which he said matched the curved shape of the ornament's damaged base. The defence contends that the base of the ornament arched up when Robert Kissel hit it with the baseball bat.

In his closing speech last Friday, prosecutor Peter Chapman argued that Nancy Kissel, 41, harboured a murderous intent because she had dealt five fatal blows to her husband's head.

But Mr King said adrenaline and fear had taken over his client as she flung the ornament at her husband.

"In the middle of a fight, how could someone of Mrs Kissel's size turn around, make sure that her husband didn't get up again" before deciding to deal further blows, he said.

The body of the senior Merrill Lynch banker was found on November 7, 2003, rolled up in a carpet in a storeroom at the luxury Parkview estate where the family lived.

Mr King described the banker as a paranoid and manipulative husband, who abused cocaine and subjected his wife to frequent sexual and physical assaults.

He suggested that Nancy Kissel had suffered from dissociative amnesia after the killing.

"Her behaviour could almost be described as bizarre. She almost went on living as if nothing had happened," he said.

Mr King said Nancy Kissel had not asked Parkview workmen to carry her husband's body to the storeroom until November 5, 2003.

"She must have spent at least two nights in her bedroom with the body. It shows that what happened afterwards was she melted down," he said.


* SCMP: Prosecution theory of a Kissel plot defies belief - defence
The allegation that Nancy Kissel had been plotting to murder her husband with a sedatives-laced milkshake defied common sense, the Court of First Instance was told yesterday.

Alexander King SC, in his closing address for the defence, argued there was nothing to indicate that Robert Peter Kissel was under the influence of drugs on the afternoon of November 2, 2003, shortly before he was killed by his wife.

He said closed-circuit television stills at their luxury Parkview estate showed he was "multi-tasking" at about 5pm, talking on his mobile phone, carrying a newspaper and pressing lift buttons with ease.

Prosecutor Peter Chapman alleges that at about 3.30pm that day, the deceased and his neighbour, Andrew Tanzer, had been served two tall glasses of pink milkshake laced with four hypnotics - Stilnox, Rohypnol, Axotal and Lorivan - and an anti-depressant, amitriptyline.

Mr Tanzer's wife, Kazuko Ouchi, told the court earlier that her husband had passed out on the couch when he returned home from the Kissel apartment at 4pm and that later he had bizarrely treated himself to three tubs of ice cream at dinner.

A close colleague of the deceased, David Noh, said the senior Merrill Lynch banker sounded "slurry, mellow" and was "off the tangent" when he spoke to him on the phone at about 5pm.

But Mr King told the court the best evidence was the two witnesses who saw the deceased that afternoon. David Friedland, who met the victim with his son, Reis, in the Parkview playroom, gave "no evidence of slurred speech". Maximina Macaraeg, a maid at the Kissel home, also met him around that time at the car park and did not detect anything unusual.

"Nancy Kissel wasn't building up to this day in order to kill him," Mr King said, adding that the prosecution's case "defies common sense".

Kissel, 41, has admitted killing her husband but has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Mr King reminded the jury that Kissel had a photo shoot for her friend Samantha Kriegel's family on the morning of November 2. Kissel had also arranged to meet up with Scott Ligertwood, a popular children's entertainer, on November 4. She was also working on the annual dinner of the United Jewish Congregation and promotion of the November 16 dance performance in which her daughter had a role. Mr King said those events went against the theory of premeditation.

He argued that the foundation of the prosecution's allegations that Kissel killed her husband for money and to be with her lover in Vermont in the United States, Michael Del Priore, was weak. It would take a very long time for anybody to get their hands on the money from New York Life Insurance, which kept the deceased's US$18 million in wills and insurance policies, he said. "Their investigation would be a lot more thorough than the investigation of the police in this case," he said.

Kissel could have stayed behind in Vermont instead of returning to Hong Kong in 2003 if she wanted to be with what the prosecution said was "the new man in her life".

Mr King said Kissel's "loss of memory" after November 2, 2003, was genuine and accorded with her "bizarre" acts in the cover-up of the killing.

He said she told friends and her father, Ira Keeshin, many different versions of what happened to her husband. Some were told that her husband was "very, very sick", while some heard he had assaulted her during an argument before checking into a hotel.

"She got rid of the body on Wednesday probably because her father was coming that night, and the body began to smell," he said. The candles her father saw in the apartment were probably put there to clear away the smell, Mr King said.

The placing of four brightly coloured cushions on top of the carpet roll in which her husband's body lay was also "entirely bizarre".

Mr King's closing submission continues today.

Update August 31st

* The Standard: Judge spells out options to jury as trial nears end
* The Standard: 'No cold-blooded killer'
* SCMP: Were blows reasonable or excessive. judge asks Kissel jury

The judge in the trial of Nancy Ann Kissel said yesterday the jury had to consider whether the force she used to deal the five fatal blows to her husband's head was "reasonable" or "in excess" when deciding whether she is guilty of murder.

Mr Justice Michael Lunn told jurors in the Court of First Instance they had to be sure the injuries Kissel inflicted on Robert Peter Kissel, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, were intended to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to satisfy one of the conditions for a murder verdict.

Recalling evidence, he said forensic experts identified five curved lacerations on the upper right side of the deceased's head, with fractured skull driven into the brain, causing "massive spillage of brain substance". "Did the defendant believe it was necessary to use force to defend herself? If yes, was the amount of force she used reasonable?" he said.

Defence counsel Alexander King SC said Kissel, 41, was attacked by her husband with a baseball bat as he was attempting to force anal sex on her in their Parkview flat on the night of November 2, 2003. He argued she had acted lawfully when she swung a heavy lead ornament in self-defence.

Mr Justice Lunn reminded the jury that Mr King had argued Kissel had reacted "on the spur of the moment" as her husband said "I will f***ing kill you" in the bedroom of their flat. He described the victim, 180cm tall and 69kg, as "well-built" and "athletic". By contrast, Kissel was a "slightly built female".

However, the judge reminded jurors that forensic pathologist Lau Ming-fai said each of the five blows "required a great amount of force" and that there was no self-defence injuries on his upper limbs, which led him to conclude he had "little or no motion at the time the blows were dealt to his head". If the force used was unreasonable, Kissel could not be acquitted on the basis of self-defence, the judge said.

Mr Justice Lunn also directed jurors to consider a reduced verdict of manslaughter by reason of provocation if they believed the conduct of the victim had caused Kissel to "suddenly and temporarily lose her self-control".

The judge repeated Kissel's claim that she had been physically and sexually abused by her husband for five years, resulting in broken ribs, bruises and a black eye on different occasions. Kissel had also testified about the bedroom struggle with her husband on November 2 after he told her he had filed for divorce and was taking their three children, he said.

If the jury did not believe the killing was provoked by the victim's conduct, the verdict would be guilty of murder, he said. But if the victim's conduct could "cause the defendant of such age and sex to do what she did", a verdict of manslaughter would be returned.

He said jurors could consider Kissel's good character and years of aid to the United Jewish Congregation, Hong Kong International School and deprived children of Vietnam when considering the credibility of her evidence. "If you think self-defence may be true, you may acquit," he said.

He instructed jurors to consider the credibility of oral testimony by its consistency. An example he gave was the evidence of Kissel's father, Ira Keeshin, who said in his police statement his daughter told him in a phone call on November 3, 2003, that her husband had slammed her into a wall in 2002. But in court last month, he said he had heard about the assault in 2002. Asked by prosecutor Peter Chapman, he accepted his oral testimony was incorrect.

Mr Justice Lunn drew the jury's attention to conflicting versions of the events of November 2 given by Kissel to the court, her father, friends and a colleague of her husband, but added there could be innocent reasons, such as panic or confusion.

Earlier yesterday, Mr King told the jury in his closing submission they should not consider a verdict of manslaughter by provocation. He argued that Kissel acted in lawful self-defence and was entitled to be acquitted of murder.

Kissel wept in the dock as her lawyer outlined the case.

Mr King said the victim was not rendered unconscious or severely impaired after he and his neighbour Andrew Tanzer drank a milkshake prepared by Kissel on November 2. He said the amount of drugs found in his body was insufficient. The banker was talking on his mobile and walking around in Parkview when Mr Tanzer, who passed out on his couch about 4pm, was severely affected, he said.

"Evidence all points to the direction that he didn't receive the same dose as Mr Tanzer," said Mr King.

The lawyer said Kissel did not ask for the sedatives Rohypnol, Lorivan and Stilnox and anti-depressant amitriptyline during her several visits to clinics shortly before November 2; they were prescribed to her by her doctors.

He said the video recorded by Rocco Gatta, a private investigator hired by Robert Kissel to follow his wife in Vermont, had no sign of Kissel's lover, Michael Del Priore. He said it showed nothing other than a "beautiful countryside", a "very expensive home" and a van parked at the house at night several times.

Mr King criticised the government's bloodstain pattern analysis experts for missing a large number of blood spots and not looking for the extent of cleaning up of the blood in their investigation.

Mr Justice Lunn continues his directions to the jury today.



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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 19:17
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United's Chinese Engineers

In light of all of the various food, vegetable and dairy horror stories daily assailing Hong Kong from the mainland, it will come as some surprise to local residents that standards of any kind exist in China. But in a vast country like China, even amidst poor standards for a host of products, China's semiconductor foundries and now an aircraft maintenance firm are demonstrating that it can handle the pressures of high precision and reliability.

At least, that is the faith United Airlines is showing in Ameco Beijing: a story on CNN has United sending all 52 of their 777 aircraft to Beijing for repairs and maintenance for the next five years. Let us not misrepresent Ameco - it is a joint venture between Air China and Lufthansa German Airlines, and many of China's joint ventures have worked wonders (I even tried an excellent red wine from the Chengyu vineyard the other day - miracles never cease). Ameco does have a strong track record, and the number of fatal air accidents among major Chinese airlines over the last decade has been a lot better than say, a certain other airline on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. But the move will no doubt raise eyebrows on both sides of the Pacific, and make some nervy Hong Kong residents that much more jittery as the board their United flight at some Siberian location in the Hong Kong International Airport (Gate 69, ring bells for anyone?)

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 00:52
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August 30, 2005
The Rolex Man

Amusing but bizarre journalism in the SCMP today as senior hack Jimmy Cheung tried to convert a Q&A session with HK Chief Exec Donald Tsang on Mandarin channel Phoenix TV into a meditation of how Hong Kong's material culture can distract its masses from any desire for democracy. An example of thie first few paragraphs of the article:

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has sought to ease concerns that political parties will not have a role to play under the current executive-led system.

Mr Tsang warned against hasty political development, saying it would take longer for a unique political system to evolve.

Speaking in an interview with Phoenix TV yesterday, Mr Tsang recalled how President Hu Jintao told him "to live the Hong Kong people's dream".

The chief executive also explained his penchant for Rolex designer watches.

Mr Tsang said the development of party politics was inevitable, and as Hong Kong moved towards universal suffrage, parties would mature.

The flow of the article is disjointed, to say the least (I would link it for you but the SCMP requires a subscription). But while Jimmy Cheung may have wanted to focus on the Rolex watches and on making a statement about how consumerism overwhelms the Hong Kong desire for democracy, it seems more interesting to take what Donald Tsang is saying at face value - that universal suffrage for Hong Kong is inevitable, and that party politics will mature as their responsibilities grow.

Donald Tsang seems from his track record a reasonable and able administrator. But as I've been discussing in a previous post with other bloggers, the difficulty with benign authoritarian governments is - what is the process of regime change when the authoritarian government becomes not so benign or proves itself incompetent? For now, the answer for Hong Kong is that China will appoint someone else for you when the leaders in Beijing sees that he's doing a bad job. But for now, we'll have to leave the question of who oversees the overseers aside for the time being... at least until after the 2008 Legco elections, it seems.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 09:28
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August 29, 2005
Heritage Tourism in Hong Kong

In case you are interested in what guest blogger HK Dave does when he's not blogging, tune into CNN Asia tomorrow morning between 7:30am and 8 am (HK time). He and his partner Stefan White will discuss the challenges they face in getting their mobile phone-based heritage audio guides out to tourists and interested locals.

You shouldn't get too bored since our actual segment is only two and a half minutes long, and you can always read the moving text thingy underneath.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 17:06
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Pimps and Hookers Banned From China's Streets

According to Xinhua, a new law is to take effect March 2006 penalizing offences against public order. From that date, there will be fines for pimps or for streetwalkers soliciting for sex. They can be held for up to 5 days or fined up to 500 yuan if they do so in a public place.

While there are laws also against prostitution, it seems this may be an attempt by the hidebound Chinese Communist Party to draw a line under what it regards as acceptable bounds of morality in 21st century China. For a quarter century, the gulf has grown between the utopian idealism of old Marxist regulations and the public reality. Perhaps the CCP has realized that its statute books have to better reflect the situation as it really is, if they also want people to respect the important laws that really matter!

Can't really see even public prostitution going away in China by next spring though...

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 00:54
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» asiapundit links with: short sunday links




August 26, 2005
Ich Bin Ein Bombayer

The New York Times ran a story today about how 1963 tapes reveal that the United States was preparing to drop The Bomb on China in the event that China invaded India again. President Kennedy and his advisors, discussing the possibility of another invasion, strongly believed, given his pro-India stance, that the United States should support India against China. One of his advisors, Robert McNamara, is heard on tape as saying that instead of introducing large numbers of American troops, that nuclear bombs should be dropped on China instead. Read the article, but remember you'll need to register for the Times (which is free).

The context of that suggestion is that the advisors used the N-word as a way to get Kennedy to back off from a commitment they thought was a very bad idea. Still, this will have Chinese and Indian military, political and history analysts alike reassessing that era in history, before the Cultural Revolution had begun.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 13:42
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Journalism in China: Or, Clapping for Credit

There is a rather interesting article in today's edition of the Christian Science Monitor (don't be scared by the name, it's actually a very reputable American newspaper). It is entitled "Chinese Media Resisting Party Control". It is about how a furious editor of a national newspaper, the China Youth Daily, wrote a long diatribe of a letter complaining of party resistance to good journalism. To give some context, the China Youth Daily is considered a progressive paper that takes on issues about official corruption, and Li Datong, the editor, as a young man protested in 1989 against his inability to tell the truth. One particularly telling part of the letter was the complaint against the newly revised compensation incentive scheme for the journalists:

Mr. Li's letter, leaked Aug. 17, took issue with a new "appraisal system" introduced by chief editor Li Erliang. It would tie promotion and monetary reward to praise by party officials. In the new "pay for praise" policy, reporters would receive 50 pay credits for high reader response, but between 90 and 120 pay credits for stories praised by communist youth league officials. The youth league is the party group responsible for the paper.

"If you don't change this appraisal system, our paper will become a complete fake," Li wrote in the dissent, which received strong backing among many staff reporters who are too junior to survive making criticisms in the hard world of Chinese state-run media.

Definitely worth a read.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 13:32
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August 25, 2005
Fa Lun Gong Spearheading Chinese Revolution?

William Pfaff writes in today's International Herald Tribune that China's growth is less threatening than it seems because huge stumbling blocks loom on the horizon for the CCP as they try to keep their monopoly of political legitimacy as the economy booms. He strangely chooses to focus on the Falungong movement as the chief moral counterpoint to the CCP and its chief domestic threat. I don't think I'd agree with that, but it's worth a read. His view certainly contains part of the arguments Indians make about China in the previous post!

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 15:47
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Chinese and Indian Models

No, no, not the type that pose in swimsuits and lingerie - I speak of their models of development. Before you close this browser window though, consider that the relative success or failure of these two great Asian nations may very well determine the course of the 21st century, and set the example for other developing countries to follow. An interesting survey in Business Week looked at the views of prominent Indians and Chinese on the comparison between the risks to India and China going forward.

What I found interesting is that all the Chinese interviewed declined to comment on risks facing India (probably because more Indians know about China's problems than the other way around). The Indians, on the other hand, all believed that the main risk China had was the one thing their country had that the Chinese did not - their lack of democracy. They think that sooner or later (and many seem to believe sooner) China's affluence will force political change. Only one Chinese saw that as a risk, and he was a political science professor in Canada.

What both countries had in common is that they both tried forms of government for several decades that proved to be dismal failures for their people. However, it is a common argument in both countries to say that they needed that experience of dismal failure to get it right this time around. In a sense, the government of neither country has changed since 1950 - India is still a democracy, China still run by the Communist Party. But only to hair splitters will it not be obvious that both countries have now emphasized economic development over economic equality and autarky, whereas the reverse was the case. My personal view is that India was unique amongst developing countries in that their independence in 1948 was more propelled from within, rather than only a need for the colonizing power (Britain) to give up the country (although that was a contributing factor, thanks to American pressure). Most other failed democracies in developing countries have been where the colonizing power creating a structure for elections and then left without there having been any history of real democracy.

For that reason, I think that China will be a more attractive model, so to speak, for many of the world's developing countries. But then I've always been a proponent of the modernization school, which holds that successful democracies generally require a strong middle class, which does not come without affluence in a pluralistic polity. In other words, development before democracy. And instead of looking at India as the comparison, how many would say Russia made the right decision with perestroika before development (except you Chelsea fans)? What do you think?

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 14:45
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» New Economist links with: More analysis on China's economy




New on the roll

A couple of additions to the Top Shelf blogroll:

Id's Cage

Bloviating Inanities

Go read and laugh. Remember you're laughing at them, not with them. Here's hoping both Paul and Bill can stick to one site for more than their usual 5 minutes.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 06:24
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Even better than the real thing

Apologies for this site being down for the past 24 hours or so. I blame aliens.

I have been fortunate enough to have enjoyed two of the most pleasant New York summer days one could wish for. Thanks to my heeding overblown warnings of long delays due to tight security at JFK, I now find myself with an hour to burn in yet another nondescript airport lounge. After catching up on the latest Robert Kissel developments I came across a great piece in The Standard on the hypocrisy of the EU over China's intellectual property pirates. The author sees pirate goods being freely sold in Florence and notes it seems a bit rich for the European Union to complain to China about failing to enforce intellectual property protection when EU countries seem unable to enforce their own laws only a couple of hundred meters from Gucci's, Louis Vuitton's and Fendi's own flagship shops.

He goes on to point out the huge difference between the average spending power of the Florence tourists compared to the average shopper in China. For many in China there is no choice because the "real" goods are completely out of their price range but in Florence it is a very deliberate choice.

America is not above blame, either. The article goes on to point out how history repeats itself:

...the United States did not protect international copyright until the 1890s, 100 years after this right was written into the US Constitution. It could be argued that America's media giants were built on piracy: In the 19th century, when the country was attempting to catch up with its more developed rivals overseas, US publishers reprinted English works often without paying royalties, arguing that the industry was under-capitalized. Putting it in modern terms, pirating English literature allowed the US industry to avoid product development costs while building economies of scale.
A more modern example was Japan, which was able to mimick and then improve on many electronics and other goods, to both the benefit of Japan and the rest of the world. When China reaches the point of developing its own intellectual property, rather than manufacturing that of others, you will quickly see far tighter intellectual property protections. In the interim the country has far more pressing needs.

The same hypocrisy is common in the USA. My Monday afternoon stroll in New York took me through Soho and Chinatown, where numerous stalls were doing a brisk trade selling fake handbags, pirated CDs and DVDs, computing software, watches and more. In a delicious irony, a police car was parked directly in front of one of the busiest handbag shops. The tourist hordes were not disturbed by any other sign of law enforcement.

What this demonstrates is how difficult it is to eliminate the demand for these goods. Like the ridiculous and damaging "war on drugs", a supply will always meet demand just as supply creates demand. It is a cycle that is difficult to break, even in rich and advanced economies. If the original is really the best the market will pay that price. Most Hong Kongers wouldn't be caught dead buying fakes...because of the cachet and show-off value of buying the real thing. Those that do know they are getting an inferior product for a (much) lower price, and one that most of their friends will spot as fake in an instant. It is a trade-off between quality (and originality) and price that improves overall economic welfare. The only losers are the economic rent seekers who own the intellectual property. They are literally pricing themselves out of the market.

So let's view American and European attacks on China's intellectual property regime for what they really are: protectionism in sheep's clothing.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 06:07
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» forestforever@gmail.com links with: A little drama added to overseas Chinese community




August 24, 2005
After A Millennium, Enough's Enough

Amusing story today in the Times about a village clan in central Henan province that wanted to change their name, and was finally successful. Their name had been 'gou', which sounds a lot like the Chinese word for dog. Apparently a thousand years ago, for reasons shrouded in the mists of time, a high official surnamed Jing wanted to ingratiate himself with an emperor of the same surname, and so he changed his own last name to something much more humble.

The result has been humiliation for over a thousand years as his descendants have had to endure the vilest taunts and barking at them on the street.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 07:40
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August 23, 2005
Top 10 Toughest Jobs in the World

I'll need to think about the other 9, but I read today about one of them, held by a Mr. Keiji Ide: press relations minister at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing:

Because most of China's news on Japan is negative, Ide said, any reporter's effort to contact him for a balanced news report is a milestone.

He gets 12 or 13 citations a month, usually quotes or sidebars inserted into China-dominated news packages about Sino-Japanese political or historical issues.

"It's a very difficult job for me," Ide said. "The overwhelming majority of articles is very negative. My job in China is not the same as my colleague's in the U.S."

That's got to be the understatement of 2005. Japan is taking a battering this year, and there is not much they can do about it as other nations take them to task about their wartime history on the 60th anniversary of WW II. But then a certain quote caught my eye:
But after a series of mass anti-Japan rallies in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities in April, the embassy received "several e-mails a day" from Japanese citizens calling China's discontent a failure of Japan's diplomacy, Ide said.

He has responded by stepping up Chinese media outreach, the best way the Foreign Ministry believes it can influence China's opinions on history and modern politics.

This reminds me of the Bush administration fuming about its negative PR in the Arab world and the belief that a coordinated, well-directed PR campaign will turn the tide. But the fact remains for Japan as well as for America, there is at its base reason why so many people in China and the Arab World, respectively despise them so much - and no amount of good PR will change the fact that their decision-making on key issues continues to be incredibly insensitive to their target audience in these PR campaigns. Until Japan really takes these history book publishers to task or takes them off public school curricula, Mr. Keiji Ide will remain the figurative finger in the dike.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 09:43
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Ho Sends You Swimming with the Fishes

An article I read today in that scurrilous Malasian rag, The Star Online, reminded me of the massive changes occurring on the Macau gambling scene. Stanley Ho is investing, among other things, in a US$1 billion casino that will allow gamblers to look at aquatic life as they throw their money away on the roulette wheels (I believe the Ho casinos generally have 0 and 00 as well, stacking the odds very favorably towards the house). Like the fish, the Hos hope that the gamblers are constantly in motion, 24 hours a day, shielded (as always) completely from the passage of time outside.

The article points out two major trends: 1) the US$15 billion or so being invested in new casinos in Macau are going to target the mass market segment; and 2) the casinos, as Vegas did 15 years ago, are starting to target a more family-oriented audience.

On point 1, it is fascinating that not only was turnover for Macau's casinos greater than that for Las Vegas last year, but that only 20% of its US$5.1 billion came from people that bet US$15 or less. In fact, until Sands opened, no casino even offered table space for such small bets. The VIP market, which consisted of gamblers that bet more than US$1 million per visit, actually made up over 70% of the entire market. But the billions being spent to create a mass-market audience could mean that 50% are small bet gamblers by 2010.

On point 2, I certainly hope that is the case, although I am not sure how that will play out in relation to point 1...we shall see.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 09:29
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August 22, 2005
Brooding Over Past Repasts

I ate at a vegetarian Indian restaurant today.

The plagues and toxins, both natural and man-made, that cast a shadow over every morsel of dead Chinese animal we consume in Hong Kong, seem to appear from every corner. The latest controversy, over eels, has now spilled over into freshwater fish. I will of course not stick to my lacto-ovo regimen for long, but it is truly frightening what lack of control exists in the Chinese food hygeine system. It seems that in addition to the appalling air, water and chemical pollution that covers most of eastern China, and the complete indifference of Chinese authorities to do much about a very deadly strain of pig flu that has frighteningly high mortality rates, that fishermen are adding a toxic carcinogen called malachite green to their eel fisheries as a cheap antibiotic. Those aforementioned pig farmers, according to today's Standard, by the way, perform home-grown 'innoculations' of their pigs against the disease by actually feeding the dead carcasses of infected pigs to the live, healthy ones.

Of course, it must come as no surprise that regulation in China is far, far behind reality in a country that has grown so fast it has far outstripped its own ability to legislate. A perfect example in another area is that of the terrible conditions in the mines that provide the natural resources needed to sustain China's growth - only now are substandard, illegal mines that have killed thousands of workers starting to be shut down for further investigations.

But living in Hong Kong, we eat China's food, we drink its water, and our lungs (along with mainlanders) are the living filters for China's relentlessly growing industrial sector. Do these experiences not make you wonder what foul things you have already consumed unknowingly? But then, I suppose one simply has to make peace with this reality - that regardless of how developed Hong Kong is, given its integration with the mainland, we are increasingly subject to the standards of China and not our own. And the food standards seem an apt metaphor for many other facets of life.

I shall conclude with a reference to a rather wicked and nihilistic satirical piece I read many moons ago in the American humor magazine, National Lampoon. It had three suggestions for doing one's bit to help the environment:

1) Drink your own urine.
2) Eat your own crap.
3) Stop breathing.

Garcon! More pork dumplings and eels over here. I've put on my blindfold.

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[boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 16:30
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Oil is thicker than blood

The recent oil shortages in China had plenty of people, including myself, claiming it was a result of market distortions due to price controls. But Wu Zhong in today's Standard says I was only partly right and indeed missed the bigger picture. The three drivers that fuelled an 'oil crisis':

There are strong reasons to believe [Sinopec and PetroChina] have deliberately halted supplies to create seeming chaos...they want to pressure the NDRC for an immediate increase in oil product prices, thus cutting their considerable losses on refinery production stemming from the rising price of imported crude...the energy companies want to eventually force the NDRC to completely free oil product pricing so that they can completely dominate the market...[and] to take the opportunity to acquire the few petrol stations that they don't already run.
Read the whole article to see the bureaucratic powerplays that are driving (pardon the pun) this dispute. Of course it is the people who suffer, but since when have they mattered?

One other interesting part of the article that is mentioned in passing but has greater significance:

..as Sinopec and PetroChina have listed many of their business operations in overseas securities markets, they are increasingly able to cite "shareholder interests'' as an excuse to defy government orders.
Maybe market economics can triumph over Communism after all? The writer is implying that Sinopec and PetroChina are using shareholder interests as a fig leaf to ignore orders. What if, perhaps, they actually believe in creating shareholder value and subverting Government orders is a means to that end?

Stockbrokers as subversives. Who would have thought?

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 10:43
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» asiapundit links with: china economic roundup (viii)
» MeiZhongTai links with: What China Lacks
» EagleSpeak links with: China's Refinery Wars
» The Peking Duck links with: Oil Wars




August 19, 2005
Separation and the heart

I will be travelling from Monday for the best part of 2 weeks on what Mrs M has dubbed "The World Terror Targets Tour", taking in the pollution of the Big Apple, the grime of Big Ben and a quick sojourn in the Land of Milk and Evacuations of orange-wearing nutters. In preparation I have done two things:

1. Massively increased my life insurance.
2. Asked Dave and Andres to again guest blog after their successful stint.

I will have intermittent blog access and will post when I can.

Unfortunately I will be away for the second anniversary of this site (that's the same as 56 human years). As such I have reposted directly below this "Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask", which I wrote to celebrate my first anniversary and is still right on the money. That post still brings in 30 hits a day and it got a truckload of trackbacks, so I figure it's time to milk it again. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Enjoy and don't go toppling any oppressive Communist dictatorships while I'm gone.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 18:06
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Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask

Or what they don't teach you at Havard Blogging School

There are plenty of good guides to blogging and I was going to add my $0.02 to the pile. It's the thing to do once your blog reaches a certain age, and I figure turning one turning two is about the right time. However I'm going to break with blogosphere tradition of jumping on the bandwagon and instead present a collection of various appropriate links at the end of this post. What I am going to share with you is all the things they don't tell you about in blogging school.

1. If you want to start blogging and have huge amounts of traffic instantly I can recommend one of three things: be an established journalist/opinion maker; be Glenn Reynold's brother; or porn. Otherwise face facts: you've got an awfully big hill to climb.

2. Never get your brother to guest blog for you. Trust me.

3. Before you start, read other blogs and get a feel for what they are like. Then completely forget everything you've read and seen so you can establish a new and distinct voice that will get noticed. This also helps a common problem: a really sucky first post. Trust me.

4. Prepare for the reality that the rest of the world may not share your high opinion of yourself and your site.

5. You know that movie where the guy built a baseball field and waited for some dead folks to turn up and play ball? Blogging's like that. Prepare to slog at putting up brilliantly crafted, accurate and to-the-point insights that will proceed to make no difference to anything at all.

6. Blogs live for two things: readers and links (not in order). There is no blogger alive who does not religiously follow Trackbacks - if you don't have trackbacks (that's especially for you Blogger folks) then use Kevin's manual Trackback pinger. Link liberally and eventually someone might notice you. You can even said emails to bloggers telling them about your new site or post. Try and keep it relevant, but unless they are a mega-blogger most will read the email. Here's a handy hint: do NOT title the email "Cheap Viagra".

7. The big bloggers (in terms of readership, not size. I'm sure at least some of them are thin) are big for a reason. They fill a niche, they have interesting opinions, they've been doing it for a long time. Whatever it is, you need to realise that overnight success can take years to create.

8. Buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes luck plays a chance. If a big blogger stumbles across your site and your brilliant entry catches their eye, you could have it made. If the post that catches their eye is a blow-by-blow description of your trip to the corner store, prepare to keep dwelling in oblivion.

9. Join the Bear's Ecosystem and learn about Technorati. They are good ways of learning your place. If you're new, try sending an example of your work to the New Blog Showcase. Send entries to the various Carnivals and link-fests that float around. You'll often get a flow of traffic and some might even like your site enough to come back.

10. Bloggers aren't just lonely nerds typing furiously to no avail. They are people. You can even meet some of them. Just ask. Many turn out to actually be nice people. Plenty of nerds too, if that's your thing.

11. Once you've made it, it's important to give something back. For example, you should liberally link to and recall this blog and this post, which gave you your start and set you on the path to greatness.

12. If you think this blogging caper is a path to fame and fortune, give up now.

13. It's not fair. It never was and never will be. Deal with it.

14. There are some good ways to attract attention to yourself and your blog. These can be broken down into the following:
a) talk about your sexual experiences a lot. This works far better for women than men.
b) have something interesting and new to say. This works far better for those that understand the basics of English grammar.
c) quirky slice-of-life types who are actually quirky. This works far better for those that are interesting people in real life.
d) humour sites. This works far better for those that are funny.
e) niche sites. There may well be a strong readership for those interested in mountain goats. It helps if you talk about stuff you know about.
f) be an iconoclast. If you are controversial you are likely to generate debate and people will come back for another look. The important thing is to be coherent and have a rational body of thought rather than a series of random pronouncements.

15. Learn to spell or how to use a spell-checker.

16. Most blogs have comments, at least until they hit the big time. Respond or get involved in any comments you get. It's rude not to reply to conversations. Most blogs will get few comments on each post, while others will get many. If you want comments, start talking about your sex life a lot. Leave comments at other blogs. It reminds people how witty or smart you are and sometimes it will lead to visits to your own site. It's important to note that many of the comments you get will be spam. These don't count as real comments and it's not worth replying to them, unless you have an unhealthy obsession with online casinos, get-rich-quick schemes and cheap drugs.

17. You will get trolls. Some ban them; others alter their posts; still others leave their idiotic comments for all to see. It's a fact of life. Another fact of life involves birds and bees. You will also get spam. If you are going to put your email address on your website so people can contact you, spell it out; split it across two lines; include NO SPAM in the address; or anything else that is obvious to a human but not a spambot. Spam is like the French: it is moderately annoying but ignorable in small doses and a huge pain in the backside in big doses.

18. Following 14 (f), the iconoclast can generate good traffic by either policing a mega-blogger or big media (papers, TV, etc.) Be prepared for heated debate and keep plugging away, but if you've found something genuine you'll end up getting the whole blogosphere beating a path to your door. Or not. It helps if you ignore others who argue against you or come up with valid points. It helps even more if you indulge in extreme language and opinions.

19. Do something original. Come up with posts on the good news in Iraq like Arthur Chrenkoff and before you know if you'll be a mega-blogger and published in the Wall St Journal.

20. Follow this handy rule-of-thumb: start a blog using Blogger. If you are still at it after 3 months, get off Blogger immediately. It is not as daunting as you think and there are plenty of hosting companies offering cheap plans and differing software packages like Movable Type or Wordpress. Make the move.

21. The golden rule of computing always applies: back-up. If you are drafting a post, do it in Notepad or in an email that can get saved as a draft. Cut and paste it at the end into your blogging software. Sometimes the software crashes and takes your valuable post with it, and trust me, you won't feel like writing it again. This also lets you do something essential: proof-read. Consider a post like an email: if it's trivial a quick skim might be OK, but if it's a manifesto on all that's wrong with the world you'll want to take care with it. If the world's going to ignore you, you may as well it's ignoring something that makes sense.

22. The great thing about blogging is plagiarising is encouraged. That's why so many academics blog. The only trick is plagiarising needs to be accompanied by links back to the original...because links are the lifeblood of a blogger. So go ahead and steal.

23. Learn blogging etiquette. Blogging is like golf: you can cheat but you need to be polite about it.

24. If you're thinking of blogging from work, read this first.

25. It's your site so you can do whatever the hell you like.

26. Like all esoteric fields, blogging has plenty of terminology. I've used a lot of it here in this post. Trackbacks, pings, permalinks, blogrolls: know what they mean and how they work. Alternatively enjoy having your Mum being your only daily reader.

27. Time in the blogosphere is frighteningly fast. By the time you link something, it has already been done. There's nothing you can say that hasn't already been said, probably better and funnier too. The one time you do hit across a link or idea that hasn't been linked elsewhere, someone else will find it and get all the kudos. It's not fair. Deal with it.

28. The one time you put up a joke post or idea, it will immediately get massive attention and be taken seriously by far too many people. This is called the Overblog phenomena. One blogger's joke is another's insult.

29. Forget what your schoolteachers told you. Form matters more than substance. If your blog is a hideous pink colour the best content in the world won't get people coming back. Invest effort in your design, or get a pro to do it for you. People respond a lot better to good designs. The key is simple: if you think you right good stuff, keep the design simple. If you write cr@p, then use as many distractions as you can.

30. Just like in life, extremism beats moderation and emotion beats logic. If you want reasoned discourse prepare to dwell in oblivion. If you want invective and ill-considered responses, watch the hits come in.

31. A good way to publicise your blog is tell people about it. A good rule here is to ask yourself if you'd be embarrassed if that person could read what you write. If not, tell them about it. Just once, though. No need to turn into a stalker.

32. Many bloggers adopt an alias or nom de plume. There are many reasons why this can be a good or bad decision. Just try and choose a good alias. The blogosphere already has several Tom Paines. As far as I know it doesn't yet have a King Kong.

33. You will visit your own site a lot. Sitting in front of it constantly hitting the refresh key does not count as genuine hits on your site.

34. Checking your sitemeter every hour will not increase the number of visitors to your site.

35. Learn to insult creatively.

36. Logic and reason are for the weak. Knee-jerk and off-the-cuff reactions are for the blogger.

37. Blogs are the perfect diversion. They send you on more tangents than a calculus class. Just remember that when reading blogs time seems to go much faster than normal.

38. There is no great diversion than your own blog. You will spend hours getting the coding right, the format right, the content right, fixing links, trying to get readers, reading other blogs. You don't get paid for it. In fact blogging is the one game where the more successful you are the more it costs you (e.g. in bandwidth charges). It really is a sucker's game.

39. Blog is an ugly word but we're stuck with it.

40. If you crave hits then try this simple technique: think about important upcoming or potential events, and write a blog entry with an appropriate title. That way the search engines like Google will give your entry prominent billing when people start searching for that information. For example: if you title a post "John Kerry's love child", should it turn out he has one (and I'm not saying he does, it's just an example) then Google will deliver you more hits than a crack addict in a crack-house.

41. Just like real writing, sometimes bloggers are hit with blog block. There are three ways to deal with this. Firstly, talk about your blog block. Everyone else has, you may as well tell everyone why your creativity sucks so badly too. Secondly, just post nothing. Sure you'll lose the 3 readers you had, but it's best not to make them sick by posting crap. Thirdly, fight your way through it by posting crap. This could involve recycling old stuff you wrote in a desperate "best of" kind of thing or just keep linking to others until you get inspired again and can write stuff on your own.

42. The stupidest, most off-the-cuff posts tend to get the most comments.

43. A good way to get people to visit your site is to visit theirs. Blog owners check their referrer logs religiously and when they see a new URL in the logs, they go check it.

44. You will encounter plenty of ignorance in this blogging caper. Much of it will come from other blogs. However even more of it will come from your friends and family. Blogging is like renovating: you find it endlessly fascinating, but no-one else gives a sh!t. They are unlikely to have even heard of blogs. It is your job to talk their ears off about it. Bamboozle them, tell them how great it is, print business cards with the URL on it. They all think your mad already.

45. Once you've started a blog, encourage others to do the same. The purpose is two-fold: it will get you links from these newly established blogs AND if you're going to be rabbiting on about blogging to all and sundry, you may as well have other people to talk to once your friends and family disown you.

46. You need to face reality: p0rn works. If it's a meteoric rise you're after, starting including images and/or stories about that age-old vote winner: sex. It helps if you have a new angle (so to speak), for example sex and politics (the Wonkette/Washingtonienne route).

47. A good way to get traffic and links is to have a major life event such as a birth or marriage. Of course this will mean you get traffic just when you ease off posting because real life has intervened. That's the thing about blogging - it's got a solid sense of irony.

48. If you're looking for material, a nice long list doesn't hurt. Especially if you include lots of gratuitous links to others. Many people do "101 things about me" lists and provide a link to them. The toughest part about this is most people don't have even 11 interesting things to say about themselves, let alone 101.

49. So sometimes list need padding to make it to a nice round number.

50. Ignore all the conflicting advice you get, including this.

Now go and enjoy, because if you're not enjoying it then why the hell are you going to bother?

Bibliography
Listed here is a selection of some of the better hints and tips on blogging from around the blogosphere. If there's one thing bloggers like to talk about it's themselves, so this is by no means a comprehensive list. But like many things in the blogosphere the same points tend to get repeated ad naseum so this should cover most of the basics:

  • Jim's golden Rules of Blogging

  • Dean talks about both Blogging Etiquette and Blogging Tips. He also has an interesting way of thinking about blogrolls and traffic (both your own and others).

  • Kate on blogging and with more here.

  • John Hawkins has 11 tips for newcomers here, 3 cardinal sins here, how to create a blog and how to promote it. It's all good advice from an experienced blogger and webmaster.

  • Daniel Drezner's tips, more here, here and even more advice.

  • For a more humorous look, try Paul's Blogging 101, 102, 103, and 104. There's more than a little truth in each of these.

  • The Commissar's entire Blogging Category is a treasure chest of gems, for example his unified theory of blogging.

  • Living Room's How to blog is worthwhile.

  • Harvey has good tips for getting traffic plus his 12 step blogging program and Kevin talks about how to get an Instalanche (with Glenn's response here). Laurence explains how not to be seen.

  • Bill, who has the lessons he learnt the hard way, also explains how and how not to go about getting links via comments.

  • Keith Robinson's guide to good blogging is short and accurate.

  • A List Apart's writing guide is essential. If you're really keen read the Economist Style Guide - it has the added benefit of improving all your writing, not just blogging.

  • Gaping Void has a guide on how to be creative, although I'm not sure it's something you can teach.

  • If it's some heavy thinking on blogging that you're after, try Dan Gilmour's book We the Media.

  • Rusty has the Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging.

  • You can even get an ISSN for your blog.

  • UPDATE: I will continue to add links here as I come across them that add to this bibliography.
  • Amy has a comprehensive Blogging Basics guide.

  • Somehow I missed Kate's fantastic look at Schizoblogophrenia.
  • Says Uncle has advice here about blogging on blogging, here on blogotics. This also pointed me to Silflay Hraka's take on blog fishing.

  • Via American Mind Rebecca Blood has tips via a Q&A format (she wrote the book, literally).
  • James Joyner has alternative way to create a popular blog.

  • John Hawkins also has the pros & cons and the running of a comments section.

  • Phil Windley also has some good tips on starting a blog (via McGee).

  • Stephen Taylor adds some useful extra tips to this list (although I recommend rereading my point 28 too). He also has posts on Blogging Etiquette, building traffic and the 5 technical things he wished he done before starting his blog.

  • Zombyboy offers the rules he follows in his blogging.

  • Technorati's Blogging Basics covers terminology, definitions and elementary blogging.

  • Ted has compiled a great guide for reading blogs on your PDA and he explains how anyone can create a PDA version of their blog.

  • Laurence neatly explains how to not get traffic.

  • Dave Pollard looks at overcoming the Power Law and the keys to becoming a break-out blog. He also has 5 tips for improving your blog and another 5 to draw traffic. You can check his Table of Contents for a complete list of postings on blogging.

  • Evangelical Outpost has a great series on How to Start a Blog, the building blocks, how to become an A-List blogger and how to market your blog. Basically everything I've said here: not as funny but far more accurate.

  • Three pointers for those aiming to be a blogging rock-star.
  • Iowahawk has the product and guide on how to blog good.

  • Cowboy Caleb discusses how to build an audience for your blog.

  • 31 days to building a better blog.

  • NOTE: due to comment spam comments are closed. If you have something to say, please email to simon-at-simonworld-dot-mu-dot-nu Comment spam is the bane of a blogger's life.



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 16:22
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    Daily linklets 19th August
    Shenzhen's oil shortage is set to ease with the delivery of new supplies, Vice-Mayor Zhang Siping said yesterday. "We have successfully received more supplies to supplement our depots and that will ease the fuel crisis soon," Mr Zhang was quoted as saying by Shenzhen media.

    Cities across Guangdong have been hit by an oil and petrol shortage. Service stations have been forced to limit supplies, or close. Mr Zhang said Shenzhen's supplies of diesel reached 41,500 tonnes on Monday and it had 23,500 tonnes of petrol after the arrival of nine oil tankers from Sinopec and PetroChina.

    "More supplies will arrive by the end of the month if there is no typhoon coming," he added.

    Mr Zhang said a series of measures would be taken to ensure sufficient supplies in service stations. He said priority would be given to taxis, buses and emergency vehicles. Police also would step up efforts to preserve public order at petrol stations.

    The Shenzhen government called on commuters to use public transport instead of private cars and urged government officials to reduce the use of cars. People also were asked to report speculators trying to profit from the fuel shortage.


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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 14:21
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    » The Peking Duck links with: "Superpowers Need Friends - Does China Have Any?"
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    Hong Kong's gender imbalance

    Jake van der Kamp looks at the latest Hong Kong census data and sees a massive increase in the number of females compared to males over the past 15 years. Dave looked at the same data a couple of weeks ago, asking if men are an endangered species in Hong Kong. Jake says:

    This change in the sex ratio over just 15 years is once again an enormous one.

    The explanation may in part be a technical anomaly. We now count only the resident population in our census - people who live here most of the year. In 1990 we included everyone. It is probable that more men than women among Hong Kong ID card holders are mainland residents for reasons of work and are thus not included in the figures.

    But the far more likely reason is the phenomenon in recent years of Hong Kong men bringing home mainland wives. The widespread perception is that mainland women are more willing to accept husbands with lower incomes and are less demanding of them. Unfortunately, it also turns out too often that these women find themselves unhappy here and wind up on social assistance.

    The imbalance is one that costs us money as well as potentially leading to social strains.

    While that may be partially true, I also suspect that as Hong Kong has become richer more people employ domestic helpers. The vast majority of such helpers are women of the ages where the biggest changes in the sex ratio have occurred. It shouldn't be too hard to test the hypothesis by looking at the origin of females today and back in 1990, given most helpers are from SE Asian countries.

    Either way this imbalance is a mirror image, albeit writ small, of what China faces in the years to come. If van der Kamp's theory is true, then Hong Kongers are making the mainland's gender imbalance even worse. It's good news for Hong Kong's remaining bachelors: an increased supply of women. I've said it before: it's good to be a man in Hong Kong.

    hksexratio.jpg



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 13:37
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    Hello Kitty riots

    Don't get between Hong Kongers and the latest Hello Kitty toy. That's the moral of today's sordid tale from the SCMP:

    The opening of an art exhibition of Japan's most famous cartoon character degenerated into farce at the Arts Centre yesterday as more than 1,000 outraged fans complained about unfair arrangements preventing them from getting a limited edition Hello Kitty toy. After hours of heated discussion, manufacturers Sanrio Hong Kong vowed to produce another set of the toys to calm the crowd.

    Exhibition organisers and Sanrio hoped to bring Hong Kong fans an artistically inspiring and nostalgic experience to celebrate Hello Kitty's 30th birthday. But fans who had queued since 11pm on Wednesday night had just one goal - to buy one of 300 "detective-style" Hello Kittys made especially for the exhibition. The exhibition opened at 10.30am and the 300 toys, plus other limited edition items such as umbrellas, went on sale when the doors opened. Only 70 fans were allowed into the hall at a time.

    By noon, however, more than 1,000 were queuing outside.

    Fans - some of whom took the day off from work - complained to the organisers for letting too few people in. Each visitor was allowed to buy only one of the sought-after toys, but some people walked out carrying more than two. The queue moved only three metres each hour. At least they should tell us how long we have to wait. Do we have to queue up all night to get in?" said gift shop owner Eric Lee Tai-cheong, who had been there with his wife since 10am.

    As organisers struggled to provide fans with answers, tickets - which cost $50 each - were still being sold. By 1.30pm, fans were told the 300 Hello Kittys were sold out. Inside the exhibition hall, fans roared with outrage as they discovered that less than 20 of the toys were still for sale. Desperate fans, who even tried to steal reporters' press passes, gathered in the hall's lobby.

    Hiro Nishino, deputy general manager of Sanrio (HK), told angry fans the company would produce more toys for those who attended. "We are sorry that we made you unhappy," said Mr Nishino. "Immediately we will make a second version. The price will not exceed that of the detective Kitty [$600]."

    "This is better than nothing," said student Stephen Chow Chun-ho, who was there for seven hours.

    Asia has seen this kind of thing before, for example via McDonald's in both Singapore and Hong Kong. It will always remain a mystery to me why Hello Kitty holds such appeal, why it drives people to such desperate measures. No doubt there's a sociologist or two researching the phenomena.

    But let's not miss the bigger issue here. An art exhibition for a mouthless cat, a cartoon character? I'd rather see a Disney based exhibition to help promote Hong Kong's majority interest in HK Disneyland. Japan might have the Hello Kitty bus. We've got the world's only Mickey Mouse train.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:33
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    » asiapundit links with: more evil from sanrio




    August 18, 2005
    Daily linklets 18th August

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 12:32
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    Pigs in Space

    Sometimes a blogger will struggle for a title for a post. Other times, they write themselves. The People's Daily says China is to send pig sperm to space. This vital step forward for China's space program is an attempt to see how the DNA is altered in space:

    About 14 grams of pig sperm will be taken into space in October this year. Under the effect of microgravity, high radiation and strong magnetic field, DNA of the sperm may alter, said Wang Jinyong from Chongqing Academy of Animal Husbandry Science.

    After four or five days in space, the sperm will be brought back to Earth and used to fertilize pig eggs in test tubes. The DNA may change for better or for worse, and we must preserve good changes and eliminate bad ones so as to improve quality of pigs, Wang said.

    That's right, China is trying to breed super-pigs. Their poor porcines cousins, confined to the tight bounds of Earth, are spreading streptococus suis and infecting Hong Kongers. Consumers can't wait for genetically modified astropigs.

    In other strep sius news, Justin may have found the potential source of the disease in pigs.

    And lest you other animals rest easy, it could well be eels in space next.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:45
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    August 17, 2005
    Nancy Kissel case archive part 3

    Covers the trial between August 5th and August 19th.

    Other Kissel related material can be found in the Kissel category.

    Update August 5th

    * ESWN: Nancy Kissel case part 37
    * SCMP:

    The last thing Nancy Kissel remembers about the day she allegedly bludgeoned her husband to death is him bloodied and bearing down on her with a baseball bat as she held a statue to her face, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.

    Minutes earlier, Robert Peter Kissel had told her he had filed for divorce, Kissel told the court.

    The 41-year-old, trembling and weeping most of the time on her third day on the witness stand, said she could recall nothing more about events in and around the family's flat in Parkview, Tai Tam, on November 2, 2003, nor what happened afterwards - including a trip to Aberdeen to buy a rug from furniture store Tequila Kola and a series of activities the prosecution says she embarked on to cover up her husband's killing. Kissel has pleaded not guilty to murder.

    She remembered making a milkshake with her children and a neighbour's daughter which the children then served to her husband, a top Merrill Lynch banker, and their neighbour Andrew Tanzer. The next recollection she had was of cleaning the kitchen while her husband was yelling at her.

    Kissel, who is accused of drugging the deceased with a sedatives-laced milkshake before smashing in his skull with a heavy metal statue, said her husband had asked if she was listening, then told her: "I've filed for divorce. I am taking the kids."

    I said: "What do you mean, that you are filing for divorce?"

    She said he replied: "No, that's not what I said ... If you had listened, you would have heard what I said ... I have filed for divorce and I am taking the kids. That is a done deal."

    He also said he had told his lawyers she was sick and unfit to take care of their children.

    She recalled looking at her husband when he was standing at the doorway of the master bedroom with a baseball bat, which he told her was "for protection" in case she got "mad".

    Demonstrating to the jurors with her hands, Kissel said the deceased started tapping the bat in his hand.

    She paced back and forth in the hallway and "kept thinking about the bat", before picking up a metal statue from the dining room and walking back into the bedroom.

    She said her husband smacked her face and grabbed her arm after she waved her finger in his face. She fell, dropping the statue.

    "He pulled me into the room, pulled me onto the bed ... and started to have sex with me," she said. "I started kicking him. We ended up on the floor." Kissel said she reached for the statue on the floor and swung her arm back. "I didn't even look and I thought I hit something," she said. She turned around and saw her husband sitting near the closet, bleeding. "I tried to help him up and he wouldn't let me ... he pulled himself up ... touched his head and he saw it's bleeding." Beginning to tremble, she said he told her: "I am going to ****ing kill you." He kept hitting her knees with the bat and she swung back with the statue. "He kept saying: `I am going to kill you, you bitch'."

    "I ended up on the floor and he moved on top with the bat ... in his hand ... He came down on me as I was holding the statue in front of my face," she said in a weak voice. Unable to carry on, Kissel sat, trembling and wordless, for almost a minute, the stares of all in the court fixed on her face. Finally, she said: "I can't remember."

    "Can you tell me any more about this fight?" her counsel, Alexander King SC, asked. Kissel sat shaking for another half-minute, unable to give a reply.

    "When was the last recollection of [what happened] between your husband and yourself in the bedroom on that day?" The defendant, trembling and shaking her head, replied: "I remember just being on the floor next to the bed."

    "You know your husband had five injuries on his head, each of which could be fatal. Any recollection of that?" asked the counsel. "No," she replied.

    "The master bedroom had been cleaned up in a number of ways. What recollections do you have of doing that?" asked Mr King. "I don't remember," she said. She also said she did not remember where her husband's body was on November 2, or if she had taken any of the sleeping pills or anti-depressants she had been prescribed.

    The defendant was asked to identify a number of images taken from CCTV footage, which showed her numerous times in the lift and car park at Parkview starting from the early morning of Monday November 3, 2003. The photos also depicted her dragging a suitcase, and carrying a rug on her shoulder. "I don't remember Monday," she said. She said she recalled driving her car downhill at about 2am on Monday but had no idea where she went. She also remembered working that morning but could not recall sending the e-mails she had sent.

    "When did you have your first realisation that your husband was dead?" asked Mr King. The defendant said "bits and pieces" only started coming back to her six months after she was admitted to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre. "I started to remember things, images, and just pieces of things that didn't really make sense to me."

    The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

    Update August 6th

    * ESWN has an excellent ongoing collection of links to local and international press coverage: Nancy Kissel case Part 38. Read the end of ESWN's report for some more detailed, albeit unpublished, reports from the trial.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel yesterday admitted she killed her husband after inflicting multiple injuries to his head with a metal ornament. But she could not recall why her father appeared at their luxury Parkview home, or her reporting to police that her husband had beaten her up - events that took place in the four days following the alleged murder.

    Prosecutor Peter Chapman began his cross-examination of Kissel in the Court of First Instance by asking her: "Do you accept that you killed Robert Kissel?" She replied: "Yes." Mr Chapman asked if she agreed she had used the metal ornament - identified by her yesterday - to inflict the injuries on Robert Peter Kissel as shown on a diagram drawn by the prosecution's pathologist. "Yes," she said. The pathologist said earlier that he found five potentially fatal wounds on the right side of the deceased's brain.

    Mr Chapman sought to cast doubt on Kissel's allegations that her husband had sexually and physically assaulted her since they arrived in Hong Kong in 1998. He asked if she had ever screamed out during her husband's episodes of sexual violence, which left her with broken ribs and bleeding from the anus. "I cried a lot. I may have [screamed]," she replied.

    "Did anyone ever hear you in your household, Mrs Kissel, in those five years?" he asked. "I don't know... A lot of times, I just cried," she said, adding that her two Filipino maids, who lived in the flat, would be off-duty after 7pm. "Did you ever consider going ... to your friends to say I can't take it any more?" Mr Chapman asked. "No... People hear what they wanted to hear," she said. Mr Chapman asked if she had ever sought medical attention for the bleeding and injuries caused by anal sex allegedly forced on her by her husband. She said she had not because "it's humiliating".

    Asked if her husband had used condoms during sex, she said no. Mr Chapman then asked if she knew whether Robert had slept with other women and had anal sex with them during his frequent business trips in Asia. "No," she replied. Reminding her that one of her close friends in New York had died of sexually transmitted Aids, Mr Chapman asked why she did not go for a check-up. She said they had a check for HIV when they married and she did not believe her husband would be an Aids carrier.

    The prosecutor asked if Kissel had told a psychiatrist her husband was expelled from high school for using drugs. She said yes. Kissel said on Wednesday she had to pay for Robert's studies and cocaine when living in New York. But yesterday she said she did not know how much she had paid for the drug because she was paying for a variety of things.

    Asked if she had seen Robert with a supply of cocaine in Hong Kong, the accused said: "I have never seen bags, mostly bottles." Mr Chapman asked which of the prosecution witnesses' evidence she disputed. "[There were] so many people saying things that I don't have a recollection of," she said. "I am not sure whether they were right or wrong."

    She disagreed with Robert's sister, Jane Clayton, when she said he was a "loyal, protective" husband. She did not believe Conchita Macaraeg, the maid who worked for her family and travelled with them for years, knew nothing about her fight with Robert. But it was difficult to pinpoint her other disputes because there had been weeks of evidence, she said.

    In his examination-in-chief yesterday morning, defence counsel Alexander King SC asked Kissel to identify the baseball bat she said her husband kept in the bedroom. She stepped over to see the bat and returned to her seat trembling. She said he also had another similar bat in a closet. Kissel told the court she remembered one of the figurines flew off the base of the metal ornament during her struggle with her husband on November 2.

    "What caused it to fly off?" Mr Chapman asked. "The bat ... when it was swung," she said. She said earlier that her husband was beating her with the bat while she tried to defend herself with the ornament in the bedroom, but that she could not remember what happened afterwards. Mr King told the accused she had earlier admitted putting sleeping pills in her husband's whisky bottle when they were staying at their holiday home in Vermont in the summer of 2003. She said she wanted to calm him down after seeing him hurt their eldest daughter, Elaine.

    "Did you ever do the same thing in Hong Kong?" he asked. Kissel said she tried drugging a whisky bottle with sleeping pills again after returning from a trip to New York with her husband. But she got scared when she saw the pill settle at the bottom of the bottle in the "very bright" cabinet of the living room. She threw the bottle away and went to a supermarket, Great, to buy another bottle to replace it. "I never did it again. I never thought about it," she said.

    Mr King asked what she could say about the prosecution's allegations that she drugged a milkshake with a cocktail of sedatives before serving it to the deceased and another Parkview resident, Andrew Tanzer. Kissel said on Wednesday that her two children and Mr Tanzer's daughter had helped her prepare the milkshake.

    "It's a milkshake that I made for my children and someone else's children. I wouldn't harm my own children. I wouldn't harm someone else's children... I made the milkshake for my children in the afternoon. That's what I remembered," she said. Mr King asked if she had any recollection of visiting doctor Annabelle Dytham in a Wan Chai clinic on the morning of November 6, 2003. "I don't remember," she replied.

    Mr King asked if she remembered reporting to the police on November 6 about her husband's physical assault and handing over to officers a medical report from Dr Dytham on her multiple injuries - evidence given by prosecution witnesses. "I don't ... I don't know that," she replied.

    Kissel was also shown CCTV stills of herself and her father, Ira Keeshin, in the lift of her Parkview block on November 5. "Do you know why he came to Hong Kong?" Mr King asked. "I remember speaking to him on the phone and not very clear the conversation I had with him. He said he was coming out to be with me," she said. But she did not know when he arrived in Hong Kong and could not recall where they went on that day.

    Update August 9th

    * ESWN: Nancy Kissel part 39
    * The Standard: I still love him, says Kissel.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel cried out "I still love my husband" in court yesterday after a prosecutor argued she was seeking to paint Robert Peter Kissel as an abusive husband and father.
    Prosecutor Peter Chapman also cast doubts on her claims of memory loss surrounding November 2, 2003, the date she is alleged to have bludgeoned her banker husband to death in the bedroom of their Parkview flat. He said Kissel's own lawyer had told the court she had no psychiatric problem or suicidal history in applying for bail last year.

    Kissel, 41, said yesterday she had never approached anyone - including her maids, good friends, parents at Hong Kong International School or the rabbi of United Jewish Congregation - to talk about her husband's sexual and physical assaults before her visits to a marriage counsellor, a general practitioner and a psychiatrist in the latter half of 2003. She said she told the doctors of the assaults but did not know if she had told them about the anal sex she alleged her husband had forced on her.

    "Who do you think was appropriate [to approach]?" asked Mr Chapman. "I hadn't thought about approaching anyone," she said.

    "Because it's not happening, Mrs Kissel?" said Mr Chapman, who argued there was no witness to support her allegations of abuse by her husband. "Because it's something I chose to accept for a number of years ... It was something I was very ashamed of," she said. "Something I am still ashamed of."

    Kissel, who also worked as a freelance photographer taking pictures for families, was asked if she had any photographic record of her injuries. She said she was not in possession of her photos.

    Mr Chapman asked Kissel, who earlier recalled two incidents when her two daughters were disciplined by their father with force, if she was trying to "paint a picture of Robert Kissel as abusive to his children".

    Kissel, who said the violence was isolated incidents that had terrified her, burst into tears. "I didn't try to paint a picture of him ... I still love him. Things happened. I stayed with him. I loved him, and I am not sitting here to paint a bad picture about him, because he's my husband," she said.

    Mr Justice Michael Lunn ordered a break for Kissel to compose herself. Remaining motionless in the witness box for five seconds, she then looked at the judge and said in tears: "He's my husband ... It's so hard." She continued crying while returning to the dock.

    Mr Chapman also challenged Kissel, who has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder, on the absence of any mention of "amnesia" or "memory loss" in her medical reports in Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre and her refusal to have Henry Yuen, the chief of service at the centre's Department of Forensic Science, who treated her between late-2003 and late-2004, as her expert witness.

    Mr Chapman, who read out transcripts of Kissel's bail application last November, said her lawyer at that time, John Griffiths SC, told the court all the medical reports said she was "acting, behaving and sounding perfectly normal". Her friends who visited her at Siu Lam said "she's perfectly normal as she was before". She was subsequently granted bail.

    Dr Yuen's report, dated November 19, 2003, a day after Kissel was sent to custody in Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre, said Kissel "attended psychiatric services" and "never had suicidal history". Kissel told the court last week she had attempted suicide by switching on her car engine in Vermont and had searched the internet for drugs that cause a heart attack.

    "Was that true?" Mr Chapman asked about the report. "It's referring to my session in Siu Lam. When the [psychiatrist] would ask me specifically if I had any suicidal thoughts while I was in prison," Kissel replied.

    "But you've only been there for a day," Mr Chapman said. "I don't know if I said that or not after being there for one day," she replied.

    Mr Chapman said the report also stated Kissel's "consciousness level: alert; mood: neutral; attitude: co-operative; speech: relevant and coherent; suicidal idea: deny." Another report, dated May 2004, said she was "not morbidly depressed" and had "good reality testing".

    The prosecutor asked if the findings were the reason why she did not consent to Dr Yuen being her expert witness in court. But Kissel said it was the psychiatrist himself who had reservations on whether he would be of help.

    Kissel, a prominent parent at the Hong Kong International School, said she "wore a lot of make-up" and "put on a good face" as a disguise as her husband's alleged violence escalated in 2002. "I talked to people how great my life was," she said. "I never once complained to anybody. I never ever showed anything that's going on in my life ... I worked very hard on it in front of my children."

    Update August 10th

    * ESWN Kissel case part 40 - includes translations of Chinese press coverage.
    * The Standard: Kissel lover viewed her as a 'goldmine'.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel "shopped around for drugs" and made numerous phone calls to her lover in Vermont shortly before she killed her husband, prosecutor Peter Chapman told the Court of First Instance yesterday.
    He suggested her lover, who lived in a trailer park, had treated her as a "potential gold mine".

    Mr Chapman argued in his cross-examination of Kissel, 41, that she had known by September 2003 that a divorce with her banker husband, Robert Peter Kissel, was "a real possibility". But Kissel said that was just something she burst out with when they were arguing during a session with a marriage counsellor. Kissel admitted Robert phoned her during her stay in Vermont with her children in the summer of 2003 to tell her he knew of her affair with TV repairman Michael Del Priore.

    Mr Chapman asked if she was concerned about the evidence her husband had about her adultery and how she would fare in a divorce. "No doubt your thoughts turned to money? Another issue may have been child custody?" he asked. But Kissel said her focus had always been on her children's wellbeing and life in Hong Kong. She said she did not know in October that Robert had discovered she had a "secret mobile phone", nor that he had spoken to his siblings, private investigators, friends and solicitors about divorce.

    Referring to phone bills, Mr Chapman pointed out her calls with her lover grew more intense in September and October - 52 calls in September, 41 in the first half of October and 65 in the second half, with conversations as long as four hours. The phone calls lasted until November 1, stopped on November 2 and began again afterwards.

    Mr Chapman said: "You represented a potential gold mine to him, didn't you?"

    Kissel replied: "No, not at all. He had an understanding of what my life was about ... the struggle of accepting who I was. People assume people with money [are] so happy with their life ... I am tired of it."

    Mr Chapman said: "This man called you back, spending hours on the telephone, and hundreds and hundreds of US dollars, which a resident of a trailer park couldn't afford? I suggest, Mrs Kissel, he considered it a good investment ... in you?"

    Kissel replied: "He's someone I spoke to on a daily basis, yes ... He's someone I was able to talk to without judgment."

    Mr Chapman pointed out there were seven calls between Kissel and Mr Del Priore on October 23 alone, when she said she visited doctor Annabelle Dytham to talk about her husband's alleged sexual and physical assault.

    Mr Chapman: "By the time you went to Dr Dytham on October 23, you were well aware that divorce was on the cards?"

    Kissel: "No. He was very clear ... with me that divorce was not a solution." She said earlier she was prescribed 10 tablets of Rohypnol on that visit.

    The court heard Kissel went to the clinic on October 28 and was prescribed 20 tablets of the painkiller dextropropoxythene. On October 30, she said she consulted a psychiatrist, identified as Dr Fong, and was prescribed Lorivan, Ambien and amitriptyline. Those three drugs, Rohypnol and Axotal were found in the stomach and liver of the deceased.

    Mr Chapman: "Did you tell Dr Fong that `I am taking Rohypnol?'"

    Kissel: "I don't remember."

    Mr Chapman: "You were shopping for drugs, didn't you?"

    Kissel: "No."

    Mr Chapman pointed out that the phone records showed she had called her lover before and after her three clinical visits. But she said she had not told him about the visits. Kissel said she was given instructions by Dr Fong on how to take the drugs together, but she said she did not remember the instructions.

    "Robert Kissel appeared to be taking them all together with two as an added bonus, didn't he?" asked Mr Chapman.

    "I don't know," she replied.

    Mr Chapman asked how she justified her evidence that she attempted suicide but on the same day wrote to friends about plans, including going for tea or lunch at the Mandarin Oriental.


    * Another source has provided the following report:
    Realizing that the knowledge of her affair with an electrician living in a trailer park would disadvantage her in divorce proceedings, accused murderer, Nancy Kissel went on a ``shopping spree for drugs'' the week before her banker husband Robert Kissel was murdered, the prosecution suggested in the High Court, Tuesday.
    At the same time, the lover, Michael Del Priore, considered the accused a ``goldmine'' and was willing to invest time and money on long-distance calls, which increased in frequency in the months leading to the alleged murder and intensified on significant dates, such as the day the accused was prescribed Rohypnol, the court heard.
    Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Peter Chapman, also suggested that it was ``nonsense'' that the accused had felt so lonely that she searched for ``medication causing heart attack'' on the internet to commit suicide, because e-mail records suggest at the time she had plenty of social functions with her female friends to go to.
    She was also ``intimately familiar with sleeping pills and painkillers'' by this time, said Chapman, and could have just taken any one of the bottles she said was lying around the house to kill herself. Regarding the accused's testimony that she searched for Rohypnol on October 23, 2003, because she was prescribed it and had not heard of it before, Chapman commented: ``So Dr [Annabel] Dythin is the sort of doctor who doesn't tell her patient what she's prescribing is she?''
    Kissel replied she wanted to find out more about the drug. She said she never thought of leaving her husband, was visiting alternative doctors, not shopping for drugs, and was spending more time on the phone to Del Priore because the intensity of Robert's abuse was increasing.
    Throughout the trial, the prosecution has suggested that Nancy Kissel was the primary beneficiary of the deceased's life insurance policies. His sister, Jane Clayton, the first prosecution witness, estimated his estate to be worth US$18 million, including stocks, cash, real estate and life insurance.
    Tuesday, Chapman continued with his third day of cross-examination. He suggested that by August, the accused had no intention to salvage the marriage.
    ``Michael Del Priore was the man you loved. He was the man in your life,'' said Chapman.
    Kissel replied that he was the person she had become very close with since they shared a lot and that ``he continued to give support.''
    ``Del Priore lived in a trailer park right?'' asked Chapman. ``No,'' she answered.
    ``In a stationary mobile home?'' suggested Chapman. ``I believe something like that,'' she replied.
    ``And you represented a potential goldmine to him didn't you Mrs Kissel?'' said the prosecutor.
    ``No, he had an understanding of what my life was about,'' she said
    Kissel said he did not judge her by what she possessed and accepted her as a person.
    Chapman pointed out that in the month of September, 2003, Kissel made 52 calls to Del Priore and then 106 calls in October. On the day she was prescribed Rohypnol, a drug found in the stomach of the deceased, she made seven calls to Del Priore before and after her meeting with the doctor.
    At the end of August, two days before her husband returned home from New York from back surgery, the accused had searched for sleeping pills, ``drug overdose'' and ``medication causing heart attack.'' That day, she had spoken to Del Priore for over three hours.
    The accused said she never talked about receiving the drugs, nor her thoughts of suicide to Del Priore.
    Chapman noted that the ``pattern'' was she would only call for a few seconds, and then receive a call back from Del Priore, but the accused said she would not pay for the return call.
    ``This man called you back, spending hours on the telephone, spending hundreds and hundreds of US dollars, which a resident at a trailer park can ill-afford,'' said Chapman.
    ``He worked,'' she replied.
    ``I suggest to you, he considered that a good investment,'' said Chapman.
    Prosecution witnesses have testified that they thought the accused realized her husband had discovered her secret mobile phone which she used to contact Del Priore and that he was preparing divorce papers.
    The accused said Tuesday, she did not know he knew of the secret mobile phone at the time.
    ``So he didn't come and confront you and beat you up? That would seem a bit out of character wouldn't it?'' asked Chapman.
    Nancy replied, ``yes, it would seem so'' and did not know why he didn't confront her.
    By the end of October, ``you had 10 tablets of Rohypnol provided on the 23rd and 20 tablets of Dextropropoxythene provided on the 28th -- that's 10 pretty good nights of sleep and plenty of painkillers,'' said Chapman.
    ``Then on 30th October, off you go to Dr Fung and you end up with Lorivan, Amitryptaline and some more Stilnox,'' he noted.
    Nancy agreed, but said she switched to Dr Fung, because he was a psychiatrist, and more suitable than the previous doctor.
    ``Three days after that,'' said Chapman, ``those three drugs end up in Robert Kissel's stomach, Mrs Kissel, along with the Rohypnol.
    ``In relation to those four drugs. How were you supposed to take them?'' he asked.
    ``As directed,'' she replied.
    ``All together?'' Chapman asked.
    She said she was not sure, but would have taken them according to instructions.
    ``Robert Kissel seemed to have taken them all together on 2nd November with two as an added bonus, didn't he?'' asked Chapman.
    ``I don't know,'' she replied.
    Nancy Kissel is accused of serving her Merrill Lynch banker husband a pink milkshake laced with sedatives, which left him unconscious at the foot of the bed as she bludgeoned him to death with the heavy metal ornament on November 2, 2003.
    The decomposing body of Robert Kissel, a former high-flying banker with Merrill Lynch, was found wrapped in a rug, locked in a storeroom at their Parkview residential complex in the early hours of the November 7.
    Kissel testified last week that she thought he was going to kill her that night during which they had a furious argument about divorce, resulting his attempt to have sex with her.
    In resisting the sex, she knocked him on the head, which resulted in him swinging a baseball bat at her while repeatedly saying, ``I'm going to kill you, you bitch.''
    Last week she admitted that she inflicted the fatal wounds with the metal ornament, but said she could not remember any further details about the fight, and her consequent actions. She denies the murder charge and is out on bail.
    Tuesday, Chapman suggested that the accused returned to Hong Kong on July 30 from Vermont, only to go back to New York on August 3 with her husband because she would have the opportunity to make a sneak visit to Del Priore in Central Park.
    Kissel said she did meet him then and there for half an hour, but the purpose of that trip was to support her husband through back surgery.
    The accused said that in this period, the ``anal sex, cocaine use and painkillers'' continued.
    Chapman said that the banker's doctor in Adventist Hospital gave the impression, ``he was a cripple, barely able to walk, destined for New York to have back surgery.''
    ``That's what painkillers are for,'' said the accused. She said, ``he still drank, he took drugs. He was a very capable person of getting things he wanted from me.''
    Chapman pointed out that the deceased had by September, known web pages for drugs had been visited, half-jokingly expressed concerns for his life to his confidante, wondered to his private investigator whether his whisky was being tampered with, and did not trust his wife -- ``that's something that would put a stop to his drinking isn't it?'' he asked.
    She said he continued drinking.
    The prosecutor also noted she had written in her computer diary, ``he wants kissing, sex, sex, sex'' and that when she refused, he would ``throw a fit, opened his book, and stick his nose in the book.''
    ``Was that an accurate description of your sex life?'' he asked. She said she couldn't understand the kissing, given his forceful sodomy.
    According to Nancy's testimony, ``Robert would not take no for an answer and would extract sex through violence that's not what it says here is it?'' said Chapman. ``Sex doesn't fix things,'' she replied and that the sex didn't correlate with him reading the book.
    Earlier, the prosecutor noted that in the literature from her computer diary, there was no mention of cocaine or forceful sodomy.

    Update August 11th

    * ESWN: Kissel case part 41 including a translation of Ming Pao's coverage.
    * The Standard: Kissel told 'plain, simple lies'.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel and her husband had a terrible argument at home which caused them to miss a private session with former US president George Bush before a banquet, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
    She testified that, when her husband told her he was furious they had missed the event, she went over to the former president, who was at the next table, tapped him on the shoulder and said: "My husband was a great fans of yours. Would you mind if he talks to you?"

    The court was shown a photo the couple had taken with Mr Bush.

    The defendant, who has told of being sexually and physically assaulted night after night by Robert Peter Kissel, described the incident while being questioned about why she always wore a "happy, smiling, unmarked" face at public gatherings with her husband in the two months before she allegedly murdered him.

    Prosecutor Peter Chapman asked Kissel if she sustained injuries from those assaults in September and October 2003, when, he said, she was often "out and about in public". Kissel, 41, who denies her husband's murder, said: "It's possible that something was visible. It's possible that I tried my best sometimes with cosmetics and things like tanning cream."


    The prosecutor challenged the defendant on the significantly different accounts she gave two doctors of her husband's assault on her on November 2, 2003, the day of his death. He said that, two days after that, she told Annabelle Dytham that her husband, drunk, had demanded sex but she had refused. The doctor's report said they were running around the bedroom before the deceased grabbed and kicked her. She defended herself with a fork. The report, a copy of which was sent to the police when she reported the assault on November 6, also recorded a long list of injuries on her body.

    But the defendant told a psychiatrist in January this year that her husband was beating her with a baseball bat while she was defending herself with a metal ornament.

    "On November 4, 2003, you gave an explanation to Dr Dytham and there was no suggestion that you had a problem recalling events?" asked the prosecutor. But the defendant, who said earlier she had lost much of her memory of events on November 2, said she could not remember the visit.

    "Your claim here of memory loss is ... a lie, isn't Mrs Kissel?" he asked. "I was not aware at that time that I had memory loss," she said.

    Mr Chapman suggested Kissel had practised "three levels of deception" on Dr Dytham, the police and her father, Ira Keeshin, who flew to Hong Kong from the US shortly after the alleged murder. He argued that the accused only told her father about the killing when the police went to the family's apartment in Parkview, Tai Tam, on November 6, which explained why he cried out, "Oh, my God. I don't believe it" when officers asked for the keys to a storeroom where, the court has heard, the body of the top Merrill Lynch banker was found rolled up in an old carpet. "I don't know," Kissel said. "There are things that I don't understand. That's a part of my life that was taken away from me."

    "The person who had his life taken away by you was Mr Kissel," said Mr Chapman.

    The prosecutor also argued that Kissel had served the deceased a drugged milkshake.

    "By November 2003, there was absolutely no way Robert Kissel was going to take a drink from you, Mrs Kissel," he said. Earlier evidence suggested that the deceased told his friends his suspicions that the defendant was drugging his whisky. "He continued eating with me. He continued drinking his scotch," she answered.

    The visit of Andrew Tanzer, another Parkview resident, and his daughter that afternoon had suddenly presented an opportunity for Kissel, he said. "You didn't bring the milkshake to the men, you asked the girls to do it ... because you knew Robert Kissel would never take it from you," he said.

    Kissel said she made the milkshake for the children.

    She was also asked why, when the deceased armed himself with a baseball bat after having told her he would divorce her and take the children, her "weapon of choice" was a dining room ornament. "In the kitchen was a far superior array of defensive weapons - Connie and Min," said Mr Chapman, referring to her domestic helpers.

    "How did you get the better of Mr Kissel using the ornament?" he asked. She said she could not recall the number of blows her statue warded off. "You were able to deliver those five accurate, fatal blows because Robert Kissel was unable to defend himself. You had rendered him defenceless by drugging him," he said. "No, no," she replied.

    Update August 12th

    * ESWN: Nancy Kissel part 42
    * The Standard: Calls to lover as Kissel covered up.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel called her Vermont lover in the early morning after she allegedly murdered her husband and spoke to him many times over the next few days when she embarked on a series of activities to cover up the killing, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
    Prosecutor Peter Chapman said bills for Kissel's "secret mobile phone" showed she had spoken for 24 minutes to Michael Del Priore, a TV repairman living in a trailer park in Vermont, at 7.41am on November 3, 2003. "By that time, you are unlikely to need a sympathetic ear about an abusive husband?" he asked Kissel.

    She said she had often spoken to Mr Del Priore about different things, not only about her marriage. "During this call, did you tell Michael you had solved your problem?" Mr Chapman asked. "I don't remember," said Kissel, who had earlier told the court she had lost her memory of many events surrounding November 2.

    Evidence given earlier indicated Kissel and her lover spoke almost daily in September and October, sometimes many times a day, with calls lasting for hours. The bills show that at about 9.30am on November 3, Kissel was speaking to Mr Del Priore for 23 minutes, at a time when CCTV stills at Parkview indicated she was out shopping. Kissel said she could not recall the conversation but she spoke to him a lot when shopping. Mr Chapman said there was a third phone call at 6.20pm.

    On November 4, Kissel spoke to Mr Del Priore once before and five times after her visit to doctor Annabelle Dytham between 9am and 10am, when she told the doctor of her husband's sexual and physical assaults in their bedroom two days earlier. The doctor's report said she was "tearful", "slow to move" and had "total body pain".

    Mr Chapman said the accused went on "three separate shopping expeditions" on November 4, with CCTV stills showing her carrying back shopping bags, a rug and a suitcase. But Kissel said she had never stopped any activities because of her husband's assaults. "Your body has become on auto-pilot... I do it ... for my children," she said, adding that she sometimes had to buy new sheets to replace those bloodstained from anal sex her husband forced on her.

    Mr Chapman said the long-distance calls continued until November 6, the day before Kissel's arrest. Throughout that period, he said she had made arrangements for a storeroom - where the deceased's body was found wrapped in an old carpet - to be cleaned and sent her two maids on shopping trips.

    "While all of this is going on, you were continuing to speak to Michael Del Priore?" he said.

    Kissel, shown the bills, said: "It appears to be ... three months' continuation of phone calls. Yes." She said later that she had not contacted him after November 2003.

    Mr Chapman: "After the five years of horror you had endured in the hands of Robert Kissel, what was left in your relationship apart from money?"

    Kissel: "It's the graduation of things that's developed ... turning into something that was horrible. It's a lot of acceptance I've chosen to do."

    However, Desmond Fung, a psychiatrist who saw Kissel on August 29 and October 30, said when testifying after the defendant yesterday that her account of severe distress sounded plausible.

    "How did she present herself?" asked Alexander King SC, for the defence.

    "She's describing everything in ... sequence. I did not detect evidence that she's making up a story," the psychiatrist said.

    On her first visit, Kissel told him about her relationship and their fights. She said she could only sleep three to four hours a day. Dr Fung prescribed her 10 tablets of Stilnox or Ambien to help her sleep.

    On her second visit, she told Dr Fung the pills were not effective and her marriage had deteriorated. He said he prescribed three types of sleeping pills and anti-depressants - Stilnox, Lorivan and amitriptyline, a combination to treat tenacious sleeping problems.

    At times in tears, Kissel told Dr Fung her husband was "extremely powerful", "someone who had brought Merrill Lynch to Asia". But he was a "five-minute father" who was never around.

    In cross-examination, Mr Chapman suggested Kissel and her husband had never had the August 27 joint session with a psychologist she told Dr Fung about during her first visit. "Would that surprise you?" he asked. Dr Fung agreed and said he was not aware of that.

    ESWN has also posted the regular update schedule of various news services:
    [Administrative Note] If you are a regular visitor on account of the Nancy Kissel case, then here is the schedule on regular weekdays when the court is in session:
    - At some time during the early evening, Bloomberg, AP and/or Reuters will issue their brief reports for the day at the court.
    - At some time after midnight, The Hong Kong Standard will post Albert Wong's report(s) online (see the entire archive)
    - Early in the morning, South China Morning Post will post Polly Hui's report(s) online (see the entire archive; subscription required)
    - Early in the morning, Made In China will link to all the local Hong Kong Chinese-language new items for the five major newspapers (Oriental Daily, The Sun, MingPao, Sing Tao, Sing Pao; but Apple Daily is shielded behind subscription) online. Yahoo! News is slightly slower. The ESWN blog will try to translate those reports as quickly as possible (dependiing on our entertainment duties on the previous night!).
    This has been a public service announcement from your favorite website.

    Update August 13th

    * The Standard: Kissel 'pain' disproportionate to injury: doctor.
    * SCMP:

    A doctor yesterday described bruises and swelling on the body of Nancy Anne Kissel two days after she is alleged to have murdered her husband, but she said the patient's "subjective thinking" of her pain was "disproportionate" to her actual injuries.
    Doctor Annabelle Dytham said the defendant was in "total body pain" and had restricted movement when she saw her in a Wan Chai clinic on November 4, 2003..

    "I felt a little frustrated that everywhere I touched, Nancy was painful, [even] in places with no physical injuries," the doctor, who flew from Singapore to give evidence for the defence, said during cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman.

    "I am not used to dealing with psychosomatic pain - patients who have pain where there is no actual physical injury."

    Kissel, 41, is accused of bludgeoning her husband, Merill Lynch banker Robert Peter Kissel, to death in their Parkview flat on November 2, 2003. She has pleaded not guilty to murder.

    Dr Dytham, who had treated Kissel a few times since early 2002, earlier told defence counsel Alexander King SC Kissel had called the clinic at about 8.30am that morning and asked to see her at 9am.

    She said that when Kissel arrived at her practice, she walked in a "hunched-over fashion" and started to cry after sitting down. Describing Kissel as "always well-dressed", she said the patient, wearing a pair of dark glasses, white top and black pants, was "not dressed to her usual standard".

    Kissel said her husband had attempted to have sex with her in the bedroom but she had declined.

    The doctor said Kissel told her the banker had used his "fists and feet only" to inflict injuries on her, and she had defended herself with a fork held the wrong way around.

    A physical examination found Kissel had slightly swollen and cracked lips, swollen fingers and puncture wounds on the inner crease of her right hand - which she believed went along with the story of the defence with a fork.

    She was bruised from the right to the elbow with finger marks. Her left arm and shoulders were painful to touch but had no bruising and had full-range movement. Kissel also complained of pain in her ribs, collar bones and chest as well as decreased range of movement of her spine and upper thigh. There were bruises - including one 15cm by 7.5cm on her shin - and four markings on her legs. The doctor suspected Kissel had broken ribs and sent her for an X-ray, the results of which were negative.

    In cross-examination, Mr Chapman showed closed-circuit television stills indicating Kissel went on several shopping trips and returned home with a suitcase, rug and shopping bags on November 3.

    He asked the doctor if the images surprised her.

    "I can't see the speed in which Nancy's moving [in the stills] ... I don't know how heavy the suitcase was. There's no facial expression. People are known to be able to struggle through all sorts of injuries," she said.

    "I can say I am a little surprised. However, if Nancy had come to me to report injuries on November 4, I could understand a possible exaggeration of the pain given that she had been assaulted and she might want to make a court case out of it."

    The doctor recalled Kissel received a phone call in the middle of the consultation and said to the caller "I am with Annabelle at the moment". She heard a younger male's voice on the other end.

    Kissel told her it was a good friend from the United States who had given good support. Phone records revealed earlier indicated Kissel had several phone conversations that day with TV repairman Michael Del Priore, her lover in Vermont, including one during her visit to Dr Dytham.

    Mr Chapman asked if she had advised Kissel to report to the police. "There was no mention of rape. So, I didn't go down that channel," she said. But she had given a copy of her medical notes to Kissel, thinking they might be of use if she decided to go to the police or ended up in a divorce case.

    Kissel handed the notes to officers when she reported the alleged assault by her husband to the police on November 6.

    "During her course of description of events, did she mention to you that Robert Kissel had used a weapon to assault her on Sunday?" Mr Chapman asked.

    Dr Dytham replied no.

    The doctor said she had no problem understanding anything Kissel had said and that she did not believe the patient had difficulties in recollecting what had occurred two days before.

    In a consultation on October 23, Kissel had complained to the doctor of suffering from insomnia and marital problems after she commented on how well she looked, Dr Dytham said.

    Kissel also told her that she had been assaulted by her husband since late 2002. The doctor's notes recorded "alleged assault" and "subsequent violations" by the deceased as well as Kissel's "low libido".

    But she said she had not complained of injuries, anal sex or rape. "At no time did I think she was dangerous to herself or anyone else," Dr Dytham said.

    Mr Chapman told Dr Dytham that computer records had shown the accused was making arrangements for breast-lift surgery in the US 45 minutes after the visit to her clinic.

    Dr Dytham prescribed Kissel 10 tablets of Rohypnol after she complained Stilnox did not help her sleep. But she said she was not in the habit of prescribing the drug to her patients because it was a strong hypnotic that could cause black-outs in users who drank.


    * ESWN points to a New York Times article outlining the problems facing the Kissel children.
    * Phil links to another article on Andrew Kissel.

    Update August 16th

    * The Standard: Accused's pain 'not exaggerated'
    * SCMP:

    Nowhere on Nancy Kissel's body did doctor Annabelle Dytham, who examined Kissel two days after she killed her husband, see anything to suggest she had received "serious forceful blows" from an object such as a baseball bat, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
    But Dr Dytham said Kissel may not have been exaggerating the pain she was suffering from an alleged assault by her husband - contradicting her testimony on Friday that she may have overstated it. The doctor made the statement yesterday after defence counsel told her of tests that suggested Kissel had musculo-skeletal injuries.

    During cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman, Dr Dytham was asked to view and touch the baseball bat that Kissel, 41, claims Robert Peter Kissel used to beat her in their bedroom on November 2, 2003, the day she is accused of murdering her husband. Mr Chapman asked Dr Dytham what injuries she would expect to see if a man had used the bat to land forceful blows on a woman. She said bruises, possible bone fractures and - if hit on the head - possible loss of consciousness.

    "In relations to injuries you had noted in your medical notes, were they consistent with an assault by Robert Kissel, threatening to kill Nancy Kissel by the use of a baseball bat?" Mr Chapman asked. The list of Kissel's injuries recorded by Dr Dytham on November 4 included swollen fingers, puncture wounds to the right hand, pain in the ribs, chest and shoulders, and leg bruises and markings. X-rays showed no fractures.

    "The injuries suggested there was an assault. Whether the bat was used forcibly or whether the bat was used, I am unable to comment," Dr Dytham said. "As far as I can see, there's no area that implies serious forceful blows."...Kissel went to see Dr Dytham "in total body pain" on the morning of November 4, alleging her husband had used his feet and fists to attack her, but she did not mention a baseball bat during the visit.

    Dr Dytham was asked to study photos of the deceased wrapped in the carpet and weigh the new rug the accused carried home on November 3. She was asked if she was surprised by Kissel's ability to roll up her husband and carry the new carpet with her injuries.

    "Nancy was very distressed when I saw her. If it now seems that she's admitted she had killed her husband, then I could imagine how frantic she must have been and desperate to destroy or remove any evidence under those circumstances," Dr Dytham said. "Given how she presented herself to me, I am surprised. Given how she was exaggerating her injuries, then I am not surprised."

    In re-examination, defence counsel Alexander King SC told Dr Dytham two blood tests, which detect injuries to skeletal muscles, conducted after Kissel's arrest on November 7 recorded CK levels of 358 and 450 per litre. The normal CK level was 24 to 180, he said. Referring to the findings, Mr King asked: "Would that suggest to you that the pain may not have been exaggerated?" The witness said: "Yes. I cannot comment on the subjective level of pain with the level of CK. But yes, you are right."

    Mr King asked: "If someone was holding the ornament to protect herself from the blows from a bat and the bat came into contact with the ornament, would the shock transfer itself to the joints of the elbows and shoulders?" Dr Dytham said this was possible and that there could be injuries to the ribs even without a fracture.

    "You were aware when Nancy Kissel came to see you, she had been in the room with Robert Kissel's body for one or two nights?" Mr King asked. Dr Dytham said she had not been aware that was so.

    Update August 17th

    * The Standard: Accused's father tells of his shock.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel's father jumped onto a plane to Hong Kong in fear for his daughter and grandchildren after she told him that she had been beaten up "pretty badly" by her husband, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Ira Keeshin, when asked by defence counsel Alexander King SC to recall events on November 3, 2003, a day after his daughter killed Robert Peter Kissel, took in several deep breaths and said: "There are waves of emotions. I can't stop it. I got a phone call from Nancy about 7pm Hong Kong time ... She said: Dad, I've been beaten up pretty badly." She also told him her husband had left home after the assault.

    Kissel, 41, has admitted killing Robert Peter Kissel with a metal ornament on November 2, 2003, but has pleaded not guilty to murder.

    Mr Keeshin said his son from the second of his three marriages, Brooks Keeshin, a medical doctor involved in shelters for battered women, urged him to take a flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. He said his son, who also gave evidence yesterday, said to him: "Dad, this is a defining moment in your relationship with Nancy. When men beat up their wives, sometimes they come back to kill her and their children."

    Mr Keeshin said: "I told her to double bolt the doors. I couldn't conceive anything else other than what he and Nancy told me." Mr Keeshin, who landed in Hong Kong on November 5, said his daughter looked "terrible, beat up", with a cracked lip, a bruised hand and ribs strapped with a Velcro belt, when he arrived at her apartment in Parkview, Tai Tam.

    He recalled Kissel shaking when he took her to Aberdeen police station on November 6. She was "spacey and erratic" and told him she could not recall events of the previous day. Mr Keeshin, who was staying at Parkview hotel at the time, said he received a call from Kissel at about 11pm on the 6th, telling him officers had gone to her flat and asking him to go over.

    He said the head officer told him in the flat that they had a search warrant. "He said: `We're pretty sure we know where your son-in-law was.' He said he needs the keys to the storeroom. It's a huge shock, even imaging what had happened," he said. He recalled saying "goddamnit" when Kissel said she had lost the keys. But the keys were eventually given to the officers.

    When some officers had left to search the storeroom, where the body was eventually found, Mr Keeshin asked for an ambulance for his daughter. "She was shaking pretty violently, the dog was barking, Reis [Kissel's youngest child] was wet. I got to change his diaper," he said.

    Leaving Parkview for Ruttonjee Hospital with Kissel in the ambulance, Mr Keeshin recalled: "I looked out through the back window and saw a parade of cops. I thought, who could this be at 1am? And there was the press. I remember Nancy screaming when they went into the custodial ward... I broke down. It was very, very sad." When asked by Mr King about his impression of his son-in-law when he married his daughter in 1989, he said: "Good guy. He used me like his father, which I thought a lot of."

    Robert had appointed him guardian of his children in his will. Mr Keeshin had never seen or detected the senior Merrill Lynch banker using illegal drugs, but added he had never lived with him. Mr Keeshin said he considered the couple's move to Hong Kong a "great success story". When he heard his daughter left Robert on a Canadian skiing trip after a fight in 2002, it was "the first time I began to realise that everything wasn't so glorious in terms of relationship".

    In cross-examination, Mr Keeshin told prosecutor Peter Chapman his first wife, Kissel's mother, did not have a drinking problem or depression. He also said he had no tendency towards violence

    Update August 18th

    * The Standard: Defendant's friends recall various instances of abuse.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel shocked her friend when she asked how her husband was, shortly after she was arrested for killing him, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Geertruida Samra said Kissel did not seem to know during their conversation at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre that Robert Peter Kissel was already dead. The defence witness, described as one of Kissel's best friends in Hong Kong, recalled seeing Kissel step into the visitors' room assisted by a warden because she could hardly walk by herself.

    The accused asked her friend: "Trudy, how's Rob?" Shocked, she replied: "Honey, Rob's gone. You know that right?" Kissel replied: "I don't know, I can't remember much."

    Ms Samra said that they did not say much about events surrounding November 2, 2003, the day Kissel allegedly bludgeoned her husband to death after serving him a drugged milkshake. "It's not something that you bring up ... I never thought I should be so curious ... I trust her. I trust that, in my opinion, whatever happened was never meant to be," the witness told defence counsel Alexander King, SC...Ms Samra said Kissel had told her on the telephone on November 2 that she could not attend Ms Samra's birthday lunch on November 6 because "something terrible has happened to Rob". Ms Samra, who also lives in Parkview, said Kissel turned down her offer to go to her apartment to help out.

    The witness, one of three people who stood surety for Kissel, said the accused had been vice-president of the Parent Faculty Organisation of the Hong Kong International School in 2001 when she was president. She said Kissel was a "sociable, giving" person who dedicated her life to her children. She recalled seeing her friend injured on three occasions, including once with a black eye. Earlier, in cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Chapman, Kissel's father, Ira Keeshin, said he had come to Hong Kong after a call from Kissel in November to tell him that she had been badly beaten by her husband.

    Mr Keeshin said his daughter had told him during the family's visit to the Whistler ski resort in Vancouver in December 2002 that her husband had slammed her into a wall during a fight. But Mr Chapman showed him his statement to the police which said he had heard about this assault only during a November 3, 2003, phone call from his daughter. "I must have my time mixed up. The statement must be more accurate," he said.

    He told Mr Chapman that Kissel had not told him she had arranged for her husband's body to be taken to a storeroom. He also said he could not recall if he had made inquiries about Robert Kissel's whereabouts after he had been missing for days. "I wasn't investigating anything, I was handling things, which I ended up doing the rest of the week," he said.

    Contrary to police officers' accounts, he said he had not had a private conversation with his daughter before putting his hands up to his head saying: "Oh my God, I don't believe it" when the officers went to the Parkview flat to investigate on November 7. He said he had made the remark because he had realised what had happened after an inspector asked his daughter for storeroom keys and told him they were pretty sure they knew where the deceased was.

    "What did you realise?" asked Mr Chapman.

    "That Rob was dead. Why would he be in a storage room? You just don't have somebody in a storage room at 11pm," he said.

    Nancy Nassberg, another friend of the defendant who testified yesterday, recalled her maid asking Kissel why she was wearing sunglasses indoors over a dinner in February 1999. The defendant lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose, showing bruising around her right eye, and said "rough sex" before changing the subject.

    Update August 18th

    * The Standard: Kissel 'very kind, pleasant and always helpful to kids'
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel did not tell her best friends in her luxury Parkview estate about alleged physical and sexual assaults by her husband because the expatriate community there was "very gossipy", the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. As the defence case entered its third week, Kissel's friends testified one by one, describing her as a devoted mother of three who spent a lot of time doing volunteer work for the Hong Kong International School to be near her children.

    In cross-examination yesterday, Geertruida Samra, one of Kissel's best friends and also a Parkview resident, told prosecutor Peter Chapman that Kissel had never told her she was seeing a doctor, Annabelle Dytham, and psychiatrist, Desmond Fung, between August and October 2003. Nor did she know Kissel was prescribed hypnotics and painkillers - Rohypnol, Lorivan, amitriptyline and Stilnox - during those visits.

    "I know she had sleeping problems, but didn't know she went to see any doctor," she said, adding later that she saw her often looking tired when sending her children to the school bus. Ms Samra said Kissel never told her she had attempted suicide and had developed a sexual relationship with TV repairman Michael Del Priore during her stay in Vermont in the summer of 2003.

    The witness, who had worked with Kissel - as president and vice-president respectively of the Parent Faculty Organisation (PFO) in Hong Kong International School - for two years, was also not aware that she had obtained a second mobile phone to call her lover and had the bills sent to the PFO office. Mr Chapman asked why she was not told of Kissel's assaults despite her close and enduring relationship with Kissel.

    "I never pry about people's business. You never know what goes on behind closed doors," Ms Samra said. "I wish she had told me. But the expatriate community in Parkview was very gossipy. I think Nancy kept it within herself to protect herself and her family." Asked if she was concerned for Kissel's mental wellbeing when she was released on bail in November last year, Ms Samra - who with a few friends took turns staying with Kissel for some time after her release - said Kissel had calmed down considerably with the help of medication. She said the accused had lost a lot of weight.

    Another witness, Mary Lamb, told defence counsel Alexander King SC she saw Kissel with a black eye in late October 2003 when she picked up her daughter after a play date with the witness' daughter. "I assumed she did have an argument with her husband but I decided I had not known her long enough to ask."

    Marcia Barhan, who has taught music at Hong Kong International School for 11 years, said Kissel served on most committees in the school and was the school photographer. "She's one of the most outstanding parents in my entire career," she said. She also showed jurors a T-shirt, bag and CD-album Kissel helped design for the school.

    Mr Chapman asked Ms Barhan how Kissel dressed. She said Kissel was conservative in her selection of clothes and wore tinted or black sunglasses indoors almost all the time. "I didn't think it was strange, though, being an artistic person that she is," she said.

    Update August 19th

    * The Standard: Kissel 'very kind, pleasant and always helpful to kids'
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel did not tell her best friends in her luxury Parkview estate about alleged physical and sexual assaults by her husband because the expatriate community there was "very gossipy", the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. As the defence case entered its third week, Kissel's friends testified one by one, describing her as a devoted mother of three who spent a lot of time doing volunteer work for the Hong Kong International School to be near her children.

    In cross-examination yesterday, Geertruida Samra, one of Kissel's best friends and also a Parkview resident, told prosecutor Peter Chapman that Kissel had never told her she was seeing a doctor, Annabelle Dytham, and psychiatrist, Desmond Fung, between August and October 2003. Nor did she know Kissel was prescribed hypnotics and painkillers - Rohypnol, Lorivan, amitriptyline and Stilnox - during those visits.

    "I know she had sleeping problems, but didn't know she went to see any doctor," she said, adding later that she saw her often looking tired when sending her children to the school bus. Ms Samra said Kissel never told her she had attempted suicide and had developed a sexual relationship with TV repairman Michael Del Priore during her stay in Vermont in the summer of 2003.

    The witness, who had worked with Kissel - as president and vice-president respectively of the Parent Faculty Organisation (PFO) in Hong Kong International School - for two years, was also not aware that she had obtained a second mobile phone to call her lover and had the bills sent to the PFO office. Mr Chapman asked why she was not told of Kissel's assaults despite her close and enduring relationship with Kissel.

    "I never pry about people's business. You never know what goes on behind closed doors," Ms Samra said. "I wish she had told me. But the expatriate community in Parkview was very gossipy. I think Nancy kept it within herself to protect herself and her family." Asked if she was concerned for Kissel's mental wellbeing when she was released on bail in November last year, Ms Samra - who with a few friends took turns staying with Kissel for some time after her release - said Kissel had calmed down considerably with the help of medication. She said the accused had lost a lot of weight.

    Another witness, Mary Lamb, told defence counsel Alexander King SC she saw Kissel with a black eye in late October 2003 when she picked up her daughter after a play date with the witness' daughter. "I assumed she did have an argument with her husband but I decided I had not known her long enough to ask."

    Marcia Barhan, who has taught music at Hong Kong International School for 11 years, said Kissel served on most committees in the school and was the school photographer. "She's one of the most outstanding parents in my entire career," she said. She also showed jurors a T-shirt, bag and CD-album Kissel helped design for the school.

    Mr Chapman asked Ms Barhan how Kissel dressed. She said Kissel was conservative in her selection of clothes and wore tinted or black sunglasses indoors almost all the time. "I didn't think it was strange, though, being an artistic person that she is," she said.



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    Daily linklets 17th August

    Feedster have a monthly Top 500 blogs, and somehow yours truly came in at number 408. Flattered but undeserved. Right, on with the show...

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    » Barbarian Envoy links with: The Real Vendetta Against Pyongyang




    Hu - Bush Summit and China bank bailout

    It's Jamestown Foundation's China Brief time. The first must read is Willy Lam's piece on why Hu is seeking a breakthrough in the upcoming summit with George W. Bush:

    Hu’s first visit to the U.S. as head of state will be dominated by the familiar “3-T” issues: Taiwan, trade and technology. On a deeper level, however, the world’s only superpower and the fast-developing would-be superpower will engage in a give-and-take that is sure to shape geopolitical developments
    It is an in-depth look at the main issues the Chinese side are facing and want to deal with, the surprising areas of overlap and co-operation between America and China in foreign policy and hopes for a better understanding between the leaderships as a means to reduce tensions. In other words, China is seeking to become more of an ally and less of a percieved threat to America.

    The other must read is Victor Shih's* look at Beijing's bail-out of joint-stock and state-owned banks. It also looks at the ongoing almost en-masse bail-out of China's securities industry and asks if the Government can resist the temptation to effectively nationalise large parts of the financial industry.

    * Victor Shih runs the Chinese Politics blog.

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    » asiapundit links with: china economic roundup (vi)




    Icered on ice?

    I enjoy The Standard newspaper, not least because several of their staff read this site and they have free links to their website, making it blog-friendly. Then there's the Sudoku (why haven't I won yet?) and the generally high level of reporting, stories and op-eds. They're running rings around SCMP.

    So I don't blame them for not reading the SCMP at all. Today's HK Confidential on the possible demise of Icered, Hong Kong's free-for-all bulliten board:

    Icered, the amazingly vicious community discussion Internet site that specialized primarily in anonymously slandering anybody and everybody - from fellow journalists to research analysts and others - has suddenly disappeared. Nobody knows where it went - or if, or when, it will return. Network Solutions, the American company that has owned the domain name since 2000, says it is trying to find out if something untoward has happened or if the name has simply expired. The site, www.icered.com, now simply says: "This site is under construction and coming soon.'' If it never comes back, it won't be missed by most of its victims who have been slagged off anonymously. Nobody has been able to find out who actually owned the site and no one has ever been able to figure out who to sue for defamation. But they would certainly like to know.
    I've got some bad news, from yesterday's SCMP...

    Social networking website Ba8ua.com has taken over the management of Icered.com and is planning to relaunch the online message board community in the next two weeks, according to Ba8ua's founders. The IceRed forum has been down for two weeks as Ba8ua - which is pronounced bagua and means gossip in Cantonese - works to integrate the online property with its own service offering.

    Ba8ua chief executive Jonathan Lee said the overall look and feel of IceRed would remain intact after the relaunch, but the new site would contain elements of the Ba8ua service. "From the standpoint of appearance and look, we won't be making any significant changes, but we will be integrating our functionality, giving our service offering to the IceRed users," Mr Lee said.

    Ba8ua is a Hong Kong start-up fashioned after social networking sites such as Friendster.com. It aims to bridge the online and offline lives of busy professionals. Mr Lee would not provide financial details of the partnership. "We have decided it is probably not in our best interests to disclose the specifics of the transaction. But we can say the strategic relationship will allow us to leverage their brand in Hong Kong immediately," he said.

    At the same time, IceRed would have access to Ba8ua's brand, staff and capital base. Ba8ua sees its biggest opportunity in the mainland, where there is far larger internet user base, and value-added services for mobile phones are more popular. The IceRed deal also gives Ba8ua a foothold in Singapore, where the Web forum operates.

    Ben Kwok's Lai See also noted both Ba8ua and Icered had around 90,000 users each.

    I hate to destroy the obvious glee for author of the HK Confidential piece, but if it makes them feel better I'm reading the SCMP so they don't have to.



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    August 16, 2005
    Daily linklets 16th August

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    Communists as capitalists

    Brave or foolhardy? Perhaps Li Datong is both. From the SCMP, the story of ructions within China Youth Daily:

    A veteran editor of the outspoken China Youth Daily has taken the newspaper's editor-in-chief to task for allegedly restraining editorial freedom and succumbing to party dogma.
    In a high-profile move, Li Datong, who edits the Bingdian Weekly, an influential section of the paper that runs investigative stories every Wednesday, wrote an open letter to the paper's staff questioning a new appraisal system which pegs journalists' bonuses to praise by party and government leaders.

    The new editor-in-chief, Li Erliang , took over in December in a reshuffle regarded as a sign of a tightening of media controls by the authorities.

    The lengthy letter by Li Datong was posted on the popular chat room Yannan BBS yesterday and picked up by other chat rooms. When contacted by the South China Morning Post, Li Datong said he had written the letter on behalf of the paper's editorial staff but declined to comment. "This is an internal letter I wrote for the editorial department and the management. But somehow it was leaked," he said.

    The regulation, to be introduced on August 20, will provide guidelines for the rating of reporters' remuneration based on the "credits" they receive on each article they write. Most mainland reporters receive payments for their articles on top of their basic salaries. Some newspapers weigh the price of articles by their quality, while others go by their length...reports would gain 50 credit points for being among the top three most-read articles, while 80 credit points would be given to those praised by the secretariat of the Communist Youth League. Stories praised by state government bodies and provincial leaders would gain 100 points, while acclaim from the Communist Party Publicity Department would be worth 120 points.

    While describing the media's watchdog role as its most basic and irreplaceable function, Li Datong wrote: "Under such an unreasonable system, would any editors and journalists who are not out of their minds do [such] stories?"

    A reporter with the newspaper said management had yet to formally respond to the letter, believed to have been written last week.

    "What matters the most isn't our salary, but our editorial freedom," said the reporter, who declined to be named.

    Controlled by the Communist Party Youth League, the power base of President Hu Jintao , the China Youth Daily has aggressively exposed official corruption. It was one of the first national newspapers to run articles and editorials criticising the Shenzhen deputy party secretary in charge of propaganda, Li Yizhen , for allowing authorities to force students to watch a movie produced, directed and starring his daughter.

    A source told the South China Morning Post that the authorities had released a circular yesterday banning websites from running Li Datong's letter and related news.

    Any bets on how long Li Datong will last? Answers in minnutes please. What is more interesting is the explicit aligning of reporters' interests via their pay checks to spouting the party line. It's textbook capitalism by the Communists. While on press freedom, Hong Kong journalists have been warned to learn the mainland's news rules after the Ching Cheong arrest.

    Update (14:30) On a related topic, James Hamilton looks at the story behind China's puzzling oil demand. It is also important to remember that China's statistics are dodgy at best. And for a non-China example, it seems the British Labor Party have done the impossible and created a sperm shortage. Forest has the original letter in Chinese. (8/17 11:40) ESWN has a translation of Li Datong's China Youth Daily letter.

    There is second example today of the opposite: China's control mechanisms failing in the face of the market.

    SCMP:

    More than half of Shenzhen's service stations and fuel depots were forced to close yesterday as the oil-supply crunch that has plagued Guangdong for weeks worsened. The fuel crisis has also begun to spread, with Shanghai now suffering shortages. Shenzhen municipal government and fuel giants Sinopec and China Petrol yesterday shut down indefinitely 128 of the 245 service stations in the city. The move triggered panic buying by Shenzhen drivers, who have complained about shortages for more than three weeks.

    International oil prices broke through US$67 a barrel on Friday, putting pressure on mainland refiners to stop supplying petrol, particularly the lowest-grade fuel, to consumers because they are losing money under the mainland's controlled pricing system.

    In Guangzhou, where rationing was first reported, roads outside some service stations have been transformed into car parks for vehicles waiting to get their tanks filled...

    A Shenzhen official in charge of fuel supply said the daily supply of petrol in the city is about 40,000 litres, but demand is well over 70,000 litres...In Shanghai, the so-called No90 petrol, the lowest-quality and the cheapest, had sold out at some stations, Xinhua said on its website, without giving figures.

    With petrol prices controlled there is no incentive for companies to supply the stuff at a loss, especially given ever-rising global oil prices. The problem can only get worse and will start to have a broader economic impact - people can't drive they can't get to work, make deliveries, get parts or get to markets.

    A breakdown to the oil price controls is likely. The Communists have found something they can't control: market economics.



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    » The Peking Duck links with: Oil Wars
    » Shenzhen Ren links with: Dry pumps, muscle, and market




    August 15, 2005
    Daily linklets 15th August

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    » North Korea zone links with: Is Korea Blocking Blogger and Typepad Blogs?
    » Bluejives Uncertain Reality Principle links with: Does Taiwan belong to the US?




    The Other People's Republic

    It's constitution proclaims the President is elected by universal suffrage. However to qualify candidates must be vetted by a three person committee, meet onerous conditions and qualifications that border on the ridiculous. The remaining candidate is then declared the winner by default. North Korea? No. Singapore.

    In the words of a reader: "You would think that at least they would say, "Here is the list of people who qualify" rather than, "Please register" and then "None of you qualify"! The list must be so small in the first place. And the bloke who was qualified but they rejected has been totally vilified in the press, all because he wanted to serve his country!

    Below the jump is the constitution's qualification requirements, but the key ones are that you are a good chap and that you've been a minister, senior civil servant or some other government crony grand poo-bah.

    Finally, some homework: list 5 effective differences between Chinese and Singaporean politics.

    Other reading

    Mr Brown sees a transformer in Singaporean politics.
    Agagooga asks if MPs will be subjected to similar eligibility criteria?

    Wikipedia on the conditions to be President of Singapore.

    Qualifications and disabilities of President (1) No person shall be elected President unless he is qualified for election in accordance with the provisions of the Singapore Constitution.

    (2) A person shall be qualified to be elected as President if he —

    (a) is a citizen of Singapore;

    (b) is not less than 45 years of age;

    (c) possesses the qualifications specified in Article 44 (2) (c) and (d) ie. his name appears in a current register of electors; he is resident in Singapore at the date of his nomination for election and has been so resident for periods amounting in the aggregate to not less than 10 years prior to that date;

    (d) is not subject to any of the disqualifications specified in Article 45, i.e. (1)(i) is and has been found or declared to be of unsound mind; (ii) is an undischarged bankrupt; (iii) holds an office of profit; (iv) having been nominated for election to Parliament or the office of President or having acted as election agent to a person so nominated, has failed to lodge any return of election expenses required by law within the time and in the manner so required; (v) has been convicted of an offence by a court of law in Singapore or Malaysia and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than one year or to a fine of not less than $2,000 and has not received a free pardon: Provided that where the conviction is by a court of law in Malaysia, the person shall not be so disqualified unless the offence is also one which, had it been committed in Singapore, would have been punishable by a court of law in Singapore; (vi) has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of, or exercised rights of citizenship in, a foreign country, or has made a declaration of allegiance to a foreign country; or (vii) is disqualified under any law relating to offences in connection with elections to Parliament or the office of President by reason of having been convicted of such an offence or having in proceedings relating to such an election been proved guilty of an act constituting such an offence. (2) The disqualification of a person under clause (1) (iv) or (v) may be removed by the President and shall, if not so removed, cease at the end of 5 years beginning from the date on which the return mentioned in clause (1) (iv) was required to be lodged or, as the case may be, the date on which the person convicted as mentioned in clause (1) (v) was released from custody or the date on which the fine mentioned in clause (1) (v) was imposed on such person; and a person shall not be disqualified under clause (1) (f) by reason only of anything done by him before he became a citizen of Singapore. (3) In clause (1) (f), “foreign country” does not include any part of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.;

    (e) satisfies the Presidential Elections Committee that he is a person of integrity, good character and reputation;

    (f) is not a member of any political party on the date of his nomination for election; and

    (g) has for a period of not less than 3 years held office —

    (i) as Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker, Attorney-General, Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Auditor-General, Accountant-General or Permanent Secretary;

    (ii) as chairman or chief executive officer of a statutory board to which Article 22A applies;

    (iii) as chairman of the board of directors or chief executive officer of a company incorporated or registered under the Companies Act (Cap. 50) with a paid-up capital of at least $100 million or its equivalent in foreign currency; or

    (iv) in any other similar or comparable position of seniority and responsibility in any other organization or department of equivalent size or complexity in the public or private sector which, in the opinion of the Presidential Elections Committee, has given him such experience and ability in administering and managing financial affairs as to enable him to carry out effectively the functions and duties of the office of President.



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    PLA Wanted ads

    You'd think the marriage game is hard enough these days in China with many more men than women, huge differences in wealth and rapidly changing social and cultural norms, let alone getting the PLA involved. The SCMP:

    The People's Liberation Army has renewed a call for soldiers to refrain from cohabiting before marriage and having extramarital affairs. A report in the PLA Daily newspaper also urged members to choose spouses from Chinese citizens who are "politically reliable", of "progressive thinking" and of "upright conduct".

    Citing a regulation governing marriages of PLA officers issued in 2001, the army also encourages late marriage by officers, after 25 years of age for men and 23 years for women. As an incentive to encourage late marriages, officers who wed after the specified age will be given an extra seven-day holiday, in addition to the three days of wedding-leave entitlement.

    Who said social engineering is dead? I can imagine Chinese online dating ads...

    Single 25 year old officer looking for politically reliable, progressive thinking woman of upright conduct to be lawfully wedded spouse. Must be 23 years or older and prepared for extra one week holiday to celebrate our union.

    Please apply immediately to my unit's commissar.

    Just watch those letters come in!



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    » asiapundit links with: late monday links




    You've got to fight for your right to party

    It's official. China's State Council are party poopers. The SCMP:

    Extravagant banquets and ceremonies for anti-poverty projects have been banned after scandals emerged involving officials lavishly spending on such events in China's most impoverished areas. A State Council circular said local authorities should use poverty-alleviation funds granted by the central government to improve people's basic living standards.

    Residents should be involved in the decision, construction and management of poverty-alleviation projects, the circular said. It added that officials should not hold grand ceremonies for projects. They should seek to save every single "watt of electricity, drop of water and sheet of paper".

    Last month, Jinping county in Yunnan province was found to have spent 3.5 million yuan on a celebration for the 20th anniversary of its founding. The county, with an annual income of 38.5 million yuan last year, had raised the funds through compulsory donations from cadres and government departments.

    What's the point of running anti-poverty projects if you can't use the funds for a massive knees-up every once in a while. How else will the poor blighters know what they're missing out on?

    No word on how Hong Kong's gilt-edged Poverty Commission will deal with the news.

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    August 14, 2005
    Faking Treasuries

    For a while there it looked like Hong Kong was going to supplant China and Japan in the US Treasuries ownership stakes. The SCMP:

    Forged US treasury bonds with a face value of US$250 billion have been seized in the biggest police operation of its kind for more than two years. Four Taiwanese people will appear in Kowloon City Court tomorrow charged with possession of false instruments.

    Police said yesterday that the case came to light when a 79-year-old man contacted them earlier this month, saying he had been approached by one of the accused and asked for help in trading two boxes of US treasury bonds with a face value of US$500 million each. Officers of the Commercial Crime Bureau took over the case and arranged a meeting with the Taiwanese at a guesthouse in Jordan on Thursday, with officers posing as prospective buyers.

    Three men and a woman, aged between 30 and 65, were arrested when two boxes each containing 250 suspected forged US treasury bonds were seized. A quantity of other suspected false instruments, including photographs and scanned images of foreign currency notes and bank and business documents, were also found during the operation... in February 2003, 16 boxes containing 4,000 items of forged US treasury bonds with a face value of US$2 trillion were seized from a flat in Central as part of an operation against an international fraud syndicate.

    Two years earlier, two men, an Australian, 77, and a Briton, 58, were arrested over the seizure of forged US treasury bonds with a face value of US$490 million in a bank in Central. This subsequently led to the discovery of 44 boxes of similar suspected forged US treasury bonds in a bank in London.

    Hong Kong - the world's largest holder of fake Treasury bonds.

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    August 13, 2005
    Cooling the dragon's breath

    Interesting letter in The Economist from Andrew Freris, BNP's Chief Economist in Asia:

    SIR – You propagate the canard that, economically, China now rules the world (“From T-shirts to T-bonds”, July 30th). It does nothing of the kind. In real dollar terms (purchasing-power parity valuations are at best controversial, at worst misleading) China has made a continuously declining contribution to global GDP growth from 10% of the total growth registered in 2001 to an estimated 6% in 2004—its share of real global GDP was an estimated 2.2% for 2004. There is also some quantitative flaw in your argument that cheap Chinese exports kept global inflation down, as China's share of global trade (an estimate unencumbered by PPP considerations) stood at 6.6% of global exports and 6.2% of global imports in 2004.

    It is the speed of the rise of China's share in global economic and trade flows, as well as the growth of its demand for commodities, that has obscured the fact that China consumes, for example, less than 10% of the global output of oil. So what is truly special about China? Its average position in the scheme of things is still very small, although its absolute speed of growth and its opening economy are a harbinger of growth to come. But all of this is a far cry from controlling the world economy.

    Andrew Freris
    Chief economist, Asia-Pacific
    BNP Paribas
    Hong Kong

    The point is China's growing impact on the world economy is at the margin, not in aggregate. It will be like that for a long time, even if China's rapid economic growth can continue indefinitely.

    Which it can't.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 15:46
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    » asiapundit links with: china economic roundup (iv)




    August 12, 2005
    Daily linklets 12th August

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    Can't Keep Out the Barbarians

    The Great Wall, as many of you undoubtedly know, was built by the Emperor of a Unified China, Qin Shi Huang Di, of the Qin dynasty. This Wall, which cost over a million lives to build, was further strengthened at various points by successive Chinese dynasties. It was meant to keep out the various hordes of barbarians, allowing China to slow down these horse-using barbarians enough to buy it time to rally its defenses. You see, because horses can't really be farmed anywhere in China south of the Great Wall due to the lack of proper vegetation that is rich in calcium, China has always had to obtain its horses from the barbarian hordes that have over the millennia threatened to attack it. Obviously, as both the Mongols and the Manchus proved in the last thousand years, the Wall was not always effective.

    So it remains equally ineffective today, it seems, with a story in today's Standard decrying the riotous drunken parties, raves and orgies held by young Westerners at the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall in Hebei province:

    Summer raves have been held at the Jinshanling section of the wall in Hebei province for the past eight years.

    Following a recent party, the area was left strewn with bottles and other litter, and the air was heavy with the stench of urine, vomit and excrement.

    The China Daily ran a story headlined: ``Wild orgies leave the Great Wall in a mess,'' accompanied by a photograph of a foreigner urinating on the wall. Other reports said there was ``sexual activity'' at the events and that drugs were readily available. Police have always monitored the raves and occasionally set up road blocks as the partygoers head back to Beijing.

    Mainlanders are tested for drugs but foreigners are allowed to continue - their arrest is considered more trouble than it is worth. The section of the wall that hosts the entertainment has been leased by the government to a company for 50 years, for six million yuan (HK$5.75 million).

    Which seems to be the problem - this privatised section of the Great Wall is less UNESCO Heritage Site and more cool party backdrop. Well, glad to see English teachers in China doing their bit for East-West relations in the tradition of Genghis Khan...

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 04:14
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    August 11, 2005
    A moment in Time

    Time* this week has a survey titled The Making of Modern Asia which links together a large set of unrelated articles. Some of the more interesting ones:

    1. Stephen Vines on The Other Handover - Li Ka-shing's rise as a forerunner to the change from colonial to Chinese Hong Kong. On the same theme, Jan Morris's Empire of the Sun says Japan's taking of Singapore in WW2 destroyed the myth of British invincibility and empire.

    2. It takes a village tells the story of Xiaogang village. In 1978 it was the first village to undo collectivisation by allowing farmers to keep some of their own produce and allocating land to individuals. We've previously seen that China's massive and rapid rise out of poverty was most pronounced early on in its economic liberalisation and it is largely attributed to reversing the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution. In short, basic property rights were the single best reliever of Chinese poverty.

    Note the initial attitude of bureaucrats to the village's reforms. There is also a photo-essay of Xiaogang to accompany the article.

    3. Native Son says Bruce Lee was the answer to Hong Kong's search for a home grown hero.

    4. A place in time links the old and new China by juxtaposing the site of the first meeting of China's Communist Party with it's surrounds: bustling, trendy, rich and modern Xintiandi.

    There are other good articles wother wandering through as well.

    * I've run Danwei's anti-meme software over these articles.

    .

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    Daily linklets 11th August

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 15:29
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    People's Daily declares Taiwan a country!

    Breaking news...while ostensibly toeing the PRC's line that Taiwan is a province of the motherland, the subversive forces at the People's Daily have still found a way to declare Taiwan a country.

    taiwan.gif

    Did you spot it? "Country Profile", at the top of the window. Sure the rest of it says Taiwan province, but nevertheless...the implications are huge.

    Two state solution, here we come.



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 11:16
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    Hong Kong news in brief

    1a. Hong Kong's prison inmates yield good exam results. However none have yet tunnelled into a bank vault containing US$65 million, so there's a way to go.

    1b. Proving both how smart and dumb Hong Kong is in one fell swoop, a "12 year old" got eight As and a C in the HKCEE exams.

    2. Two mice were found on the Star Ferry yesterday but no-one did anything about it.

    3. Strep suis, "pig flu", infected its 8th Hong Kong victim, a woman who had not travelled or had direct contact with live pigs but who had handled raw pork product.

    4. But Hong Kong's paper of record, the SCMP, dedicates a front page column to....itself. More below the fold.

    The article:

    The South China Morning Post has won special praise for its Asian Tsunami coverage at the annual awards of the Asia-Pacific region's premier newspaper organisation. It was highly commended in the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association annual Newspaper of the Year Awards last night - and was also judged a clear winner in both of the awards' technical categories for excellence in printing and picture reproduction.

    Panpa is the biggest industry association for Asia-Pacific papers, and with nearly 200 newspaper groups as members it takes in every major title in Asia, the Pacific and Australasia. Its annual awards, the most fiercely contested in Asia, were this year presented at the Australian tourism centre of Cairns.

    The Post's entry for large-circulation papers featured its news reporting, Operation Santa Claus, which raised nearly $10 million for tsunami victims, and the special series "Asian Tsunami: Recovery and Rediscovery", reviewing progress of relief efforts 100 days on. The judges singled out the Post's entry for mention after that of the winner, Melbourne's Herald Sun, one of Australia's biggest and most successful tabloid papers.

    A junket to sunny Cairns, the entry way to the Great Barrier Reef, for our intrepid SCMP crew. If you read the article closely (and why would you?), you will note they actually didn't win the award. Instead they deem themselves a close second to "one of Australia's biggest and most successful tabloid papers.
    They also stressed the Post's pre-eminence in printing quality. "There was no contest: the Post was clearly superior to all other entries," they said. It is the second year in a row the paper has won the award for overall technical excellence in newspaper printing on a double-width press, and the fifth time in six years it has won for technical excellence in pre-print/supplement printed on a double-width press.

    "Our success underlines both our commitment to quality journalism for the community we serve and our superlative printing standards in a highly competitive market," said David Armstrong, the Post's Director, Editorial.

    They won two "technical" awards. It's like at the Oscars - these are the awards they don't broadcast on the main show because they're not that important or interesting.

    Most newspapers indulge in this kind of back-patting and there are numerous awards for papers to award themselves. But most have the decency to tuck the article away on page.

    Congrats to the SCMP.



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    August 10, 2005
    Daily linklets 10th August

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 16:39
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    » Barbarian Envoy links with: Leftists Who Favor Corruption




    Salving consciouses

    Australia and China are to negotiate a nuclear cooperation treaty. Australia's federal Government has recently decided to expand uranium mining in the Northern Territory by assuming control of the issue from the NT Government. There's lots of uranium in the NT, although some is inconveniently located in National Parks, and it's of the best variety - it's easy and cheap to extract. Meanwhile China's rapidly expanding energy needs and nuclear power industry are desperate for uranium to chuck in the reactors.

    But not so fast. First the Aussie Government needs a piece of paper from China to say they promise they'll only use Australian uranium for "peaceful purposes". This fig-leaf is meaningless. Once the uranium arrives in China, Australia has no way to verify where it ends up. Even if it is used in electricity generation rather than more nefarious purposes, the problem isn't solved. Why? Because the Aussie uranium is only displacing that sold by other countries to China, some of which are unlikely to be so concerned as to exactly what China intends to do with the uranium. China can substitute the uranium sitting in its peaceful reactors with the clean, treaty enhanced Aussie stuff and shift the old stuff into....well, I'll leave it to you to decide.

    This nuclear weapon is proudly not brought to you by Australia.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 15:47
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    Yuan and Chinese financial market reforms

    China has announced the composite currencies in its new reference basket in managing the yuan. The major currencies are the US dollar, Euro, yen and Korean won. Smaller members of the basket are the Singapore dollar, British pound, Malaysian ringgit, Russian rouble, Australian dollar, Thai baht and Canadian dollar. As expected, the weightings are based on foreign trade flows, which means the US dollar will continue to dominate the basket.

    Did you spot the obvious omissions? No New Taiwan dollars, and no Hong Kong dollars.

    At the same time the PBoC have liberalised financial markets, allowing more participants in the spot forex market, introducing interbank forex forwards and allowed the trading of yuan swaps. Below the fold is a Reuters article on these changes. But at the same time, the PBoC announced it is tightening its supervision to ensure a "stable, orderly market". Liberalising with one hand, but tighter supervision with the other. How can you tighten supervision when previously the market was Government controlled or banned?

    Here's PBoC Governor Zhou on the RMB reforms.

    Meanwhile, 3 of China's biggest securities brokers received RMB1.45 billion in soft loans as part of the ongoing bail-out of the sector.

    Update (18:00) A bit of research reveals if the basket weights are based on the currency trade is denominated in, the US dollar weight should be around 52%, Euro 15%, Yen 13%, Won 8 and the others all around 2%.

    Other Reading

    Sun Bin discusses the RMB peg mechanism and some thoughts on its implications.
    Logan Wright intends to follow the "actual" movement of the basket and says PBoC aren't following the Signaporean basket model.
    Dan Drezner has some of an FT article on the moves.
    Brad Sester isn't impressed by the new RMB forwards market.
    Macroblog says the reforms are another step forward.

    00:37 10Aug2005 RTRS-CORRECTED - UPDATE 2-China expands yuan forward market

    In BEIJING story UPDATE 2-China, in new reform, permits yuan forward market, please read in headline ... "China, in new reform, expands yuan forward market" ... instead of ... "China, in new reform, permits yuan forward market".
    Please make conform throughout to show China has expanded the existing market for retail yuan forwards, and has launched yuan swaps, but has not launched an interbank forwards market.

    (A corrected story follows.)
    (Adds reaction)
    By Selina Shao
    BEIJING, Aug 9 (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday more banks would be allowed to trade yuan forwards, a liberalisation move driven by the scrapping of the currency's 11-year-old peg to the dollar.
    The long-awaited announcement by the People's Bank of China will make it easier for companies to hedge increased risks they face following Beijing's decision on July 21 to abolish the dollar peg and let the yuan trade a bit more freely.
    The central bank, in a statement on its Web site, also announced the launch of trading in yuan currency swaps.
    "It's just another step down the path of modernising the domestic financial system. I don't think there's any particular implication for the dollar/yuan rate or for the prospect of further revaluation," said Adrian Foster, head of currency strategy at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London.
    Forwards allow a company or bank to lock in an exchange rate for a foreign currency payment at a specified future date. A swap is another tool for hedging against -- or betting on -- moves in exchange rates or interest rates.
    The central bank said forwards trading would be expanded to all banks, including foreign-owned banks, that have licenses to settle foreign exchange deals and to trade derivatives.
    Until now, only four state-owned commercial banks and three joint-stock banks had been allowed to transact forwards with clients who could prove a need to hedge for trade purposes.
    "Obviously you give more room for the market to exercise its view, and obviously it expects the renminbi to appreciate further," said Fong Cheng Hong, head of market research at DBS in Singapore.
    The forwards market has been carefully guided by the central bank, and banks have been unable to set off their exposures with other banks.
    A central bank spokesman clarified that the announcement did not signal the launch of an interbank forwards market. "This covers services that banks provide to companies," he said.
    But the statement said that banks would now be allowed to set forward rates independently and that banks would be allowed to draw up forwards contracts for all their customers' current account transactions and for some capital account items.

    WEAKEST LINK
    Since ending the yuan's dollar peg, Beijing has emphasised the importance of developing China's fledgling foreign exchange market so it can better reflect supply and demand.
    Last week Beijing announced that companies would be permitted to retain more of their foreign exchange earnings rather than being obliged to change them into yuan.
    Another step expected soon is approval of a system of market makers for dollar/yuan trading, which is presently dominated by the central bank.
    Until last year China had banned the creation of derivatives because of a series of price-rigging scandals in the mid-1990s that prompted worries about risk and a lack of market rules.
    Despite the latest reforms, China's foreign exchange market remains strictly controlled.
    Most currency transactions are prohibited unless they are for trade and approved investment purposes, permitting the central bank to keep a tight grip on the yuan thanks to its oversight of the China Foreign Exchange Trading System, the country's market for currency trading and clearing based in Shanghai.
    "The move will be good for the further development of the local forex market," a trader with Bank of China said of the expanded forwards market.
    But she said it might not have much of an impact on exchange rates, given the central bank's eagle eye. "Foreign players might be deterred if they see little to be gained from joining the game," she added.
    Because of the restrictions on onshore trading, an offshore non-deliverable forwards market has developed, centred in Singapore, that allows investors and companies to bet on the future direction of the yuan. The contracts are settled in dollars. Turnover in the market is around $500 million a day.
    (Additional reporting by Fang Yan and Jerker Hellstrom in Shanghai and Katie Hunt in London)
    ((Writing by Alan Wheatley, editing by Malcolm Whittaker; alan.wheatley@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging: alan.wheatley.reuters.com@reuters.net; +8610 6586 5566 x235))
    ENDS



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    » MeiZhongTai links with: Four Must Reads
    » matthewstinson.net links with: The RMB’s new money basket
    » asiapundit links with: china economic roundup (ii)




    It's getting chilly

    The absurdity of protectionist trade policies and fear of Chinese textile imports rears its ugly head. The EU and China are to "re-open" (read fudge) talks on sweater quotas for 2005 because retailers have literally wharehouses full of them. And this is just the start. As Big Yuan says:

    This is another example of government trying to manage the conflicting interests of different constituencies. The quotas were placed in part to protect the French and Italian textiles industries, but the strength of the retail industry is beginning to change official EU policy.
    Lest you think it's those crazy Europeans, the Americans are talking about textile issues too, trapped between domestic retailers and domestic producers.

    Politicians think protectionism plays well with the voters with all that blater of saving jobs and keeping "vital" industries going. Far more people work in retail, and all voters are consumers. A lack of cheap sweaters come winter thanks to random quotas won't impress Mr and Mrs Shopper.

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    » Conjectures and Refutations links with: Protectionism: Blue Collar and White
    » EU Rota links with: EU Regulation: Protectionism, a primer




    China's Takeover Plans, Part II

    Here we go again. Just as the CNOOC/Unocal brouhaha bites the dust, another tremor on the faultline of East-West relations begins. Ah, why can't China stick to buying computer companies and washing machine brands, ask the United States?

    China's Huawei Technologies is offering US$1 billion for Marconi, a British telecommunications firm. Simple - one communications firm buying another, right? Wrong. This is not just about putting an established, sagging British brand name on a rising line of Chinese products.

    Marconi has a rich history of not only being in the telecommunications business, but being a major contractor over the years for defense industries - its employees played crucial roles in defeating the Nazis in World War II. Its founder, in fact, invented the radio. And today, Marconi sells as part of its product line the Ovum-RHK series of networking encryption technology used by the US military and its intelligence agencies. So what, you might ask? Well, here's the problem - Huawei Technologies was spun off from the People's Liberation Army.

    We suspect this takeover may be even less of an open-and-shut case... sit back and enjoy the show.

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 01:35
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    August 09, 2005
    Daily linklets 9th August

    They're back....

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    » Bingfeng Teahouse links with: china should be attacked by terrorists, a blogger says
    » Bingfeng Teahouse links with: china should be attacked by terrorists, a blogger says




    GM Winning in China

    Surprisingly, this ancient car company from Detroit has not made its money in China from gas-guzzling mega-trucks and energy-wasting roadships. Instead, they've done themselves a favor by selling small minivans that get 43 miles to the gallon. However, true to their traditions, Mr. Murtagh, the head of GM in China, was not rewarded for the company's only bright spot - instead, he has left the company under strange circumstances.

    That's what you get for selling 170,000 vans...read all about it in Keith Bradsher's excellent article in the New York Times (a free registration site). An excerpt from the article:

    Mr. Shen, the president of the joint venture here, becomes visibly emotional when he mentions Mr. Murtaugh's surprise departure.

    "I have a very good relationship with Mr. Murtaugh, he is my friend, and seeing him leave is very hard on me," Mr. Shen said, his voice catching slightly. "He was both a teacher and a friend."

    Mr. Murtaugh said that he was playing a little golf now, but found himself with many idle hours.

    "I'm looking for work," he said, and then joked, "do you have a deck that needs painting?"

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    » Forest advances links with: If GM loses in China, then it truly loses all its hopes?




    Nigeria's Internet Scammers

    Come now, how many of you have not received an e-mail sitting in your in-box saying either "You've Won!" or "My name is Mrs. Sani Abacha, widow to the late ruler of Nigeria..."

    Well, the China Daily has done actually a rather fine bit of investigative reporting on who these people that seem to live in a Lagos suburb called Festac Town are that rip us all off globally to the tune of millions. Much more than that, actually; look at this quote from the article:

    Now, however, a 3-year-old crackdown is yielding results, Nigerian authorities say. Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, says cash and assets worth more than US$700 million were recovered from suspects between May 2003 and June 2004. More than 500 suspects have been arrested, more than 100 cases are before the courts and 500 others are under investigation, he said.
    US$700 million recovered over a 13 month period! First, who are all these idiots that give money to these people, and more to the point, if that was how much was recovered, imagine the billions that have not!

    There's also some discussion in the article about why Nigeria seems to have created the unique conditions for breeding these unscrupulous individuals:

    Why Nigeria? There are many theories. The nation of 130 million, Africa's most populous, is well educated, and English, the lingua franca of the scam industry, is the official language. Nigeria bursts with talent, from former NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon to Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka.

    But with World Bank studies showing a quarter of urban college graduates are unemployed, crime offers tempting career opportunities in drug dealing, immigrant trafficking, oil smuggling, and Internet fraud.

    The article even interviews a couple of them. Here's one, and from the sound of it, he is the Nigerian version of the investment banker:
    Elekwa, a chubby-faced 28-year-old, shows up in Festac Town driving a Lexus and telling how he was jobless for two years despite having a diploma in computer science.

    His break came four years ago when the chief of a fraud gang saw him solve what seemed like "a complex computer problem" at a business centre in the southeastern city of Umuahia and lured him to Lagos.

    Suckers beware.

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    Who owns forex reserves?

    Jake van der Kamp in the SCMP explains central bank balance sheet basics. Lest you think that is incredibly boring, Jake demonstrates that the "People's" Bank of China's massive foreign reserves (and those of many countries) is mostly owed to banks and private entities, not the Government (and thus, in theory, the people). Happily, there's one place that is an exception to this rule. Read on to find out where...

    Mainland's soaring foreign reserves a treasure chest of fool's gold

    My colleague, Mark O'Neill, who is based in Shanghai, contributed an interesting column yesterday about how the authorities in the mainland are deliberating what best they can do with their massive foreign reserves.

    As he pointed out, those reserves of US$711 billion are now the second largest in the world after Japan's and, at the rate they are growing, could exceed Japan's by the end of this year. Most of the money is parked in US dollar debt instruments, predominantly treasuries, and the question in Beijing is whether it should stay there, be diversified into other currencies, be used for corporate acquisitions abroad or be repatriated for domestic uses.

    Let us put one thing in perspective immediately. Asian countries generally have a mania about foreign reserves with a total of US$2.5 trillion of them at present. For an indication of how maniacal this can be, note from the first table that Singapore has more foreign reserves than the United States.

    But I think O'Neill's analysis should be taken one step further as many people misunderstand what a country's foreign reserves constitute. They are technically the balancing item on the balance of payments and do not represent the net savings of government.

    For an example of what I mean, look at the second table, which sets out the balance sheet of the mainland's central bank.

    Foreign reserves are invariably held by central banks and you can see them here as net foreign assets, the first item in the assets side of the balance sheet. Although they constitute the largest single item in assets, take note that there are others.

    What interests me more, however, is how these assets are financed and for this look at the liabilities side of the balance sheet. The largest single item here is reserve money. This constitutes the backing for note issues plus deposits made by banks and other financial institutions. Then we have the central bank's issuance of bonds, its foreign liabilities and the usual other liabilities.

    All are distinguished by the fact that they are obligations to entities other than the national government or to the central bank. The only items that you could possibly consider as representing national savings here are government deposits and the bank's own capital and they amount to only 11.6 per cent of assets or liabilities.

    In fact, even that 988.5 billion yuan in government deposits is questionable as public savings. The national government generates no surplus to deposit with the central bank. It has operated in deficit for the past 20 years.

    If it puts money with the central bank you can be sure it also owes that money to others in some way. All that really exists as public savings here is the bank's own capital and that constitutes only 0.25 per cent of the total.

    In other words, these massive foreign reserves are not really owned by the people of China overall. If the central bank were to liquidate itself, almost all of what it holds would have to be paid out to banks or private entities.

    It is thus an illusion to treat China's foreign reserves as a publicly owned treasure chest. If the authorities wish to play with the money, they can do so but in the end they owe it back to others and those others are not the public of China.

    This is, in fact, true of foreign reserves everywhere. For instance, the government deposits and capital of Taiwan's central bank amount to only 7 per cent of its total assets and Korea's only 4.3 per cent. In both cases there is again reason to quibble with how free of encumbrances the government deposit share of this is.

    But let us end on a bright note.

    Do the exercise for Hong Kong and of $1.06 trillion in assets in our Exchange Fund, about 68 per cent is attributable to government deposits and accumulated surpluses. Those are unencumbered government deposits, by the way.

    We in Hong Kong might conceivably have the luxury to talk as the bureaucrats in Beijing talk. They, however, are probably fooling themselves.

    forexreserves.jpg



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 13:33
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    Make chaos, not peace

    The Standard reports Hong Kong's boys and girls in blue are plotting strategy for WTO protests expected in the Big Lychee in December.

    Hong Kong's law enforcement officials say they are bracing for radical anti-globalization protesters at December's World Trade Organization talks who may seek to paralyze the Central district by forming a human barricade at the exit of the cross-harbor tunnel,

    According to intelligence received by the government, an official said Monday in a wide-ranging briefing, protesters are also expected to attempt to damage the glass walls of the hotels in Admiralty and Wan Chai where political and business leaders from around the world will be staying.

    Will anyone notice if they blocked the tunnel? The traffic doesn't move at the best of times. The obvious solution is to let mini-bus and taxi drivers do what they do best - drive like maniacs at speed regardless of anyone getting in their way. But with such a dangerous rabble and fears the police aren't adequately prepared, what to do? Well, there's always sod off, swampy. But the cops are way smarter than that:
    Hong Kong authorities, however, have formidable assets on their side. The SAR is largely accessible only by air, which gives them the ability to identify and monitor protesters in a way that officials at other WTO protests were unable to do. Cheap accommodation is also difficult to find.
    Are the cops planning to use Google Earth to track down the protesters? The protesters have even asked the Government permission to sleep in parks to avoid accomodation costs. How dare they undermine one of the police's best tactics! Capitalism strikes another blow against the anti-globalisation zealots.

    Why is Hong Kong bothering to stage this anyway? The Government admits it will lose more than $150 million even after allowing for those ever mysterious "tourism receipts". They'd be better off spending the money to promote the Government's theme park. We might get some return on that investment.

    ESWN has more coverage of police plans for the WTO conference from Next Weekly.

    Update (August 11th)

    Hong Kong's papers cover the great expectations for the WTO conference.

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    August 08, 2005
    War, water and limits

    China Brief time from Jamestown Foundation. My highlights:

    1. Willy Lam looks at Hu's influence on Chinese military modernisation. Lam notes Hu is continuing Jiang's policy of CCP domination of the military, as opposed the Deng's philosophy of gradual state rather than party control and the prominent role the PLA is getting in Hu's policies.

    2. National security implications of China's emerging water crisis says water could be a far more destabilising influence than Taiwan for the CCP's control. A broader issue that is starting to get recognition is the dreadful state of China's environment and the potential for pollution and environmental problems to encroach on China's rapid economic development. This dovetails with the article on the limits of Chinese economic reform a must read article that concludes China's economic growth will eventually force an opening in the political sphere. Along the way it examines the two China's and other possible constraints. It seems inevitable to many that China's economy will continue expanding at a rapid clip indefinitely. It will not and cannot.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 18:00
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    Gov't to Beijingers: Get Out

    Just about every city in the world is thinking up new ways of bringing people back into the city center from the suburbs, to revitalize depopulated districts, and to bring in the creativity and industry of new immigrants. But Beijing, host of the 2008 Olympics, is doing just the reverse. It has decided it has a population problem - 11.4 million people that legally are allowed to live in the metropolis, and with the illegal migrant workers, 15 million.

    So what did the city government do? It called a 'town' meeting to see what its citizens had to say. Read the Xinhua article here. Predictably there was a group of 'know-nothings' (referring to xenophobes like the anti-immigrant 'Know Nothing' Party in the US in the 1850s) that simply wanted to tighten controls of illegal workers. But obviously the 4 million illegal workers do many menial tasks that regular Beijingers would not condescend to perform. Not a good plan.

    But other plans were even stranger. One was to move all the old people out. The old people obviously didn't like that and suggested that all the young people get off their collective perfumed asses and join the "Go West" campaign to develop China's Western regions. Other ideas included - stop construction on residential apartments in the city, move the universities, move the railway stations, move out all the big employers like the big companies.

    What a strange alternate universe Beijing must be in from the rest of the world...

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 16:54
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    Sgt Chan's Lonely Heart Club Band

    In lieu of a real post, time for a caption contest...


    lonelyhearts.jpg

    (Click to enlarge)

    The SCMP reproduces an AFP photo, with the caption: A PLA soldier salutes as he is introduced at a "speed dating" gathering at a camp in Beijing. Military reform is adding new battle units and eliminating outdated ones to increase effectiveness while cutting troop numbers by 200,000 to 2.3 million by the end of this year.

    I don't know how dating is related to personnel cuts in the PLA. Nevertheless, I feel sure we can all do better.

    Random prize to the winner.



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:17
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    August 07, 2005
    Top referrers and stats for July

    Albeit a little late, but the monthly update.

    Firstly thanks to the top referrers for July:

    Rockson
    Mr Brown
    Hemlock
    Cowboy Caleb
    Flying Chair
    Shaky
    ESWN
    Peking Duck

    Thank you to everyone else who also linked and visited.

    As usual, some stats for July:

    * 19,751 unique visitors made 52,858 unique visits, reading a total of 132,785 pages,and drawing 7.33 GB of bandwidth.
    * This equals 1,705 visits per day reading 4,283 pages each day. In other words each visitor reads 2.51 pages on average. Each visitor returned on average 2.67 times during the month.
    * 953 added this site their to favourites. 208 subscribe via Bloglines and 121 via Feedburner.
    * 63% of you use IE, 18% Firefox, 3.1% Safari, 2.2% Mozilla, 1.5% Opera and 1% Netscape to browse this site. 81.3% of you use Windows, 5.7% Mac, 1.3% Linux.
    * 10.7% of visits were via search engines, of which Google was 54.8% and Yahoo 31.3%. The top search phrases were "Nancy Kissel", "Simon World" (at least I'm number one for that) and "Korean babes" (thanks Dan.
    * The most visited individual pages were the "Nancy Kissel trial archive" and "Getting the right answer".



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 22:28
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    Mouse and dog

    Even before wild, scavenging hordes of tourists descend on Hong Kong Disneyland, the Mouse Kingdom faces a more sinister threat. Simon Parry recycles his story from July 25th in today's SCMP:

    Packs of wild dogs are scavenging for food in and around the Disney theme park, sparking management fears they could threaten guests and staff. Despite Disney having called in dog catchers to round up and cull about 40 strays inside the park over the past two months, the site is being plagued by hundreds of wild dogs that emerge from the hillsides after dark.
    It is clear this is part of Disney's culturally sensitive cuisine policy to capture the Korean tourist market.

    Part of the ongoing Hong Kong Disneyland series.

    Simon Parry's original SCMP article on July 25th:

    Dozens of stray dogs adopted by construction workers on the Disney theme park site have been rounded up and killed in the run-up to the park's opening in September. Forty-five dogs, some believed to have been used as unofficial guard dogs on the site during construction, have been caught by government dog catchers at Disney's request. About 40 are thought to have been given injections within days of arriving at government kennels; only three or four have been found a home by an animal welfare group. Two puppies are still seeking homes.

    Hong Kong Dog Rescue says Disney did not contact the group before having the dogs rounded up, adding more could possibly have been saved if Disney had done so. Disney last night denied the strays had ever been officially used as guard dogs and said it had called in dog catchers because the animals were roaming in packs and posing a threat to staff on site.

    Sally Andersen, founder of Hong Kong Dog Rescue, which has tried to rehome the strays, said the dogs from the Penny's Bay site had turned up at the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department kennels in Pokfulam "at an alarming rate" in recent months. Nearly all were unlicensed and had not been neutered or fitted with microchips by owners. They had been put to sleep within four days of arriving. "These dogs are friendly and healthy, as they have been fed and cared for by the site workers, but as building work is completed the dogs are simply abandoned and end up in the government kennels, where they are destroyed," she said.

    "A company like Disney surely has some sort of moral obligation to take care of the dogs that have been used on their site as guard dogs. It's disgraceful that these dogs are simply thrown away like garbage." Fiona Woodhouse, deputy director of animal welfare for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), said she was not aware of any contact from Disney, but did not rule out that the company had phoned for advice. "We couldn't have taken 50 adult mongrels and guaranteed to find them homes. What we could have done is advertise them and try to find them homes," she said.

    "I don't think you can attach blame to Disney, but it would be nice to think they would follow their principles in terms of environmental concern and being ... very friendly towards animals, which feature so much in their cartoons," she said. Disney said it had contacted the SPCA when the dogs were being rounded up but had been told it was not possible to rehome so many. The SPCA had repeatedly had problems with dogs abandoned on construction sites, Ms Woodhouse said. Contractors involved always denied responsibility for the dogs and often refused SPCA workers access to try to capture strays, she said.



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:42
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    Nancy Kissel case archive part 2

    Covers the trial between July 19th and August 5th.

    Other Kissel related material can be found in the Kissel category

    Update July 19th

    * The Standard: Expert testifies hard object deformed metal ornament
    * SCMP:

    The defence counsel for Nancy Kissel yesterday sought to cast doubt over the prosecution theory on the disfigurement of a heavy metal ornament she allegedly used to bludgeon her husband to death, suggesting it may have been the result of "someone striking it with a baseball bat". Alexander King SC asked government forensic scientist Wong Koon-hung whether during his analysis he had observed any impact mark on the heads of the two figurines, or on the bottom of the oval base. Dr Wong said he had not, stressing he was instructed to ascertain only if the figurines and the base were originally in one piece.

    The expert witness had suggested earlier to the prosecution that a force could have been exerted on the heads of both figurines - in the shape of two girls facing each other - causing the legs to bend upwards before dislodging from the base. But yesterday he told Mr King that the disfigurement may also have been caused by a substantial force being applied to the base. "The force may have come from the base or the top. What we have is a result of all the force together," Dr Wong said.

    The court was shown family photographs that featured the ornament in the background. Mr King argued that the photos revealed the ornament base was originally flat, with the two figurines sitting perpendicular to it. The 3.7kg heirloom exhibited in court appeared different, with its base arching upwards, and the two dislodged figurines, when placed back on the base, sat at an angle away from each other, with their arms by their sides and their legs bent upwards.

    "Could that curvature be caused by the base plate being struck by an elongated cylindrical object ... an object such as a baseball bat?" asked Mr King. Examining the disfigured ornament yesterday, Dr Wong agreed that there was a diagonal curvature and some scratch marks on the bottom of the base. He said the counsel's scenario was possible as the contour of the curvature matched a cylindrical object.

    "It might not be a single blow of the cylindrical object. It might be multiple blows," the witness said later. Dr Wong asked: "If a force was applied from the bottom onto the underside of the plate and someone was holding the figurines, could that caused the figurines to dislodge?"

    The witness replied: "Yes, it could," adding that it would require a "considerable force" and an object harder or as hard as the metal plate to result in such curvature.

    Kissel, 41, has pleaded not guilty to a count of murdering her husband - American banker Robert Peter Kissel - on or around November 2, 2003. She fought back tears in the dock yesterday as photos of her children were shown.

    Maximina Macaraeg, a domestic helper who gave evidence earlier, said the deceased kept a baseball bat in the master bedroom. However, the prosecution argued that police had never seen the item in the flat. During re-examination, prosecutor Ada Chan asked Dr Wong if the disfigurement of the ornament could be the result of a person using it to hit someone over the head. The witness replied that he would have to know the hardness of the skull before he could answer the question.

    "It has to be something substantially hard to leave this kind of impact on the material," he said. Dr Wong said if a painted baseball bat was used to strike the metal base, traces of the paint would have been left behind. But he said he had not tested for this.

    Update July 20th

    * SCMP:

    The prosecution in the trial of Nancy Kissel sought to cast doubt yesterday on allegations that the injuries found on her were inflicted by the husband she is accused of bludgeoning to death.

    Li Wai-sum, the doctor who examined Kissel after she was sent to Ruttonjee Hospital by police on the morning of November 7, 2003, said the colour of the bruises found on the back of her hands and arms was "brown purplish".

    She had told the court on Monday the colour suggested the bruises were the youngest - about one to two days old. Yesterday she said the colour of a bruise, which usually takes at least a week to subside, gradually changed from brownish to yellowish and greenish.

    In cross-examination, defence counsel Alexander King SC argued that the colour change could vary from bruise to bruise and was dependent on factors such as blood supply. He asked Dr Li if the brown purplish bruises on the back of Kissel's hands could also be five to six days old.

    "According to their size, they could be two to three days old. But five to six days is unlikely," Dr Li said. She also said bruises on Kissel's feet were greenish yellow, suggesting they could be older.

    Mr King argued the bruises on Kissel's hands were "classic positions of defence injuries", which occur when a person is hit by a blunt instrument and puts her hands up to protect her head.

    But in re-examination, prosecutor Peter Chapman pointed out that the doctor's estimate of the age of the bruises implied they could only have been caused at the earliest on the morning of November 4, 2003 - two days after Robert Peter Kissel, a senior banker with Merrill Lynch, was allegedly killed by his wife in their Parkview bedroom.

    Earlier it was revealed Kissel reported to police on November 6 that her husband had assaulted her, causing numerous injuries.

    Kissel, 41, has pleaded not guilty to a count of murder.

    Dr Li detailed other injuries she found on Kissel, including bruises on her lip, shoulders, knees and feet, rib pain and red, swollen spots on her hands.

    Kissel had been suffering from shoulder girdle pain and had a high level of a substance in her blood that was a common sign of injuries to the heart or muscle cells. Mr King asked if the symptoms could be a result of blunt injuries. She said possibly but she was not sure whether they were blunt injuries.

    Dr Li later told Mr Chapman the girdle pain could also be caused by "strenuous exercise such as heavy weight-lifting".

    Merrill Lynch's regional head of debt markets, Antony Hung Yuk-hung, who was Robert Kissel's superior, later described him as a "straightforward person" and a "good businessman". He told the court the deceased drank wine at social functions like any ordinary businessman but not to an excessive degree. He also said the deceased earned an annual base salary of US$175,000 and a total bonus of US$5.9 million over the three years he was at Merrill Lynch.

    He said that on November 12, when police visited the office, officers seized from the deceased's drawers items including alleged love letters from Kissel's boyfriend in Vermont, a surveillance report and a video tape from American detective agency Alpha Group.

    Mr Hung told Mr King the deceased's office had not been cordoned off or guarded by the police on November 7, 2003.

    Update July 21st

    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel's computer notebook was used to browse Hong Kong Police Force's websites on missing and wanted persons some four days after she allegedly murdered her husband, a computer forensics expert told a court yesterday.

    Cheung Chun-kit, of the police technology crime division, said nine temporary internet files found on the defendant's Sony Vaio notebook indicated that a number of police webpages had been browsed between November 5 and November 6, 2003. These included webpages featuring "Wanted Persons", "Missing Persons", and telephone numbers of police report rooms.

    Mr Cheung told the Court of First Instance his finding on the accessing of police websites was supported by a spyware activity report sent to the e-mail account of the deceased, Robert Peter Kissel, around November 6, 2003. The prosecution alleges Kissel, 41, bludgeoned her husband to death at the flat on or about November 2, 2003.

    The officer said e-mails received by the deceased indicated that he had installed spyware program eBlaster on the Sony notebook and one of two desktop computers used by their three children. It allowed him to receive by e-mail "activity reports" which recorded the keystrokes typed, e-mails read and sent and websites accessed.

    The defendant, who reported to Aberdeen Police Station on November 6, 2003 that her husband, a banker for Merrill Lynch, had assaulted her and left home, has pleaded not guilty to murder.

    Other activity reports sent to the deceased after his death showed someone using the accused's e-mail account had e-mailed a friend on November 5 saying that she could not attend a birthday party the following day because a family member was ill. The officer said an e-mail sent to a friend of the accused using the account on November 6 said: "Unfortunately, Rob is away for business."

    Mr Cheung said only two user names were found on the notebook - "Kissel" and "Reis", the latter the name of the defendant's son.

    Mr Cheung said spyware reports showed the notebook had been used on August 20, 2003, to access websites on medications, including www.sleeping-pills.net.

    The witness said the report also showed Internet Explorer entries of the words "sleeping pills", "overdose", "medication causing heart attack", and "drug overdose" - possibly entries to a search engine.

    Prosecutor Peter Chapman also asked Mr Cheung to identify an eBlaster report dated August 21, 2003, which indicated a Microsoft Word entry on the Sony notebook that said: "I am not quite sure how he feels about me ... after hiring a private investigating firm to follow me ... Are they going to be watching me forever? Hidden camera in the bedroom, tapped phone ... I realised what the affair had done to him ... trustwise."

    The court has heard the accused began an affair with TV repairman Michael del Priore while in the US state of Vermont in 2003.

    Update July 22nd

    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel's husband had searched a large number of websites on gay pornography and sex services in Taiwan shortly before he went on a three-day trip there, her defence counsel alleged yesterday.

    The allegation by Alexander King SC came as he presented to the Court of First Instance the internet use history between April 3 and April 5, 2003, of a desktop computer seized by the police from the defendant's Parkview flat.

    The court heard the defence team, using software for analysis of internet history, had found search engine entries such as "anal", "cocks", "gay anal sex", "bisexual" and "male ass". Some had been made several times over the three days, at a time Mr King said only Robert Peter Kissel, who Nancy Kissel is accused of murdering, would have had access to the computer.

    Mr King, who presented the records with the help of computer experts, said the evidence was retrieved after the prosecution gave the defence a copy of the hard disk in January to examine.

    The findings, displayed on television and computer screens in court yesterday, also indicated numerous searches on sex websites in Taiwan, such as "gay sex or anal sex in Taiwan", "Taiwan female escorts" and "Taiwan companions".

    Mr King told the jury there were also search entries for "married and lonely in HK" and an entry for "wife is a bitch", "looking for girls in Hong Kong" and "Mpeg sex".

    Kissel, 41, is accused of bludgeoning her investment banker husband to death on or around November 2, 2003, in their Parkview flat. Kissel, who reported to police that her husband assaulted her, has pleaded not guilty to murder.

    The desktop computer, allegedly used by the Kissel children, was one of four computers officers seized from the flat. The other three were another Dell desktop, the deceased's IBM notebook and the defendant's Sony Vaio notebook.

    Mr King pointed out that Kissel left for the US on March 29 and returned on July 30, 2003, to escape Sars. Immigration records showed the deceased returned from a trip on March 12 before he left for Taiwan on April 8 and returned again three days later. Mr King argued that between April 3 and 5, the only person who could have had access to the computer was the deceased.

    Referring to about three pages that listed the search entries, Mr King asked police computer forensic expert Cheung Chun-kit: "Do nearly all these sites appear to you to be gay pornography websites?" He said: "Seems so by looking at the names of the websites."

    Prosecutor Peter Chapman told the jury Mr Cheung's evidence also suggested the Sony notebook had been used to browse websites on Rohypnol, known as a date-rape drug, on October 23, 2003.

    One of the websites explained that a person who drank a beverage containing the drug would not be able to detect it. The court has heard that the drug was prescribed to Kissel and that it was found in her husband's stomach.

    Update July 25th

    * SCMP:

    Allegations on Robert Peter Kissel's sexual interests - including a taste for black gay men, Taiwanese actresses and French masseurs - continued to be put before the court yesterday by the defence on day two of cross-examination of a computer forensic expert.

    Alexander King, SC, displayed more porn websites searched for or browsed between April 3 and 5, 2003, on a Dell desktop computer seized in the Kissels' Parkview flat.

    Using software to trace internet use, the defence team found the user of the computer had, on April 5, visited websites advertising services for female and bisexual escorts in Perth, Western Australia, and a photo gallery under the header "Male Cock Gay Sex Gay Men". Numerous searches for sites on black gay men also were identified.

    Mr King argued on Thursday that only Robert Kissel, a Merrill Lynch banker allegedly killed by his wife Nancy in their flat on November 2, 2003, could have used the computer as immigration records showed the accused and her three children were in the US.

    Nancy Kissel, 41, has pleaded not guilty to a count of murder.

    The defence also retrieved evidence from the deceased's IBM notebook computer, that showed it had been used many times in May and June 2003 to browse or search for websites on "twinks", "actresses for hire in Taiwan", "escorts in Taiwan", "Paris girl for hire", "Paris gay massage", "Paris x-rated escorts", "gay sex" and "anal sex".

    In one instance, the user was found to be accessing the Merrill Lynch network while searching for the porn sites.

    Police computer expert Cheung Chun-kit said yesterday he believed that in January 2003 the deceased had installed spyware on the desktop computer and the Sony Vaio notebook computer used by the defendant and that by early October it was possible he had examined about 7,000 of his wife's emails.

    Mr King read out an entry in the defendant's notebook computer captured by an activity report dated October 7, 2003: "You are still justifying your harsh action in the car with the kids by blaming it on me. You see Rob, at the end of the day it seems that I am the only one making the effort. I have shown you in many ways how I have been trying. But because of that fight and how uncontrollable you got in the car ... How you are always telling me we won't fight in front of the kids ... A fight and you give out an ultimatum ... I still can't believe it ... Is it how life is going to be? Who should be going to therapy? Whatever happens ... to us? You never use those words anymore ever."

    Asked by Mr King to verify the defence findings on porn websites, Mr Cheung admitted he had not searched for materials related to "www.google.com" or "gay sex" when examining the computers.

    When asked why computer activity reports dated March to June, 2003 could not be retrieved Mr Cheung said he did not remember.

    Update July 26th

    * SCMP:

    A government toxicologist told the Court of First Instance yesterday he had never before encountered the combination of drugs found in the stomach and liver of Robert Peter Kissel, the American banker allegedly poisoned and then bludgeoned to death by his wife.

    Cheng Kok-choi, who testified as a prosecution witness, said he had identified four hypnotics in Kissel's stomach - flunitazepam (Rohypnol), lorazepam (Lorivan), zolpidem (Ambien) and butalbital (Axotal). He also found an anti-depressant, amitriptyline, and salicylic acid, which he said could be a product of the chemical breakdown of aspirin.

    In the liver, Dr Cheng identified amitriptyline and Axotal.

    Dr Cheng said amitriptyline, Rohypnol (known as a date-rape drug), Lorivan and Ambien were all controlled substances and available only with a prescription. Axotal was not registered in Hong Kong.

    Dr Cheng, who has worked for the government laboratory for more than 30 years, was asked by prosecutor Peter Chapman if he had come across these drugs in other cases. "Individually, yes, but not as a combination ... not even in suicide cases involving use of multiple drugs," he said.

    The prosecution alleges that Nancy Kissel, 41, beat her husband to death with a metal ornament after serving him a strawberry milkshake laced with "a cocktail of sedatives" in their flat in Parkview, Tai Tam, on or around November 2, 2003. She has pleaded not guilty. Robert Kissel's body was found five days later, wrapped in an old carpet in a storeroom on the estate.

    The prosecutor said medical records showed that Nancy Kissel was prescribed Rohypnol by a clinic in Central on October 23, 2003. Earlier evidence indicated that another clinic prescribed her Ambien, amitriptyline and Lorivan in August 2003 and October 2003.

    The prosecutor also sought yesterday to cast doubts on evidence the defence team alleges showed that Robert Kissel had accessed pornography websites using his own IBM notebook and his daughter's desktop computer. He pointed out that a large number of the websites were paid sites, and the webpages rebuilt on the screen last week appeared to be only homepages, which do not require a paid subscription.

    Mr Chapman asked a police forensic computer expert, Cheung Chun-kit: "There is nothing to suggest ... paid entry or membership to those sites?" The witness replied: "That's correct".

    The prosecutor also argued that webpages showing words such as "huge cocks big dicks nude boys" could be thrown up on a Google search on subjects "without any gay content at all". But Alexander King SC, for the defence, said it was ridiculous to think the porn sites would be thrown up after typing in words such as "Hong Kong International School or Barbie Dolls".


    Update July 27th

    * SCMP:

    A government chemist yesterday told a jury he did not report on the quantities of drugs found in Robert Peter Kissel, who was allegedly murdered by his wife, because it would have been misleading.

    Cheng Kok-choi, who identified four hypnotics and an anti-depressant in the senior Merrill Lynch banker's stomach and liver, was asked by prosecutor Peter Chapman to respond to a series of criticisms of his findings by Olaf Drummer, a forensic expert from Australia called by the defence.

    Responding to criticism that the amount had not been quantified, Dr Cheng explained that the banker's body had already started to decompose when it was found on November 7, 2003, five days after he was allegedly bludgeoned to death after being served a sedatives-laced milkshake by his wife, Nancy.

    "It is a well-known fact in the case that the [quantitative] results would not be reliable and can even be misleading," said the prosecution witness. He said such results would only be sought on special request from the government laboratory or in cases of drug overdose. He said he had only been sent 20 millilitres of stomach contents - rather than a whole stomach, which would have been needed for the quantification.

    The drugs found were Rohypnol, Lorivan, Ambien, Axotal and amitriptyline.

    Mr Justice Michael Lunn asked the witness if the amount of drugs found corresponded to "a tiny fraction of a normal dose". The witness said yes.

    Nancy Kissel, 41, has pleaded not guilty to a count of murder.

    Professor Drummer also said in his written report that traces of drugs found in the deceased's stomach did not necessarily mean they were consumed orally.

    He said they could have been caused by a contamination of stomach contents by bile or vomiting. Responding to this, Dr Cheng said: "This statement is true. I did additional tests and concluded that these [possibilities] cannot be excluded."

    The Australian expert detected one of the hypnotics, Ambien, from his test on the deceased's hair sample and concluded that Kissel had been taking Ambien for two to three months before his death.

    Agreeing with Professor Drummer's conclusion, Dr Cheng told defence counsel Alexander King SC that the deceased seemed to be using the drug habitually.

    But the witness said he did not agree with the professor's suggestion that the drugs had been in Kissel's stomach much longer than usual, saying there was no basis to say there was an abnormality.

    In cross-examination, Mr King said that in the chemist's written reply to Professor Drummer in June, there was "a large measure of agreement" between the experts.

    The judge asked the witness if he detected any presence of cocaine in his screening test for other drugs and poisons. Dr Cheng replied: "Unless you have taken an overdose of cocaine, you cannot detect it in the liver." He explained that cocaine would be hydrolysed in the stomach because of the acidic nature of the gastric juice.

    Asked by Mr King if any hydrolysed product of cocaine was found in the stomach sample, the witness said no. But he said there was no universal screening procedure that could "detect everything under the sun".

    Update July 28th

    * SCMP:

    A high tolerance for drugs could explain why Robert Peter Kissel appeared to behave normally an hour after being served milkshake allegedly laced with sedatives by his wife, by which time a neighbour who also drank it had passed out, the Court of First Instance heard.

    Alexander King SC, representing Nancy Kissel, suggested during cross-examination of pharmacologist John Yeung Hok-keung that the deceased could have developed resistance to certain drugs after taking them regularly, so that "a higher dosage was necessary to achieve the [same] effect". But the witness said he was not in a position to comment on repeated drug use.

    Government chemist Cheng Kok-choi said on Monday that he found a cocktail of drugs - the hypnotics Rohypnol, Lorivan, Ambien and Axotal, and amitriptyline, an antidepressant - in samples taken from the deceased's stomach and liver.

    Mr King asked the witness if he agreed that using cocaine would increase productivity at work and in other areas of life. The lawyer said the long-term effects of taking the drug included addiction, paranoia and dangerous lifestyle choices.

    "Do many cocaine addicts develop a tolerance to the drug?" he asked.

    "I can't comment," said Professor Yeung.

    The court also heard from a neighbour who was served the milkshake, Andrew Tanzer. Mr Tanzer said he took his daughter to the Kissels' flat in Parkview, Tai Tam, on November 2, 2003.

    He said he and the deceased were served a milkshake prepared by the accused using what she described as her "secret recipe".

    Kissel, 41, denies the murder of her husband, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, that day. Prosecutors say she bludgeoned him to death with a metal ornament. His body was found five days later.

    Recalling evidence given by Kazuko Ouchi, Mr Tanzer's wife, Mr King put it to Professor Yeung that Mr Tanzer had returned home complaining of tiredness and fell asleep on the couch within half an hour of drinking the shake. His wife slapped him in an attempt to wake him up, the counsel said. Yet closed-circuit TV cameras had captured the deceased awake and walking between his flat and the playground in Parkview around 5.15pm, said Mr King.

    Professor Yeung said that most of the drugs identified in the deceased's body were fast-acting and their effects were in line with the strange behaviour of Mr Tanzer.

    The prosecution replayed a tape-recording of the evidence given last month by David Noh, a friend of the deceased. Mr Noh, who talked to the deceased on the phone for about 10 minutes around 5pm on November 2, 2003, said he had complained of fatigue and was talking "on a different tangent".

    Prosecutor Peter Chapman asked Professor Yeung if the nature of the phone conversation surprised him. "Assuming that he was under the effect of the drugs, that wouldn't surprise me," he said.

    Update July 29th

    * SCMP:

    The squashed skull of Robert Peter Kissel had five potentially fatal fractures and five non-fatal lacerations, a court trying his wife for his murder heard yesterday.

    Forensic pathologist Lau Ming-fai said the upper right side of the wealthy investment banker's head was "severely squashed" and the bone had been pushed into the white matter inside the brain.

    He told the Court of First Instance he identified five lacerations on the head with depressed skull fractures beneath, and suggested each had been caused by a single blow. "Each of these blows was potentially fatal, the combination was severely fatal," he said, adding there were another five non-fatal lacerations on the head.

    Dr Lau said the edge of the base plate of the heavy ornament with which Nancy Kissel is alleged to have bludgeoned her husband to death was consistent with the curvature of the lacerations. Holding two detached figurines to the metal plate with his hands, he demonstrated how the deceased could have been struck by the ornament. Dr Lau said there were no self-defence injuries on the upper limbs of the victim.

    He suggested the deceased had been lying down with his face turned to one side and "had little or no ability to move or defend himself at the time of the attack". This was in line with the government laboratory's findings of four hypnotic drugs and an anti-depressant in the deceased's stomach and liver, which Dr Lau said had caused "a certain degree of impairment to his consciousness".

    In cross-examination, defence counsel Alexander King SC asked Dr Lau whether a reason for the lack of defensive injuries on Kissel's upper limbs could be that he himself was in possession of a weapon. The counsel also asked him if the metal ornament allegedly used for inflicting injuries could also be used for defending oneself from an attack by a weapon. The witness agreed.

    But in re-examination, prosecutor Peter Chapman portrayed a scenario in which the deceased was standing, raising a baseball bat, "ready to strike" when the accused was holding the ornament as a shield. "The female would not be in a position to inflict injuries while defending herself, would she?" he asked.

    Dr Lau agreed with the prosecutor. "Because when she's holding the ornament, she would not be able to inflict any blows on the other party," he said. The defence had earlier suggested that the base plate of the alleged murder weapon - from which the two figurines were dislodged - had curved up after it was struck by a long object, such as a baseball bat.

    Also yesterday a maid who worked for the Kissels at their luxury Parkview flat said she could not be sure if a baseball bat shown in court was the same as one she had seen in the couple's bedroom. The bat was shown to prosecution witness Maximina Macaraeg by Mr King, who asked her if she remembered being asked during testimony last month whether the deceased was a baseball fan.

    Also on that occasion she told the jury she had seen a wooden baseball bat placed between two pieces of furniture in the master bedroom and sometimes had to lift it up when vacuuming. Mr King then asked for a bat to be presented to Ms Macaraeg. "Is that the bat you saw in the bedroom?" he asked. She replied: "I am not sure."

    "Did you ever see any other baseball bat in the Kissel apartment?" he asked. She said no. Mr Chapman asked the witness if she could see the bottom of the bat with the words "Little League". She said yes.

    Update July 30th

    *SCMP:

    The Sars outbreak and her husband Robert's success as a top Merrill Lynch banker had ruined what appeared to outsiders to be "the best marriage in the universe", Nancy Kissel told her best friend, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.

    Prosecutor Polly Wan read out an e-mail sent by Kissel on August 17, 2003, to Bryna O'Shea, who she had met in New York in 1987.

    "It's mostly been me ... so fxxking perceptive ... I had a pretty shitty summer ... especially when everyone is thinking we have the best marriage in the universe," Kissel wrote to the woman who had become her best friend.

    "I agree to a certain extent about the great marriage part. But during those five years, with Rob's continued success ... it's taken its toll. To be hit with the Sars shit, and the separation and all unresolved crap just kept piling up. We've both acknowledged this for some time and have agreed to see a counsellor."

    The court heard Nancy took the three children to Vermont in the United States to flee Sars between March and July 2003, while Robert stayed in the city for work.

    Nancy Kissel, 41, is accused of murdering her husband in their Parkview flat on November 2, 2003. She has pleaded not guilty.

    Ms O'Shea, whose testimony, given in the US in May, was read to the jury yesterday, said the e-mail was the most Kissel had opened up to her for a long time. She had noticed Kissel had become harder to talk to and had stopped talking about her husband since late 2002. During the Sars period, she described Kissel as tense and upset.

    Ms O'Shea, a San Franciscan, said the deceased had phoned her about April 2003 and asked her to be his confidante in their marital matters. After that, he sometimes phoned or e-mailed daily.

    One night in June, Ms O'Shea said he called, crying. He told her he had called his daughter in Vermont and she told him that Mike del Priore - Nancy's alleged lover - "has come with his daughter and we were all watching television together". He told Ms O'Shea: "That should not be Mike there with my children. That should be me."

    Mr Kissel phoned Ms O'Shea one night in September and told her his wife had said she did not want to be with him any more during a marriage therapy session. The deceased sounded "very, very upset". But later that month, he told her his wife went to his office one day, something she had not done for ages. "She pushed everything off his desk, sat on his desk and said: `I am sorry, I didn't mean anything I said. I don't want to get a divorce. I love you'."

    Asked by Alexander King SC, for the defence, about a history of domestic violence, Ms O'Shea said she could only remember once when Kissel told her the deceased had pushed her up against a wall.

    In October, the deceased told her he found the accused had another mobile phone, allegedly used to call her lover. He wrote in his e-mail: "I can't wait to have a really big cry," Ms O'Shea said.

    She only recalled after attending the deceased's funeral in Connecticut that he had told her his wife had accessed some "dark websites" on drugs. "Rob asked me: `Do you think she's trying to kill me?' I laughed and said: `If she's trying to kill you, put me in your will.' He laughed and said: `If anything happens to me, make sure my children are taken care of'," she said.

    Ms O'Shea, who said she learnt of Robert's intention to discuss divorce with Nancy on November 2, said Nancy told her later they had fought and Robert had left. Nancy said she had two broken ribs.

    The witness said she became concerned after failing to get hold of the deceased despite repeated phone calls and e-mails. She later contacted a colleague of the deceased, David Noh, who reported Robert Kissel missing to police on November 6, 2003.

    Update August 3rd

    * ESWN: Nancy Kissel trial part 35.
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel had to endure night after night of sexual and physical assault from her husband as cocaine, whisky, power and money changed him, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.

    The 41-year-old, giving evidence on the first day of the defence case, said in tears that Robert Peter Kissel, a top Merrill Lynch banker, had developed a routine of "going home, drinking and sex" after she had their youngest child, Reis, in 1999.

    Kissel said the first time Robert hit her was when he realised the expected birth date of Reis would overlap with an important business trip to Korea. He had told her to try to induce labour and was angry she was not listening to him. "The first time he punched at me, he hit the wall because I dodged. When it happened again [for] the same argument the following week, he hit me [on] my face," she said.

    Kissel said the first punch was so hard it broke through the cement and plaster of the wall. She knew the deceased had broken his hand the next day when he came home with a cast on his hand.

    Alexander King SC, for the defence, asked if she recalled evidence from Dr Daniel Wu of Adventist Hospital, who told the court he had treated the deceased's "boxer's fracture" on his right little finger around August 1999. "It was that night," she replied.

    Kissel is accused of bludgeoning her husband to death in their Parkview flat on November 2, 2003, after giving him a sedative-laced milk- shake. She has pleaded not guilty to a count of murder.

    Kissel, from the American state of Minnesota, married her husband in 1989. They lived in New York, where she took several jobs in restaurants to finance Robert's master's degree studies in finance at New York University.

    Kissel said she knew her husband was dependent on cocaine for his work and studies when they got married, as she had seen a Manhattan dealer at their flat several times to trade the drug. "I watched him use it ... I was working for three jobs to pay for his tuition, not drugs. There was nothing I could do about it," she said, adding that he would turn trivial matters such as not having enough orange juice in the fridge into a huge argument.

    Her husband's cocaine consumption continued as he climbed the ladder in the banking world on arrival in Hong Kong in 1997. Kissel said he had to watch the stock markets at "opposite ends of the globe".

    "When the Hong Kong market closed, the New York market opened ... [It is] literally 24 hours of having to be awake," she said. "The drugs got him rougher with kids. He became a different person."

    She said that once he passed out for about 20 minutes on a plane because of the combined effects of drugs, alcohol and jet lag. He had become increasingly dependent on painkillers and sleeping pills because of work pressures and back pain and drank glasses of scotch daily before and after dinner.

    Kissel said that after Reis was born, her husband became much more forceful with her during sex. "It was predominantly oral sex for him and anal sex," she said.

    Asked by Mr King to describe how that would come about, Kissel said she would find her husband sitting at the end of their bed with the television on whenever he was home at night. He would not let her walk past him to her side of the bed. "He would start those games ... having me between his legs, toying with me. He would say those things to me so he could do anything he wanted," she said. "He was just so angry ... It was like I wasn't even there ... He never had a look at my face."

    "Were you agreeable to that?" asked Mr King. "No," Kissel replied. She said she often had bruises and bleeding from the anal sex forced upon her.

    Kissel told of two occasions when her ribs were fractured after Robert tried to twist and flip her over on the bed for anal sex. When it happened the first time in 2001, she sought treatment at Adventist Hospital and was given a Velcro brace to wear around her stomach. "A couple of weeks later, he ripped the brace off and I ended up getting into hospital again," she said.

    Asked about how he treated his work, she said: "He thrived on it, it was what made him tick, the business, the power of it all ... when you rise from that structure, from down below - he was very successful.

    Update August 4th

    * ESWN: Nancy Kissel part 36
    * SCMP:

    Nancy Kissel attempted suicide and succumbed to an affair with a TV repairman in Vermont to escape physical and mental torture by her husband, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.

    Kissel, 41, said she attempted suicide the night before her husband, Robert Peter Kissel, who she is accused of murdering, flew from Hong Kong to join her and their three children at their US holiday home in Vermont to escape Sars in May 2003.

    After the children and maid fell asleep, she went to the garage and sat in her car after turning on the engine. "I cried a lot. Maybe I got scared of leaving my children. So I turned off the engine and went back into the house," she said.

    She told the jury she searched the internet for information on "sleeping pills", "drug overdose" and "medication causing heart attack" in August 2003 because she was contemplating suicide.

    One of the triggers was that during their trip to New York that month, her husband had forbidden her from picking up their eldest daughter, Elaine, from a camp in Maine. She was told to return to Hong Kong first, while the deceased and his father, William Kissel, would pick up the daughter.

    Kissel said her interest in drugs causing heart attack stemmed from her intention to protect her children. "I thought if I am going to do something like this, taking pills, I wouldn't want my children to be affected - going through the knowledge of their mother committing suicide," she said.

    Kissel is accused of killing her husband, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, after serving him a sedatives-laced milkshake in their Parkview flat on November 2, 2003. She has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder.

    On day two of her evidence, Kissel recalled occasions when she was hit or sexually abused by her husband. On a Christmas skiing trip in Whistler, Canada, in 2002, she said she fell down a flight of stairs after being hit by Robert after an argument. She also told of how Robert forced her to have oral and anal sex with her in their flat.

    Kissel admitted having an affair with Michael Del Priore, who fixed a stereo and TV system in her Vermont house during her stay there in 2003. She recalled he told her over a dinner that June how his mother had been abused by his alcoholic father and how difficult it was for him to deal with his childhood. He had said to Kissel: "This summer when I saw you, you looked like s***, tired and beat-up."

    "Something he said to me was I had that same look his mother did," she said. "I broke down and cried. It was the first time anybody ever stepped forward in front of me on an issue that would normally scare a lot of people. There are people who would look at you, notice the ... change, but they don't really want to know.

    "In Hong Kong, in the expat world, we would run into people who are more interested in what you are wearing, how big your diamond ring is, your car."

    She said Mr Del Priore was a comfort to her, for the stress and loneliness she felt after she and her children were turned away by US hotels, clinics and schools for fear they were carrying Sars.

    Kissel also admitted having sex about three times with Mr Del Priore when their relationship turned intimate that summer.

    "Had you formed an intention to leave your husband?" asked Alexander King SC, for the defence. "No," she said. "There was no question in my mind that I was Mrs Kissel. I have been for 15 years. I am a banker's wife... I worked hard in Hong Kong. It's very much my choice ... to work through things in my marriage however they played out." She described Vermont, of which "Michael was part", as an escape from the "real world" in Hong Kong and from her marriage.

    She said the pair had frequent phone conversations and letter exchanges and that Robert had found the letters, which she hid in their Parkview bedroom, during one of his regular ransackings of the room and ripped them apart in her face.

    Asked to identify copies of the letters seized by the police from the deceased's office, Kissel said: "They are not in their original form." She said the parts of the letters where they discussed Robert's abuse of her were not there.

    Kissel, who told the court her husband was using cocaine, painkillers and whisky, said she became worried when she realised his violence had spilled over to the children. She said he once got angry with Elaine for not eating vegetables in Vermont. He printed her photos of malnourished people - which she hated - grabbed her, kept shaking her and jumped on her. "She said, `Daddy, you are hurting me.' But he just kept shaking," Kissel said in tears.

    She put sleeping pills in Robert's bottle of whisky in an attempt to calm her husband down, she said, but it had no effect on him.

    She told the jury how Robert was controlling different aspects of her life. He told her to stop calling her father in the US - she called him every day - and to stop doing volunteer work for her daughters' school. He also took away the children's passports. He was furious when he discovered she had returned from Vermont with a tattoo on her shoulder, reminding her that she was a banker's wife.

    The case continues before Mr Justice Michael Lunn today.



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    August 06, 2005
    Nancy Kissel case Archive

    This post contains all the introductory details and news articles up to July 15th, 2005. More recent updates can be found at the Nancy Kissel case update post.

    * Here is a summary of the case to date with links to Phil's extensive coverage (from November 2004)
    * the pretrial hearings
    * the first day of the trial
    * ESWN has a compilation of coverage of the trial in both the English and Chinese press: Kissel case part 1; Kissel case part 2; Kissel case part 3; Kissel case part 4; Kissel case part 5.

    Updated June 14th
    * The Standard: Scotch twist in Kissel case
    * ESWN coverage part 6.
    * The SCMP's unlinkable report today covers much the same ground as The Standard. Some excerpts:

    American banker Robert Kissel suspected his wife was poisoning his scotch about two months before she allegedly served him a sedative-laced milkshake and bludgeoned him to death, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday.
    Frank Shea, owner of the Alpha Group, a New York private detective agency, said his client expressed concerns that his wife, Nancy Ann Kissel, 40, was trying to kill him shortly after he returned to Hong Kong from a New York trip for back surgery on August 23, 2003...

    When the detective visited Hong Kong and met Kissel at the China Club on September 1, 2003, his client told him he "felt guilty about his suspicions". He said Kissel sometimes thought his marriage was getting better and then he would find evidence that his wife was still communicating with her alleged lover, Michael del Priore...At the request of Robert Kissel, Mr Shea sent private detective Rocco Gatta to spy on the defendant in Stratton, Vermont, in June and July 2003, where she was staying with her three children to escape the Sars outbreak. Kissel told him to watch out for Mr del Priore, who he described as a white Caucasian, who was very fit, in his late-20s to mid-30s. The deceased paid about US$24,000 for the 11-day service.

    In cross-examination, Gary Plowman SC, for the defence, asked Mr Shea if he had ever mentioned to the deceased whether the blood or urine test would detect the presence of cocaine. But the detective said he had not used the words "cocaine" or "illegal drugs". "Did Robert Kissel ever tell you he used cocaine?" asked Mr Plowman. "Absolutely not," Mr Shea replied...

    Robert Kissel's secretary at Merrill Lynch, Moris Chan, who testified yesterday, said she had helped arrange for the defendant to fly to San Francisco on November 16 to stay there for about a week. But Ms Chan said she had received an e-mail from Robert Kissel on October 31, 2003, saying: "Please do not pay until I agree." She said the defendant had gone to her husband's office to decorate his room with family pictures and pot plants in September while he was away.

    The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

    Update June 15th

    * The Standard: Milkshake turned murder case witness into 'a baby'.
    * SCMP:

    A neighbour of Nancy Ann Kissel passed out and later bizarrely treated himself to three tubs of ice cream after she served him and her husband a "strange" milkshake in her Parkview flat, the Court of First Instance was told yesterday. Andrew Tanzer yesterday described his first encounter with Robert Peter Kissel and his family on the fateful Sunday of November 2, 2003 - hours before the top American banker at Merrill Lynch was allegedly murdered by his wife. It was also the day when the deceased intended to discuss a divorce with his wife, the court heard.

    The encounter began, Mr Tanzer said, when he and his seven-year-old daughter were stopped by the accused in her Mercedes while they were about to take a taxi at Parkview to travel to the United Jewish Congregation (UJC) in Mid-Levels. He said Kissel, also on her way to the UJC, offered them a ride after noticing his daughter carrying a schoolbag bearing the logo of the congregation's Sunday school. At the UJC, Mr Tanzer was introduced to the deceased and his children. His "sociable" daughter, recognising that the Kissels' eldest daughter, June, was also from Parkview, urged him to arrange for them to play together later. He recalled having a friendly conversation with Mr Kissel for almost an hour while their daughters were playing in the Kissels' flat that afternoon. He said he asked the deceased for a glass of water. June and his daughter later came out of the kitchen with two identical glasses of milkshake for him and Mr Kissel.

    "It was a strange milkshake - fairly heavy, sweet, thickened ... with banana taste, crushed cookies, reddish, which I guess was from some strawberries or flavouring," he told government prosecutor Peter Chapman. "I have never drunk something like this before." Mr Tanzer said he found it odd that the defendant never came out to talk to him. Only once had she popped her head out of the kitchen, when they were drinking the milkshake. "I asked what was in it. She mentioned something like: It was a secret recipe," he said.

    Shortly after returning to his flat at about 4pm, the witness said he blacked out and fell asleep. "I have not had such an experience ever before then or since then," he said. He had felt quite disoriented the next morning because he could not recall what had happened since 4pm the day before, even though he had not drunk alcohol that day.

    His wife, Kazuko Ouchi, said yesterday she felt something was wrong when her husband returned home with a "very red face". "His eyes were not focused and he was not talking as usual ... Alcohol couldn't be a reason because he doesn't turn red with alcohol," she said, adding that she had thought about calling an ambulance. Ms Ouchi said her husband told her he had taken nothing but "a milkshake made by June's mother" when she asked if he was ill. She hit his cheeks and shouted when she realised he was falling asleep. "He couldn't lift himself up. I tried to [get] him up. But his body didn't move," she said.

    When he woke at about 7pm, Ms Ouchi said he ate three tubs of ice cream in a "bizarre way ... like a baby ... with ice-cream dripping all over the place. "I couldn't imagine how much ice-cream he ate. I have never seen him behaving like this."

    Robin Egerton, a family lawyer, told the court the deceased had told him his wife was "committing adultery" when he first consulted him about possible separation arrangements in late August 2003. Mr Kissel had said his wife was "unfazed" when he showed her bills with details of her phone calls to her alleged lover in the US. Mr Egerton said the deceased told him at a second meeting two days before his death that he was going to discuss arrangements about separation with his wife on the afternoon of November 2, 2003.

    A written witness statement from Fung Yuet-seung, an assistant in a clinic on Icehouse Street, indicated that the defendant was prescribed tablets of Stilnox, Lorivan and Amitriptyline on her visit in October 30, 2003. The drugs were also found in the deceased's stomach, according to government laboratory tests.

    The defendant has pleaded not guilty to murdering her husband, whose body was found rolled up in a carpet in a Parkview storeroom in November 2003.

    The case continues today.

    Update June 16th

    * The Standard: Kissel breaks down in court.
    * The SCMP:

    The wife of a top American banker ordered her maid not to clean the master bedroom and sent her on a series of unusual errands - including buying a nylon rope and clearing out a storeroom - in the days after she allegedly murdered her husband, the Court of First Instance was told yesterday.

    Maximina Macaraeg, one of two domestic helpers working for the family of Robert Peter Kissel, said Nancy Ann Kissel told her to skip the couple's bedroom when she was about to start her daily cleaning of the luxury Parkview flat on November 3, 2003. "The door to the master bedroom was closed... She told me to just leave it," said Ms Macaraeg. Kissel, 40, has pleaded not guilty to murdering her husband on or about November 2, 2003. The prosecution alleges she served him a drugged milkshake before bludgeoning him to death that Sunday.

    The maid, who had worked for the Kissels since 2000, also recalled last seeing Robert Kissel at a Parkview car park shortly after 5pm on that Sunday. When Ms Macaraeg returned to the flat about an hour later, she saw the door of the master bedroom slightly ajar, the court heard. She said Kissel told her to tell the children to be quiet because their father "was sleeping in the room". The helper said Kissel told her she burnt herself on the oven when she asked about a bandage on her right hand on the following Tuesday. The accused again ordered her not to clean the master bedroom. "She told me they had a fight. Mr Kissel left the house and is staying in a hotel," Ms Macaraeg said.

    On Wednesday morning while tending to the Kissels' youngest son, Ms Macaraeg said Kissel "all of a sudden" ordered her to take out all the boxes from a storeroom she rented in another block in Parkview and put them in the corridor. The body of her husband, who worked for banking giant Merrill Lynch, was found rolled up in a carpet in that storeroom in November 2003.

    The accused then sent her to the Adventist Hospital to buy a Velcro belt, saying her ribs were hurting. When she returned to the flat, Kissel sent her out to a hardware store in Stanley to buy rope. She bought a piece of red-and-white bundled nylon the width of a little finger. Closed-circuit TV images played to the jury yesterday showed a woman, identified by the maid as Kissel, entering and exiting her flat numerous times on November 3. Images captured at about 2am showed Kissel going down to the car park and taking the lift back up to the flat in less than 15 minutes. It also showed her carrying a rug and a big suitcase in two separate instances that afternoon.

    Samantha Kriegel, a friend of the accused, told the court Kissel called her on November 6 and asked if she could take over a fund-raising event she had been organising for the United Jewish Congregation. "She was very distraught ... she said she was dealing with issues about Robert's health," she said. She had met the defendant's father, Ira Keeshin, who she thought had just arrived from the US, during her brief visit to the Kissels' flat that morning to pick up the invitation cards for the event. "She looked terrible ... and seemed like she has been under lots of stress." Ms Kriegel said Kissel had asked her on the phone not to mention her husband's situation while in the flat for fear that "she will breakdown in front of the children". Kissel, who has often been expressionless during the trial, was in tears when the witness left the court.

    The case continues today.

    Update June 17th

    * The Standard: Murder suspect 'could not forgive,; maid tells court.
    * SCMP:

    The four-year-old son of top American banker Robert Peter Kissel had no idea that his father's corpse was being carried past as he held open the door of the family's Parkview apartment so four workmen could wheel out a "smelly" rolled up carpet, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Maximina Macaraeg, a domestic helper for the family, told the court the boy, the youngest of the three Kissel children, groaned from the smell when the men from Parkview's housekeeping office pushed their old carpet out on a trolley on the afternoon of November 5, 2003.

    "It seemed that he smelled something funny. I pulled him [to me] and said: `Come here.' As I pulled him, I also smelled [something] smelly," she said. Testifying on the eighth day of a 40-day jury trial, Ms Macaraeg said that defendant Nancy Ann Kissel had ordered her to tell the workmen to move items, including the carpet, her husband's golf clubs and a cabinet in the master bedroom, to a storeroom she rented two blocks away. The defendant had told the maid she was tired and would retire to her bedroom when the workmen came.

    The prosecution witness said the head workman asked her "why was it that the carpet ... was smelly?" when he returned with the key of the storeroom after finishing the job...Ms Macaraeg recalled she was admiring the two new carpets she found in the living room on the morning of November 5 when she saw the old carpet - which used to cover the floor of the living room - rolled up behind the couch. "When I saw it, I felt uncomfortable. Because I wanted to get rid of the bad feeling, I asked her: `What was that?'" Ms Macaraeg said. Kissel told her pillows and bed sheets were wrapped in the rug.

    But the maid said she did not believe her because the old carpet roll was "so big". The maid said she called the other helper at the house, Connie, and told her that "Mrs Kissel might have done something wrong to Mr Kissel". The defendant had earlier told her that the deceased had an argument with her and was staying in a hotel. The witness was asked to identify a large number of items seized from cardboard boxes in the flat, including the metal ornament alleged by the prosecution to be the murder weapon. The object had a base about 15cm wide with two needles sticking up and two detached figurines of two girls kneeling in their dresses.

    Ms Macaraeg said the ornament, which was also examined by Mr Justice Michael Lunn and the seven jury members, was originally placed on top of the cabinet in the master bedroom.

    The helper yesterday described Kissel as a "good woman" with a "hot temper". "If you made a mistake, she would bang the door or whatever she sees," she said. But Ms Macaraeg said the defendant's temper only emerged in early 2002. She also observed a change in the couple's relationship, saying there was no more "sweetness" between them in early 2003.

    The witness agreed when Gary Plowman SC, for the defence, asked her if she thought Kissel was more generous to Connie, who had worked for the family longer, than to her. She refused to look directly at Mr Plowman all the way through yesterday's cross-examination, even at the request of the counsel.

    Ms Macaraeg was also shown the contents of the boxes in photos, including blood-stained bed sheets and towels. But she refused to look at the pictures of the face of the deceased.

    The case continues today.

    Update June 18th

    * The Standard: Victim's home wide open, court hears.
    * The SCMP:

    A maid working for Nancy Ann Kissel yesterday denied telling police that Kissel had said, a day after she allegedly murdered her husband, that he had "hit and assaulted" her. Maximina Macaraeg told the Court of First Instance that the defendant only told her she had had "an argument" with her husband, and that the master bedroom was not to be cleaned.

    Defence counsel Gary Plowman SC asked the witness why she had said in signed statements on November 7 and November 18, 2003, that "in the morning, Nancy told me she was hit and assaulted by Robert". The maid apologised and said she had not read the written statements properly before signing them. "That is my mistake, sir. I did not read them because the police hurried us," she said.

    Ms Macaraeg also denied knowing that Nancy Kissel had broken ribs - as recorded in one of her earlier written statements - when she sent Ms Macaraeg to the Adventist Hospital to buy a Velcro belt for her on November 5, 2003. She told the court yesterday that her employer said only that her back was hurting. Mr Plowman asked her if Robert Peter Kissel was a strong person who liked to be in control of his family. Ms Macaraeg replied that he would discipline his children if they misbehaved. But she said he would never harm them.

    Asked by Mr Plowman if the deceased would also discipline his wife, the helper said: "Possible."...Cross-examining Ms Macaraeg on the ninth day of the sensational trial, Mr Plowman asked her if she had noticed that the defendant had a black eye and was wearing dark glasses some time around September and October, 2003. The witness said she had not noticed it.

    Mr Plowman also asked if she remembered Kissel wearing a Velcro belt some time in 2001. She said she did not see the belt, although the defendant had told her she broke her ribs after playing tennis at Aberdeen Marina Club at that time. She also remembered that her employer was limping with an injured ankle after the family returned from a vacation in Phuket. Otherwise, she said, she could not recall seeing any injuries on Kissel since she started working for the family in early 2000. The witness said she knew nothing about the deceased's drinking habits.

    A sense of tension was revealed yesterday as the witness told the court how she detected a change of attitude on the defendant's part, starting from 2002. "I was not happy because her attitude was bad," she said. At one point around April that year, the maid said she decided to leave her job, but the defendant had said she could not. "I stayed in my room for five days, not doing anything. I kept waiting," she said. In the end, the deceased persuaded her to stay.

    The defence counsel revealed yesterday that the metal ornament alleged by the prosecution to have been the murder weapon had been inherited by Kissel from her grandmother. Ms Macaraeg also told the court that many people walked in and out of the Parkview apartment after November 6, 2003. She said the police did not seal off the flat but only told her not go to the master bedroom.

    The case will continue on Monday.

    Update June 21st

    * The Standard: Stressed banker 'beat wife'
    * SCMP: "Court told of drug-fuelled assault on Kissel"

    Nancy Kissel told one of her maids that cocaine, alcohol, power and money had driven her banker husband to assault her on the day she allegedly murdered him, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Conchita Macaraeg said Kissel showed her bruises and cuts on November 4, 2003, and told her she had had a fight with her husband two days earlier. Kissel, 40, is accused of bludgeoning Robert Peter Kissel, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, to death after serving him a drugged milkshake in November 2, 2003.

    She has pleaded not guilty to murder.

    "Mrs Kissel said Mr Kissel assaulted her, was very drunk and he was under the drug cocaine," Ms Macaraeg, the second domestic helper to give evidence, said. "She also said Mr Kissel kicked her ribs," said Ms Macaraeg, a Filipino who had worked for the family since 1998 and is sister-in-law to helper Maximina Macaraeg, who gave evidence last week. When she asked Kissel why her husband would assault her, "she said it was because of his work. He had a lot of stress. She also said it was because of power and money". Kissel also told her that her husband was probably staying in a hotel, the maid said.

    The victim's body was found wrapped in a carpet in the storeroom at Parkview, the Tai Tam development where the Kissels lived.

    Ms Macaraeg said that on the morning of November 5 she noticed the living room carpet was rolled up behind the couch. She asked Kissel: "How did you manage to roll it by yourself when you told me last night your ribs were very painful?" Kissel had replied that she had asked for help. The helper said she told the deceased's colleague David Noh of the "unusual events" and asked him to report the matter to the police as a missing person case.

    After the conversation with Kissel, Ms Macaraeg went as instructed to buy towels and a bed cover for the master bedroom. "She told me she used a new [bed cover] because the old one reminded her of Mr Kissel and it made her very lonely." The head of a group of workmen called to the flat about 2pm that day, Chow Yiu-kwong, told the court of a smell "like salt fish" when they moved the carpet to a storeroom two blocks away. "When I squatted down to carry the carpet, I smelt something like what Chinese people eat - salt fish," Mr Chow said. His three colleagues from the Parkview housekeeping office also noticed a "strange smell" as they moved the carpet on trolleys, along with the deceased's golf bag, a cabinet, a piece of white flimsy paper and a few cartons.

    Mr Chow said his group was received by a Filipino maid. But when he returned after completing the task, a foreign woman of medium build and golden hair opened the door and asked him if everything was alright. "I told her a smell came from the carpet. But she acted as if nothing had happened and then she said goodbye and closed the door," he said.

    Ms Macaraeg was asked by government prosecutor Peter Chapman about the alleged affair between Kissel and Michael del Priore, a TV repairman, when the family stayed in Vermont, United States, in the summer of 2003. The maid said Mr del Priore started visiting to fix their sound system in May when the victim was there. In July, after the deceased returned to Hong Kong, Ms Macaraeg said Kissel told her Mr del Priore was bringing his daughter to play with her children. When "Michael and Mrs Kissel were together, she would tell me to go down and watch the children play", she said. The repairman was still with Kissel when Ms Macaraeg and the children retired to bed at about 10pm.

    The maid also recalled another time in July when Mr del Priore visited at night to fix their telephone lines. She said she was woken about 11pm by Kissel's daughter, who slept with the accused, who said she could not find her mother.

    The trial continues today.

    Update June 22nd

    * The Standard: Maid defends slain banker.
    * SCMP: Kissel maid quizzed on daughter's broken arm:

    The defence in the Robert Kissel murder case sought to paint a picture of the top banker as a fierce disciplinarian - questioning a family maid yesterday about how the Kissels' daughter came to suffer a broken arm while on holiday.
    Gary Plowman SC, counsel for Nancy Ann Kissel - who denies murdering her husband - asked Conchita Macaraeg whether it was true that the deceased had pulled his toddler daughter June's arm twice to quiet her down, shortly before she was sent to hospital with a broken elbow during a family holiday in Phuket at Christmas 1999...Mr Plowman contended that the child and the Kissels' elder daughter, Elaine, were jumping around in the bedroom of a villa at the Sheraton Laguna Hotel after the family returned from dinner.

    "I suggest that ... Mr Kissel received a mobile phone call and he asked his wife Nancy to tell the children to keep quiet so he could take the call. Because Mr Kissel was having difficulty with his mobile phone, he went into the bedroom and pulled June off the bed to tell her to behave herself and stop making noises," said the counsel. Mr Plowman asked whether it was true that June burst into tears and went looking for her mother and that as the defendant was asking her daughter what had happened, Kissel had pulled June by the arm again. "I suggest that there was an argument between Mr and Mrs Kissel about his rough handling of the children. Mrs Kissel accused her husband of being responsible [for what happened to their daughter]," counsel said.

    Ms Macaraeg said Mr Plowman's version of events that day was wrong. The Filipino maid said June's elbow had been broken by Elaine, who is now nine, repeatedly jumping on her sister, now aged six, while they were playing and watching television in the living room of the villa. Ms Macaraeg said that the incident happened in the morning rather than after dinner. She also insisted the couple had not been there when June got hurt and that she had not heard them arguing about the injury. "What I know is that all of us panicked when June was crying ... and Mr Kissel told Elaine: `It's okay. It is an accident'," the prosecution witness said.

    The maid agreed that the couple sometimes argued because the deceased took a firmer line than his wife in disciplining their children, and that the victim was a disciplinarian whereas the accused was "not so much" a disciplinarian. "Did Nancy believe that Robert Kissel was rough in the way he handled the children?" Mr Plowman asked. Ms Macaraeg said she did not know.

    Asked about her knowledge of the deceased's drinking habits, the maid said she had not seen him drinking whisky. She said she could only recall once finding a crystal whisky tumbler in the kitchen sink on any morning in September or October 2003, and that the glass was cracked. She said Kissel had explained to her later that he had miscalculated when he put the glass in the sink without switching on the light the previous evening. Counsel asked her why she had told the defendant's solicitor in an interview in December 2003 that she would find a whisky glass in the sink of the Parkview flat two mornings a week during the period in question. "I don't remember saying this," she replied.

    The Court of First Instance also heard yesterday that the accused bought 10 tablets of Rohypnol - known as the date-rape drug - on November 4, 2003.

    The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

    Update June 23rd

    * The Standard: Trial told of 'turning point'
    * SCMP: "Wife said 'you'll pay for this', court told:

    Robert Peter Kissel told a friend that his wife Nancy had warned him "you will pay for that" after the wealthy banker pushed her aside in the middle of a heated argument, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. David Noh, a close friend and colleague of Robert Kissel at Merrill Lynch, said the incident had marked the "turning point" in the couple's relationship in the mind of the banker, whose wife is on trial for murdering her husband.

    Recalling what Robert Kissel had told him, Mr Noh said: "They had a disagreement. Nancy kept yelling at Rob ... He shoved her aside. She then said to him: `You will never live that down'." Asked by the prosecutor to elaborate, Mr Noh said the deceased told him Nancy had said: "You will pay for that." He could not recall when the incident took place, but said it "pinpointed when things started to go wrong".

    Mr Noh worked under Robert Kissel in early 2000 at Goldman Sachs in a team that purchased assets of companies facing bankruptcy. The two moved to Merrill Lynch in August 2000, where Robert Kissel became Asia-Pacific managing director of global principal products and Mr Noh was second-in-command...Mr Noh said Robert Kissel had sounded "bizarre" during their last contact - a 10-minute telephone conversation about 5pm on November 2, 2003. Mr Noh said he was talking about real estate prices while the banker kept talking about export growth.

    "Rob was on a different tangent. He said he was sleepy and tired ... He sounded sometimes slurred in his speech and very mellow. I had to stop him," he said. "Being his good friend, I made fun of him," he added. During the call, the deceased also told the witness about his intention to discuss divorce with his wife that evening, the court was told. As a result, when the deceased did not show up for a conference call as planned at 7.30pm the same day, Mr Noh said he thought his boss was still in the middle of the discussion with his wife.

    After Robert Kissel failed to attend an important meeting the following day, Mr Noh said he phoned him a few times until he eventually reached Nancy Kissel. "She told me they had some family issues and Rob would call me back soon," he said. She gave him a similar reply on November 5, the court heard. Mr Noh said he made a missing person report at the Western police station on November 6, 2003.

    He said yesterday the victim's primary concern in any divorce had been access to his three children. "He said he would give Nancy as much money as she needs to keep her lifestyle - even if it meant bringing her boyfriend to Hong Kong - so that he could see his children on weekends." Mr Noh said he first learnt from the deceased about the couple's marriage problems in May 2003.

    The banker had lost hope in the marriage after he found phone bills - allegedly showing frequent contacts between the accused and her lover in Vermont, US - in her handbag in late September, Mr Noh said.

    The hearing before Mr Justice Michael Lunn continues.

    Update June 25th

    * The Standard: Police 'misled' Kissel on purpose of interview
    * The SCMP: Kissel denied she rented storeroom, officer tells court

    Nancy Kissel denied having rented a storeroom at her luxury estate, Parkview, where she allegedly hid the body of her American banker husband rolled up in a carpet, the Court of First Instance heard yesterday. Yuen Shing-kit, formerly chief inspector of crime at Western District police station, said Kissel answered "no" when his teammate and officer in charge of the case, See Kwok-tak, asked if she had rented a storeroom in the Tai Tam residential complex shortly after 10pm on November 6, 2003.

    Inspector See then told Kissel the police had confirmed with Parkview's management on an earlier visit on the same day that she had rented a storeroom and asked if she had the key, he told the court. The accused said no again and asked to talk in private to her father, Ira Keeshin, who arrived a day before from Chicago according to immigration records. Mr Yuen said Mr Keeshin suddenly jumped up with his palms on both sides of his head, saying "oh my God, I don't believe it" a few times while walking towards the officers.

    "At that time, I looked at Mrs Kissel. I saw her sobbing ... shuddering more severely than the first time [when we entered the flat]," Mr Yuen said. "I sensed something unusual." The accused eventually handed over three keys to the officers after they told her father they had search warrants, the prosecution witness said. He then invited Kissel to go to the storeroom with his team. "She refused to go and said she would never go there," he said. Mr Yuen said he saw a big roll of carpet covered by a plastic sheet, a bag of golf clubs and some furniture when his team entered the storeroom. "I smelt a strong smell, [which] according to my experience was [from] a dead body," he said.

    A pathologist cut open the wrappings of the carpet and inserted his hand into the roll and confirmed he could feel a human head at 2.15am on November 7, 2003...

    Alexander King SC, for the defence, argued yesterday that Mr Keeshin said "oh my God, it can't be" instead of "oh my God, I don't believe it". He also suggested that Mr Yuen had told Mr Keeshin "I have children as well" in a show of sympathy after telling him "I am fairly confident we know what happened". But the prosecution witness said that was not the case. Mr King also argued that by the time police arrived at the front door of the apartment, they had already known they were investigating a murder, rather than a missing person case, and that Kissel was a suspect.

    He said police had already acquired information from David Noh, a colleague and close friend of the deceased, about a large, smelly carpet in the storeroom when he reported the banker was missing to the Western District police station at about 4pm on November 6. The court also heard yesterday that the warrants issued by the magistrate had mentioned an investigation of a potential murder.

    Mr Yuen said "correct" when the defence counsel asked him to confirm that his team had "at no time" cautioned the defendant while they were in her apartment on November 6. But he justified the failure to do so by arguing that murder was only one of a number of possibilities he had in mind at the time.

    The case continues before Mr Justice Michael Lunn on Monday.

    Update 28th June

    * The Standard: Defense pounces on 'unfair police'
    * ESWN has a couple of translations of Chinese press reports of the case.
    * SCMP: Officer denies bid to trick murder suspect:

    A defence counsel for Nancy Kissel accused a senior police inspector of "playing cat-and-mouse" with him yesterday after the officer repeatedly denied having tried to trick the murder suspect by pretending to be investigating a case of assault and a missing person when questioning her at her Parkview flat. Alexander King SC argued in the Court of First Instance that police already had reasonable grounds to suspect his client had killed her banker husband, Robert Peter Kissel, when they rang the doorbell of her luxury Tai Tam apartment after 10pm on November 6, 2003. Mr King said Kissel had never been cautioned or told of her right to silence during the officers' visit, which followed her report to Aberdeen police that her husband had assaulted her and a missing person report filed by Robert Kissel's colleague, David Noh, to Western District police the same day.

    See Kwok-tak, the officer in charge of the case, said suspicions that Kissel had killed her husband were "not that great". Mr King asked why, if the senior inspector was investigating an assault case, he had not paid any attention to Kissel's description in the master bedroom about how her husband had beaten her up. Mr See said it was partly because Chief Inspector Yuen Shing-kit, who was also in the bedroom, was listening to the defendant. The second reason was his attention was drawn to the "abnormal" situation of the room, which he said was in disarray, with clothes and boxes everywhere and many travel bags in the bathtub of the adjacent en-suite bathroom.

    Mr King asked the prosecution witness "whether the little suspicion you had about a murder, upon your entry to the bedroom, ignited into a very big and real suspicion that you are now investigating a murder?" "It was not that certain it was a murder case. But ... there were a lot of question marks," said Senior Inspector See, adding that the scene in the bedroom had prompted his decision to find out quickly what was in a storeroom at the Parkview estate. The court heard the witness had learned from estate staff during his first visit to Parkview earlier that day that the defendant had hired workers to carry a heavy, smelly carpet to a storeroom.

    "You are just playing around with me ... like a cat playing with a mouse," Mr King told the witness...Mr King asked why Senior Inspector See had to return to the Western District police station instead of going straight to Kissel's apartment on November 6 after talking to the management staff.

    The witness said he had to apply for search warrants before returning and that his team was concerned Kissel might not let them into the storeroom without a warrant. He also told the court yesterday he discovered that Kissel's laptop computer had gone missing when he returned to the apartment on November 12. Asked by government prosecutor Peter Chapman how he eventually recovered the computer, Senior Inspector See said it was given to his subordinate by a lawyer representing Kissel.

    The witness also described how a colleague vomited after discovering stinking, blood-stained towels in a black plastic bag in Kissel's daughters' room.

    The trial continues today.

    Hi Jen.

    Update 29th June

    * The Standard: Kissel defense challenges police over arrest notes.
    * SCMP: Omissions were my mistake: constable

    A constable told the Court of First Instance yesterday that it had been her mistake not to record possibly vital evidence from a conversation between Nancy Kissel and police in the hours leading to her arrest for the bludgeoning death of her husband.
    Ng Yuk-ying, attached to Western police station, said Senior Inspector See Kwong-tak had told her to take notes of the interview in the Kissels' luxury Parkview flat after 10pm on November 6, 2003. At the time, they were investigating missing-person and assault cases. Constable Ng had been told Kissel had alleged she had been assaulted by her husband, Robert Peter Kissel.

    But Alexander King SC, for the defence, argued that the officers were trying to mislead his client because they believed at that time that the case was one of murder. He pointed out yesterday that nowhere in her three written records - two notebooks and her statement taken in November 2003 - did Constable Ng mention that the investigation on that day was related to an assault. "It was my mistake. I forgot to record that into my police notebook as well as my notepad," Constable Ng said. In her statement, Constable Ng wrote that on arrival at the apartment, Chief Inspector Yuen Shing-kit explained to Kissel "the purpose of the visit [was that] we were investigating a missing-person case".

    "Would you agree that it was a mistake you made not once, but three times?" asked Mr King. "Yes," Constable Ng replied....Mr King asked Constable Ng why none of her notes could verify her claim that Kissel had asked for a lawyer after Mr See, the officer in charge of the case, showed Kissel search warrants and that she had said "no" when asked if she had the keys to the storeroom. "I did not write down each and every word on my record," she replied.

    Mr King asked why she had referred to Kissel as "AP" - police terminology for "arrested person" - twice in the part of her notes relating to incidents that occurred around 11.30pm, more than three hours before Kissel was cautioned and arrested. Constable Ng said she had written it incorrectly and the second "AP" actually meant "accompanied her". "I wrote too fast, I made a mistake," she said.

    Mr King suggested to Constable Ng that Kissel said repeatedly "He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop", and later on, "Make sure the children are okay", after some officers left the flat to search the storeroom. But she disagreed. Constable Ng said she had heard Kissel's father, Ira Keeshin, say "My God, I don't believe it" four to five times in the flat but had not recorded it. "That surprised me and I had forgotten to write that sentence down," she said. The witness told prosecutor Peter Chapman she had been able to take more-complete notes of the first part of the conversation because they were speaking slowly.

    The court also heard, in a written statement by Senior Inspector Wong Po-yan, that Mr Keeshin had asked for photographs to be taken of his daughter's injuries when she was treated at Queen Elizabeth Hospital after the arrest. But the witness said Mr Keeshin changed his mind after talking to defence lawyers on the afternoon of November 7.

    The case continues today.

    Update June 29th

    * SCMP: Kissel jurors endure bloody stench:

    Jurors at Nancy Kissel's murder trial endured a stomach-churning day yesterday as the prosecution paraded a large number of blood-stained items seized at the alleged crime scene. The items were taken from the master bedroom of the Parkview flat Kissel shared with her husband and included a large white pillow half soaked in blood.

    A strong stench spread from the tiny court storeroom next to the public gallery as police officers removed trial exhibits for Cheung Tseung-sin, the constable tasked with collecting physical evidence from the Parkview premises, to identify. At one point, an officer had to close the door of the storeroom to stop the smell from spreading. Prosecutor Polly Wan asked officers to show the witness contents of the four black plastic bags retrieved from the bedroom of the accused's two daughters in November 2003.

    Most of the items, including two white pillows, two pillow cases, two towels, three bed sheets, a duvet, a T-shirt and nine pieces of tissue paper, were splattered with blood that had turned brown. The exhibits, examined by government chemists and stored in transparent plastic bags, are alleged to have originated from the master bedroom of the luxury apartment...Senior Inspector See Kwong-tak, officer-in-charge of the case, had said earlier in cross-examination that the smell in one of the bags was so bad that his colleague immediately vomited in the flat when it was first discovered.

    The defendant lowered her head as most of the blood-stained objects were carried across the courtroom for the witness, counsels, the judge and the jurors to examine. The deceased's father, William Kissel, was in apparent grief and held his head in his hands throughout the ordeal, refusing to look at any of the objects. The stench had by this time become so intense that some police officers, members of the jury and the public gallery had to cover their mouths and noses with their hands. Officers said they had done all they could to remove the smell before the exhibits were presented in court yesterday.

    The portrayal of the alleged murder scene was continued by Senior Constable Chong Yam-hoi, following Constable Cheung's testimony in the afternoon. Constable Chong, asked yesterday to identify a series of photographs taken at the flat, told the court that the close-up shots revealed blood stains were found on the wall, floor, a cabinet and on photo frames in the master bedroom. The court also heard that samples of the deceased's hair, stomach, penis, nails and anus were tested in a government laboratory. Government chemists and forensics officers are expected to testify in the next two weeks.

    The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

    Another reason to try avoiding jury duty.

    Update 1st July

    * SCMP: Kissel defence queries 'white powder':

    Nancy Kissel's defence counsel drew the attention of the Court of First Instance yesterday to photos showing what he believed to be "white powder" on the carpet of the Parkview bedroom in which she allegedly murdered her husband.
    Chong Yam-hoi, the senior police constable assigned to collect physical evidence, said forensics officer Tam Chi-ching had told him on November 7, 2003, to cut a square of the bedroom's bloodstained carpet for analysis. Photographs taken by another officer that day and identified by the witness yesterday revealed a bloodstain between the bed and the chest of drawers.

    Alexander King SC, for the defence, asked Constable Chong who had decided on the size of the carpet sample. He said he had not been given instructions on size. Mr King then directed him to look at one of the photos showing the carpet. "Can you see white powder on the carpet?" he asked. The constable said he was not sure. Mr King pointed out that on November 7 the photographer had taken shots of the master bedroom before moving to the kitchen. He asked the officer why the photographer had returned to the bedroom afterwards to take two more shots before moving to other areas of the Tai Tam flat. Constable Chong said there was no special reason.

    The defence counsel drew the witness's attention to another photograph taken of the bedroom carpet during his investigation on November 8 and asked him again if he could see "what appeared to be white powder on the floor".

    "I don't know if it was powder," Constable Chong said...The court has heard Kissel told her domestic helper her husband attacked her under the influence of cocaine and alcohol after she refused to have sex on November 2. When asked yesterday who decided what to seize in the flat on November 8, Constable Chong said he was acting on the instructions of Senior Inspector See Kwong-tak and a government chemist. He could not recall seeing two bloodstains on a pair of brown knee-length boots in the bedroom.

    His team had not seized a green travel case in the master bedroom's bathroom or a car key kept in a small box in the kitchen as seen in photos Mr King showed him. Forensic officer Mak Chung-hung told the court he was called to assist the investigation of the Parkview storeroom in Tower 15 of the complex in the early hours of November 7. He said he measured the heavy, stinking carpet roll which was lying on the floor and found it was 205cm long, 60cm wide and 45cm high. There were four seat cushions on top of the carpet which had been bound tightly with adhesive tape.

    The court heard earlier from a police officer that the deceased's body had been covered with towels and his head put in a black plastic bag which was tied with blue, nylon string. He had then been placed in his daughter's sleeping bag, which had been stuffed with more towels and plastic bags before being rolled up in the carpet.

    The case continues on Monday.


    * The Standard: Policeman quizzed about snaps taken in Kissel flat.

    Update July 5th

    * The Standard: Blood stains spattered around bedroom
    * SCMP:

    Blood was spattered across at least three sides of the spacious master bedroom in the flat in which Nancy Kissel allegedly bludgeoned her husband to death, a scientific evidence officer told the Court of First Instance yesterday. Tam Chi-ching, the government laboratory expert who was called to examine the bedroom with police officers on November 7, 2003, said he identified tiny blood spots on a photo frame placed on the left side of the head of the bed, one side of a wardrobe, the outer wall of the en suite bathroom, a cabinet near the foot of the bed and a television set on top of the cabinet.

    Asked by prosecutor Peter Chapman how many blood spots could be seen on the television set, Mr Tam said: "The whole screen." He also told the court a surface of the cabinet under the TV was also covered with blood spots. The witness said that even as he was in the corridor walking towards the master bedroom of the luxury Parkview flat in Tai Tam, he smelt a foul smell similar to that of a decomposing body.

    ...Mr Tam also recalled finding a piece of green carpet at one end of the bed. When he lifted it, he discovered another carpet underneath with a stain that looked like blood. The result of a chemical test he conducted at the scene confirmed it was blood, he said. A bloodstain was found on the bed when Mr Tam lifted a green bedcover and white quilt. Similar stains were found on a pillow, he said. He recommended that officers seize the quilt and pillow.

    Mr Tam told jurors he found bloodstains and rubbing marks on the headboard of the bed. He also found some "dirty stains" on the tailboard and observed that a small part of the cloth covering it had been cut. "According to the spread of bloodstains [in the master bedroom], I was of the view that someone had been attacked," he said. He then told police to cordon off the room and asked a government chemist to attend the scene to conduct a blood pattern analysis.

    When asked by defence counsel Alexander King SC how many areas had been tested that day, Mr Tam said only the carpet near the foot of the bed had been tested. The court also heard from another prosecution witness yesterday that the day after the bedroom investigation, police went to the car park of the Parkview development to search a Porsche car used by the deceased. Constable Chan Ping-kong, of Western police station, said his team found four books of insurance policies in a storage area under the car's bonnet.

    He said two of the policies were under the name of the defendant, while the other two were under the name of the deceased. Evidence emerged earlier that the defendant was the beneficiary or primary beneficiary of three life insurance policies worth a total of US$5 million that her husband held with a New York-based insurance company, as well as two Merrill Lynch life insurance policies with a total value of US$1.75 million.

    The hearing continues before Mr Justice Michael Lunn today.

    Update July 7th

    The case has been postponed until Monday.

    Update July 12th

    * The Standard: Banker did not put up a struggle, murder trial told.
    * SCMP:

    There was no sign that Robert Peter Kissel put up a vigorous struggle when he allegedly was bludgeoned to death by his wife at the foot of their bed, jurors heard yesterday. But government chemist Lun Tze-shan was challenged by counsel for Nancy Kissel on why he had consciously omitted analysing samples from two bloodstains found near the head of the bed.

    The chemist was called to analyse bloodstains in the bedroom of the Kissels' Parkview flat on November 8, 2003, six days after Nancy Kissel is alleged to have murdered her husband, a senior Merrill Lynch banker. She has pleaded not guilty. Mr Lun told the Court of First Instance the fatal attack could have happened at a low position in the space between the end of the bed and cabinets in the bedroom.

    Identifying blood splatters or spots in seven areas of the bedroom from the photos he and his colleague took during their visit, Mr Lun explained that five of the stained areas - a TV screen, two cabinets, a brown paper bag and the rim of a wardrobe - were all at a low level around the foot of the bed. The remaining two areas - a framed painting and part of the wall below it - were near the head of the bed. DNA tests conducted on the blood samples seized from these areas showed they probably came from the deceased, he said.

    Mr Lun said there was no sign of a vigorous struggle.

    In the event of a struggle, "blood from the wounds of either of them would come into contact with furniture or the wall", Mr Lun said, and the stains would usually be "flattened out". But he had found no such bloodstains...Mr Lun said he believed the deceased was attacked when he was sitting or lying at a low position since there were no bloodstains higher on the walls or ceiling.

    Defence counsel Alexander King SC asked Mr Lun why he had not mentioned in his report bloodstains found on a dehumidifier and a picture frame leaning against the wall on the floor near the bed head. Mr Lun said he noticed the stains but felt it was not necessary to record them and had not done a DNA analysis on them. "You made a conscious decision of not reporting the finding?" the defence counsel asked.

    Mr Lun said he could already establish that blood was splashed from above on to the wall from two other bloodstains on the hanging picture and the part of the wall immediately below it.

    The case continues before Mr Justice Michael Lunn today.

    Kisselbedroom.jpg


    Update 13th June

    * The Standard: Kissel crime scene expert sticks to guns under fire.
    * SCMP:

    The basis on which a witness made his bloodstain pattern analysis in the master bedroom of Nancy Kissel's Parkview flat was "fundamentally flawed" because he had failed to locate a number of possible bloodstains and signs of wiped-off blood, defence counsel Alexander King SC told jurors yesterday. Mr King argued that the government chemist, Lun Tze-shan, had deprived Kissel of a fair trial by destroying notes he made during his three-hour investigation of the room on November 8, 2003, six days after she allegedly murdered her husband, Robert Peter Kissel.

    Dr Lun, who was asked yesterday to identify photographs taken by a scientific evidence officer, agreed that most revealed what appeared to be bloodstains in the bedroom. But when asked why he did not record them with his other bloodstain findings in his report, he replied he could not recall, or, in some cases, it was unnecessary. The bloodstain locations he allegedly missed included the wall separating the en-suite bathroom and bedroom, the door, a pair of dumb bells and a piece of cardboard near the bed head, and the wooden frame of a wardrobe...

    Dr Lun said one of the photos revealed "possibly two blood smears" on the wardrobe and the wall near the foot of the bed. He could not rule out the possibility they were caused by a struggle. On Monday, Dr Lun said there was no sign the deceased had put up a vigorous struggle when allegedly attacked at the foot of the bed.

    "Is it true the failure of locating one or two bloodstains could lead an expert to an erroneous or flawed conclusion?" Mr King asked yesterday. "It could be," said Dr Lun. But he disagreed with Mr King's allegation that the basis of his analysis was fundamentally flawed. Dr Lun, who had said it was unlikely an elongated object had been used, clarified yesterday that he could only say "an elongated weapon was not used after it had blood on it" - since it would cast off blood, which he could not find.

    He said he was not aware bedding had been changed and a cabinet, two chairs and an armchair had been moved from the room before his inspection. He had no idea the flat had been handed back to the family before his second inquiry in the room on November 12. Dr Lun said that shortly before his retirement in June last year, he destroyed a notebook containing notes he made during the November 8 inspection. Asked by Mr King why, he replied: "I did not want to keep any information relevant to the laboratory when I left because I believed it would be immoral." He had put the data in a computer file but did not have a printout.

    "You destroyed those notes at the time you knew you were going to be a potential witness for a homicide case, did you?" Mr King asked. Dr Lun replied "yes". He also agreed that the effect of destroying his notebook was that the court could not check its contents. But he said he did not do it with the intention of depriving the court of a fair trial.

    Mr King said the only available contemporaneous record the chemist made at the crime scene was the photos he took. But he argued yesterday that they were taken by a family digital camera and were of poor quality.

    The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

    Update 14th July

    * The Standard: Kissel jurors look for bloodstains.
    * SCMP:

    The jury in the Kissel murder trial was yesterday allowed its first close-up view of a blood-spattered television set and chest of drawers taken from the room where Nancy Kissel allegedly bludgeoned her husband to death. They were also asked to weigh with their hands a green carpet that CCTV footage appeared to show Kissel, 41, carrying at the Parkview estate on November 3, 2003, a day after she is alleged to have killed Merrill Lynch banker Robert Peter Kissel. A receipt for a carpet dated that day was found in her handbag, according to police. Three days later she told police her husband had assaulted her, causing multiple injuries.

    Police officers in the Court of First Instance unwrapped the plastic sheeting covering the television set and the chest of drawers it sat on in the master bedroom of the Kissels' flat. Government chemist Lun Tze-shan testified on Tuesday said he found blood on the two items that was "probably from the deceased".

    Constable Chan Kin-wah told the court he seized both items on November 12, 2003. The jury, lawyers and the judge took turns inspecting them. Constable Chan also identified a green carpet with a tag on one corner marked "CL 18" that matched a receipt from the furniture shop Tequila Kola which he took from the defendant's handbag. The receipt said: "4x6 feet, CL 18, taken, November 3, 2003"...Prosecutor Polly Wan asked the jury to look at a still from CCTV footage that showed the defendant carrying what appeared to be the green carpet. She then invited the jurors to carry the rug...The constable also identified other exhibits, including five bottles of pills from a kitchen cabinet, a mobile phone belonging to the deceased and samples of white powder found in the bedroom.

    Defence counsel Alexander King SC also questioned Constable Chan about the three visits he made to the flat to conduct investigations. Mr King asked him whether he had been told by a superior to search the two rooms of the defendant's children during his first visit to the flat on November 12, 2003. He said he had investigated the room shared by the two daughters, but not the son's.

    Constable Chan told the court he returned to the flat the next day after one of the Kissels' domestic helpers told police she had found items that had aroused her concern in "the wardrobe in the boy's room". His team seized plastic bags with a torn bedcover and stained tissue paper. The defendant's lawyer also told police to return on November 17 to collect more items.

    The case continues today before Mr Justice Michael Lunn.

    Update 15th July

    * The Standard: Kissel DNA match 'probable'
    * SCMP:

    Damage to a heavy metal ornament Nancy Kissel allegedly used to bludgeon her banker husband to death suggested "significant force" had been used, a forensic scientist testified yesterday.
    The family heirloom, weighing 3.7kg, is in the form of two girls seated face to face on a base the size of a man's hand. The witness, Wong Koon-hung, told the Court of First Instance it appeared the figurines had been stuck into the base when the metal was still hot. In addition, three nails protruding from the base held them in place. The witness said he believed "a force had been applied to the back of the heads of the figurines", causing the two pairs of legs to bend upwards and become detached from the base on which they lay. "A five-year-old would not have the strength to cause such disfigurement but adults would certainly be able to do that," he said.

    Asked by government prosecutor Ada Chan if considerable force was needed for the disfigurement, Dr Wong said: "It is a significant force, not considerable." The court has heard the ornament had been an heirloom from the accused's grandmother...Pang Chi-ming, the government laboratory's DNA typing expert, said the two figurines and the ornament's base were splattered with blood when he received them for tests in November 2003.

    Dr Pang told jurors he had tested DNA taken from blood on the ornament's base against samples taken from the deceased's spleen and the accused's saliva, and found it matched the deceased. The chance that the blood came from any white American other than Robert Kissel was one in 429 billion, he said.

    "You have any idea about the size of the population of the whole world?" asked the prosecutor. "It is about six billion," the witness replied.

    Dr Wong said he found DNA matching Kissel and the deceased on a blue cord the prosecution says was tied around a sleeping bag into which the deceased's body had been pushed. He also found DNA from three people on a white rope the defendant is alleged to have wound around a rolled-up carpet containing the sleeping bag with the body. Dr Pang said he could not rule out that the defendant was one of the three people whose DNA was on the rope.

    Prosecutor Peter Chapman, who read out evidence given by two other chemists yesterday, said laboratory tests on two samples of a white powder taken from the wooden portion of the bed and the carpet near the foot of the bed in the master bedroom where the murder allegedly took place contained sodium carbonate, a chemical found in cleaning agents.

    The sample contained no dangerous drug, Mr Chapman said. Mr Justice Michael Lunn asked the prosecutor to confirm that the white power was not cocaine. The prosecutor said that was so.

    The case continues today.


    Update July 16th

    * The Standard: Blood from accused, victim found at scene.
    * SCMP:

    Blood samples that might have come from Nancy Kissel were found on the heavy metal ornament used to bludgeon her husband to death, a government chemist told the Court of First Instance yesterday. Pang Chi-ming, a DNA typing expert who testified as a prosecution witness for the second day yesterday, said his analysis revealed a mixture of DNA in the two blood samples obtained from the heads of two figurines on Kissel's heirloom. He told government prosecutor Ada Chan the possible sources of the DNA mixture were Kissel and the deceased.

    Evidence given by Wong Koon-hung, a chemist who testified on Thursday, identified the back of the two figurine heads as the locations where "a significant force" had been applied. He added that this caused the legs of the two figurines - which lay flat on the base - to bend upwards.

    Dr Pang said the blood samples extracted from other parts of the ornament, such as the top and bottom of the base, contained DNA that could only have come from the deceased. Dr Pang, who explained his DNA findings on a large number of bloodstained exhibits in court yesterday, said he found a blood stain between the third and fourth fingers of the interior of a black plastic glove the police seized from the Kissel daughters' room.

    He told the jurors that DNA tests indicated the defendant was possibly the source of the stain and added that another bodily substance extracted from other parts of the glove was also possibly from her. The other bloodstained exhibits that were shown in court yesterday - including a number of cushions, pillows, and duvets - carried DNA possibly from the deceased, said Dr Pang.

    The witness also told jurors that he found "quite a lot of blood" on a pair of navy blue shorts and a blue T-shirt exhibited in court yesterday. The clothing was allegedly worn by the deceased. The smell from the blood-stained items was such that the court interpreter wore a face mask and at least one juror covered his nose with a handkerchief.

    In cross-examination, Alexander King SC, lawyer for the defence, asked Mr Wong why part of the DNA types taken from a carpet sample from the master bedroom could not be obtained. "Would a possible reason be that the carpet had been cleaned by sodium carbonate," asked Mr King.

    Mr Wong replied: "I don't know if sodium carbonate would damage the DNA." He added he had not tested for the presence of the chemical, which is used in cleaning products, on the carpet sample. Asked if he had examined a piece of cloth found at the end of the couple's bed and the deceased's black pants, Dr Pang said his records showed that he had not done so.

    The case continues before Mr Justice Michael Lunn on Monday.



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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 19:13
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    August 05, 2005
    Same boring show

    It seems that Ching Cheong will be charged as a spy. I suppose there will be some sort of show trial, then someone from the United States will make a high-level visit to Beijing a few months after he is convicted, in preparation for that trip Mr Ching will be released, probably into exile to the United States, and in the meantime journalists in Hong Kong will assimilate the fact that they can only talk about topics within the parameters set by the CCP.

    Perhaps there will be some protests in Hong Kong, I don't know. I wonder why Beijing thinks this sort of charade is interesting: it's the same trick over and over again.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Andres at 23:33
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    US, China Agree On Something

    Other than killing terrorists, of course. To be fair, the US and China are cooperating these days on a number of levels (North Korea, the environment, terrorism) which is more than we dared hope for 3-4 years ago. But the most recent accord between the two nations is that there should not be 4 more UN seats on the Security Council. They differ on the details - China wants Japan off the list and wants more developing countries - the US supports Japan's bid, at least formally, but wants only 2 more members. And neither of them are particularly hot on any new Permanent Members having veto powers.

    Well, if neither of them want it, it ain't going to happen...

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 09:40
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    » asiapundit links with: jet-lagged linkfest




    August 04, 2005
    One Country, Two Flowers

    OK, I swear to the Almighty that this is one of the most hysterically funny articles that were meant to be serious in a very long time. It is about how China does not have a national flower, it is the only country in the world not to have one, and the battles the campaigners have fought for China to have not one, but two flowers.An example of the raging debate:

    In the mid-1990s, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress discussed the issue of a national flower, but no decision was made.

    The main reason why a decision still hasn't been made is that not everyone understands the significance of having a national flower.

    "The national flower is different from the national anthem, flag or emblem, which are written into the (country's) constitution. It has nothing to do with politics," Chen said.

    "However, the peony was the national flower during the Qing Dynasty, and the plum blossom was named the national flower by the Republic of China in 1929. So, there is a tendency to avoid meddling in the issue since it is apparently political," Chen added.

    There is another reason. "The country is too diverse. There is no one flower that truly symbolizes the whole of China," Chen explained.

    Chen remarked that as the only major nation in the world without a national flower, China is sure to feel the awkwardness of the situation as the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaches.

    "This is the best time for us to decide on a national flower!" he said.

    Having two national flowers is not the only option available. Since the 1980s, different proposals have been put forward: there was the single flower proposal, pitting the peony and the plum blossom against each other; there was the "one country, four flowers" proposal that involved the plum blossom, the peony, the chrysanthemum and the water lily, each one representing a season; and there was the "one country, five flowers" proposal, also known as "one primary, four supplementary," the peony being the main national flower and the other four representing the different seasons -- orchid (spring), water lily (summer), chrysanthemum (autumn) and plum (winter).

    I don't suppose the Chinese leadership has considered the option of holding a national popular referendum on this floral issue of critical importance...

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 15:47
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    » MeiZhongTai links with: One Post, Two Articles




    China on CNOOC/Unocal

    Well, as we all know, it's all over. The 8-month attempt to buy Unocal by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has definitively ended in failure. We've all had our say at one point or another about the deal. What was interesting was the People's Daily editorial about the transaction, and its bitterness about American hypocrisy in its free-market philosophies. Here is a sample of the article's blunt invective:

    In this sense, the cost CNOOC paid is limited. But the outcome of the failure of the takeover bid on the US side may be more serious than some US politicians have calculated.

    The unjustified US opposition, largely politically motivated, will certainly more or less poison the current prevailing mood as bilateral economic ties between China and the United States are enhanced.

    The high-profile takeover battle demonstrated to the world that the United States is not a free economy as it claimed to be. In the US market, an asset for sale has not gone to the buyer that most prized it, because of regulatory concerns fuelled by bogus fears and hidden interests.

    Apparently, Unocal shareholders chose to accept the cheaper offer free of regulatory risk. But the politicized regulatory matter has, in fact, deprived them of the chance to maximize value, as the market should allow.

    Unfortunately, it seems difficult for spectators in China to understand that even in America, issues considered in the national interest have trumped those of free-market economics, particularly after 9/11; ask any US pharmaceutical company threatened by Bush back when he couldn't get his hands on enough flu vaccines.

    More to the point, it should be clear by the foreign policy goals of the current administration how much the oil industry falls within the measure of 'national interest'. Whether you believe that the invasion of Iraq was over oil or not, you must concede that Western over-riding interest in the Middle East as a whole (as opposed to sub-Saharan Africa) is because of its oil reserves. The lengths to which the US has cozied up to Saudi leaders with whom they'd otherwise have nothing in common has everything to do with the black gold. To expect the US to blithely accept a bid from a company owned by what it regards as a strategic competitor, China, without political upheaval was totally unrealistic. Blame your bankers, CNOOC, blame your bankers, for wasting your time.

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 15:12
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    Hiroshima, 60 Years On

    Michael deGolyer, a columnist for the Standard, reflects on the meaning of the Hiroshima bomb, and whether the decision to drop it was justified. More interestingly, he asks the question: have both today's terrorists and the Bush administration learned the wrong lesson from this event: that peace can be achieved through use of force? He writes:

    There are those today, just as in the 1940s, who seek to destroy whole civilizations for being of different races and beliefs.

    These people do not take holidays. They think of this anniversary not as a warning of the horrors mankind can inflict. They see the surrender of Japan as evidence that destruction can produce compliance.

    He makes the point that the bomb was perversely dropped to save the lives that would have been expended on an invasion of Japan. He does not judge the veracity of that statement, or whether such weapons are in fact too horrific to use under any circumstances, but concludes with these statements:
    Whatever conclusion you may draw about the use of atom bombs in 1945, one thing seems clear today; not acknowledging others as humans deserving treatment as equal humans is the source from which the desire to use weapons of mass destruction originates. Torture and terror also stem from this source.

    Toleration of different lifestyles and beliefs is the only way to stop use of weapons of mass destruction. Tolerance is the core of civilization.

    Food for thought. Is there any any to defeat the terrorism emanating from the world's Muslim cultures using just a big stick? I would go one step further to say that for every stick we use, a carrot must also be proferred. What is the carrot we use today in the "War on Terror"? Is it only democracy? Judging from Iraq, that doesn't seem to be good enough.

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 14:53
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    August 03, 2005
    AIDS and China's Rich

    For a long time, AIDS has been a neglected disease in China, better hushed-up than brought squarely into the open. While those attitudes have changed, recent efforts have still gone on the assumption that the vectors of transmission are through IV drug use, illegal blood harvesting and through low-income migrant workers spreading the disease from countryside to city.

    However, a new study publicized in Xinhua by the Futures Group suggests that the main target should not be lower income people, but rather, the wealthy. This demographic the Futures Group calls "Mobile Men with Money". It is a perverse fact that some men actually pay 60% more to a prostitute, according to the study, for the pleasure of unprotected sex, thereby exposing both parties to a high risk of infection. It is an unfortunate thing that AIDS is a disease that would not immediately remove such a Darwin-awards nominee immediately from the gene pool, but would rather likely take many more people with him.

    Some other interesting stats from this study:

    Most of the data available on mobile men with money is anecdotal and the fears among workers are educated guesses at this point, but it is difficult to ignore the numbers.

    Household surveys carried out by UNAIDS and Futures over the past few years show that between 5 and 10 per cent of men in Asia buy sex.

    According to UNAIDS's estimation, 20 per cent of some 6 million prostitutes in China do not use condoms.

    Men in the upper 5 per cent of income earners are 33 times more likely to use prostitutes than people in the lowest 40 per cent, according to a study commissioned by the Futures Group and carried out by Horizons research.

    At the same time, said Manchester, data has shown that men who are away from home more than five days a month are much, much more likely to use prostitutes.

    "The propensity to use prostitutes shoots through the roof," he said.

    It seems the unhealthy nocturnal practices of some of China's nouveau riche males may be headed for a collision course with a global pandemic.

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 09:39
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    » Chinese Adventure Blog links with: Carnival of Chinese Blogs II




    Made in Zimbabwe

    As far as Oregon weather goes, the last two weeks have been hot with temperatures in the 90s and no clouds to speak of. Between our house and the ocean is the Coast Range, a largely wooded expanse about forty miles thick where we live. In the evenings at the beginning of summer, when the weather was more unsettled, a bank of clouds would often loom above the hills that start a mile west of our house.

    This past weekend, my sister, niece, and I drove our winding way through the hills to Lincoln City to do some shopping at an outlet mall there. The drive was sunny throughout, but helpless clouds wisped over the last hill before the ocean should have appeared. The marine layer managed to stop exactly at the top of the beach: driving on the Pacific Coast Highway you were in the sun, the moment you drove into the parking lot next to the beach the sun faded away, and looking across the parking lot's edge to the ocean the surf disappeared into the fog.

    After doing our shopping we tried to make it to the beach, but in the end we couldn't find a parking spot and so drove back home, stopping at The Otis Cafe, a pleasant eatery ten minutes from the coast, for a late lunch. I bought a couple of shorts from Eddie Bauer and some socks from Jockey. I can't remember where the socks were made, but the shorts were made in Zimbabwe.

    It reminded me of what I found two Christmases ago: everywhere I went shopping for clothes in Peoria the tags told me that the items were made in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and sometimes China. For someone who hadn't questioned much the notion that China was increasingly the world's factory, it was a fly in the ointment to see so many other places also vying to supply America's clothing market.

    For over twenty years now China has managed to benefit from a fortuitous set of circumstances. It has a relatively educated and low-wage workforce. It has set up a legal regime very friendly to foreign companies. It has actively sought out foreign investment. It has actively sought to import foreign technology. And it has not had to compete against other countries for that investment or technology.

    Reasonably though, how long can that last characteristic of China's success continue? How long can it depend on the incompetence of other countries' leaders for its own success? China's growing heft in East Asia and the world more generally is real enough, but I can't help but think that this weakness will grow more dangerous as time goes on.

    The scale of China is often too shocking to completely comprehend. I can't imagine all of the problems its leaders face: agrarian unrest as urban centers rapidly modernize, the East/West economic divide, managing all of the nationalities of Beijing's empire, finding an international role conmeasurate with its clout. And of all of this without even pretending to have the legitimacy of being democratically elected.

    For these twenty and more years what Beijing has had was the legitimacy that economic affluence can buy. Only once has it dropped the ball, allowing inflation to careen out of control at the end of the 1980s, one of the reasons why Beijing's citizens decided to support the university students at Tiananmen rather than stay indoors. Since then Beijing has managed the economy relatively well.

    This success fosters admiration, which is always nice to have, and emulation, which is always dangerous to have. Vietnam has begun to open its economy and is attempting to enter the WTO. India in the last fifteen years has finally turned away from its failed socialistic economic experiments and found the better friend of the poor is capitalism. And Japan has long moved many of its factories to Southeast Asia, to countries such as Malaysia and Thailand that have similar economic characteristics as China.

    None of these countries would have been competitors for China's manufacturers twenty years ago, but they are now. And I don't think this is fully appreciated by many within China. The sun is setting on the "easy" part of China's modernization.

    Most of these economies are found in Asia. Perhaps because of proximity or necessity they cannot allow themselves to forever trail China. There are, however, a whole host of economies in Africa which could compete with China if only they would set their internal houses in order. (Why, if even Zimbabwe can now export textiles considering the mess it is in, then what of other countries less maliciously run?) And they have the benefit of largely English-language educational establishments, something which could ease their entry into world markets.

    I do not see all of these countries forever remaining mired in poverty. Who wants to always be poor, especially when they see a fellow undeveloped country race past them into modernity?

    Investments will not necessarily flee China and move to other countries: the world's economic pie is not static and not a zero-sum game. However, future investments will be made across a greater number of countries, China will cease to suck up so many foreign dollars, and the greater competition offered by other countries will cut into the margins that allow China to use its profits to solve its other pressing problems, whether they be an inadequate transporation infrastructure, agrarian reform, continued expansion of educational opportunities, or many others.

    China's current social stability is a precarious thing, not least because unrest has no formal and legitimate channels to go through. Protest sheets sent to Beijing or riots in Zhejiang are not effective ways for a society to regulate itself. Democratic elections are: they provide a way for citizens to take responsibility for themselves. Quite simply, no other method of choosing a government is now considered more morally legitimate by most people in the world.

    As long as China's economic performance benefited more people than it hurt, this has not developed into a serious issue. However, now as the world economic environment changes and one of the key ingredients to China's economic success, a lack of competition, slowly disappears, it seems to me only a matter of time before economic pressures translate themselves into social ones which the political system is ill-equipped to handle.

    The Olympics in Beijing and the World Expo in Shanghai are the pinnacles of China's current economic and political model. Whole neighborhoods in both cities are being bulldozed by their respective municipal governments and literally millions of residents are being moved to make room for the roads, subways, and venues necessary for both events. Billions of dollars are being spent to make everything look good and indeed, for the duration of both events foreigners are likely to be beguiled by how nice everything looks. These are not insignificant achievements, but neither are they much help for discerning China's future.

    People may be willing to have their lives upended for the sake of their country's international glory. They may be willing to not express their true opinions if they are spending all their time working hard to improve their family's economic well-being. However, after the glory has passed and if it proves increasingly difficult to get ahead in life because factories in other countries are cutting into your salary or profits then it is not unreasonable to see social cohesion, to the extent that China has it, fray and then unravel. And without elections to channel that anger and provide an opportunity for bad policies to be replaced by new ones, it is hard to say that some unexpected clouds are not appearing on China's horizon.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Andres at 08:25
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    » ShenzhenRen links with: Progress and Friction




    August 02, 2005
    How HK Democracy Was Foiled, 53 Years Ago

    You may want to have a look today at a post on my own site, "Blogging... Walk the Talk" that discusses how a bold initiative to create democracy in Hong Kong after World War II was derailed. Governor Young's plan to introduce a broad franchise amongst the Chinese population was axed by his successor Governor Grantham, owing to fears of Communist subversion and inviting the ire of Mao during the Cold War (specifically, due to the Korean War when the invasion of Hong Kong had to be considered a real possibility).

    But had democracy been introduced in Hong Kong then, as it was throughout much of the British Empire during decocolonization, what would have happened? Would it have been successful? Would democratic principles have been reluctantly agreed to by Chinese signatories to the Basic Law? Or would Mao have invaded and brought Hong Kong's nascent postwar prosperity to a complete halt? Read on...

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 11:24
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    East Fights West on Contracts in HK

    That's right, tooth and nail, tooth and nail. There's a story today on the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation's awarding of contracts for the Southern Link between its East and West rails. As the article in the Standard says, projects this big (combined worth of HK$3.1 billion) only come around every two or three years. About HK$1 billion worth of contracts were awarded to the local arm of China State Construction, while the other HK$2 billion went to a consortium comprising Leighton, Balfour Beatty (Gammon), Kumagai and John Holland.

    Now what you have to realize is, prior to the Handover, Hong Kong did have more huge infrastructure projects. There had been a cozy relationship between the Public Works section of the government and the biggest Western contractors in Hong Kong, such as Gammon, Leighton, Dragages, etc. During this time, it had never been easy for local Chinese firms, let alone mainland ones, to get a shot at the really plum projects, particularly since the Western ones were the ones with the track records to back themselves. A vicious, or virtuous circle, depending on where your money came from. This state of affairs ended in the huge orgy of public works construction with the Chek Lap Kok airport and related infrastructure.

    After that were some lean years. As expected, the government has demonstrated greater willingness since colonial times to entertain tenders from local Chinese and mainland companies. However, due to the incredible track records of the Western firms, they remain competitive in this new environment, but it seems they have to band together to survive.

    How interesting and significant that they seem to have fought a rearguard action here, securing the southern section of the KCRC project, while China State Construction got the northern ones?

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 08:28
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    Pakistan: Dream Unfulfilled

    Many people assume that because Pakistan was founded to be a separate homeland in the subcontinent for the Muslims, that its founder Mohammed Ahi Jinnah must have been a theocrat. Yet as Ahmad Rashid, famous Pakistani author of the books Taliban and Jihad writes in the Daily Telegraph (reprinted in the Standard), that is not the case.

    Read this excellent article on how a dream to found a secular Muslim nation that would keep religion private has been hijacked by dictators, extremists, Saudi money and corrupt politicians to create a breeding ground for terrorism.

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 08:12
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    Kissel Update: Sodomy! Domination! Drugs! Money!

    Sensationalist story today on Nancy Kissel's latest testimony in the Standard. Read all about it here.

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 07:56
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    August 01, 2005
    It's Army Day

    Today in China is Army Day; it marks the 78th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). It recalls the first engagement (in Nanchang) between rebellious Nationalist forces led by He Long and Zhou En-Lai and the soldiery loyal to the KMT under the command on Chiang Kai-Shek, and is considered a very important date in the annals of modern Chinese history.

    So it seems unusually direct for a general close to current Chinese leader Hu Jintao to sharply remind his comrades on this day of their obligation of unswerving loyalty to the party. Today's Standard carries the story and speculates about ongoing power politics within the PLA, particularly given the large number of officers given full general's rank by outgoing President Jiang Zemin.

    Although we are now in a new era of Chinese politics, these signs of internal friction hearken back to a decades-old debate about the PLA about whether it should be more 'red' or 'professional'; that is to say, whether professional qualifications or loyalty to the party line was more important. The early high point of professionalization in the PLA was during and in the aftermath of the Korean War, when the Chinese successfully defied the might of McArthur and the American legions and fought them to an armistice. But war hero Peng Dehuai's brave defiance of Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' led to his being disgraced by the party.

    Over the next twenty years, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, the pendulum within the PLA swung very much towards political orthodoxy, with the result that the most powerful generals were the most politically astute cadres within the army. The limits of that strategy were demonstrated after Mao's death in the disastrous war with Vietnam in 1979.

    That war caused as much soul-searching within the Chinese military as Vietnam did to the US armed forces, resulting in rapid professionalization of the armed forces, to the extent of them developing many institutions independent of party control. The world, and the Politburo, paused with baited breath on one tragic day in 1989; but ultimately the PLA remained loyal to the party leadership.

    In the era of privatisation and commercial enterprise being wedded to 'Chinese socialism', though, the party did realize it needed more oversight over the military, which, with their armaments (and other) industries, they were creating a fiefdom of their own, sometimes dictating foreign policy initiatives with arms sales. So over the last decade, the need for politicization has increased somewhat, although the morale and professional level of the armed forces remains high given their substantially increased budgets.

    Ultimately though, as Mao once said, "power comes down the barrel of a gun," and the CCP's monopoly on power remains so long as their monopoly remains on the PLA. In the absence of democratic elections, the CCP's legitimacy arises from prosperous government. In an increasingly sophisticated and complex economy, the ties that bind the PLA to the CCP remain quaintly expressed in Marxist-Leninist terms. That being the case, it is no wonder that the head cadres in Beijing feel the need to remind the Army, on their special day, who is boss...

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    [boomerang] Posted by HK Dave at 12:56
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