The rights of the concubine have thrown Hong Kong's courts into confusion as lawyers try to resolve a battle between an ageing property tycoon and his partner of 46 years. \nLim Por-yen, 90, claims he lent around ?41 million (US$74 million)to his former concubine Koo Siu-ying, 66, in a series of 60 payments between 1994 and 2001. Now he wants it back, plus an extra ?32 million (US$57.5 million) in interest charged on the loans. \nKoo claims the money -- used for a Shanghai property project -- was a gift, and she was his "third wife." \nConcubinage -- where men were entitled to have more than one wife -- was not abolished until 1971 in Hong Kong. Concubines in an established relationship before that are still ac-knowledged, although the extent of their legal rights has not been tested until now. \nAt the center of the Lim and Koo case is whether a concubine should be treated as a wife, acceptable under Chinese tradition but alien to the former colony's British legal system, which is based on monogamous marriage. \nKoo says the couple were married in 1956 when Lim announced at a dinner that she was his "third wife." Lim already had one wife and one concubine at the time. \nThe couple had two children and lived together for 46 years until they separated in 2002. Koo claims Lim's family accepted her and that they were widely recognized as husband and wife. Therefore money given to her by Lim is a gift -- the same presumption existing in law for marriage. \nKoo says that in the 1990s she wanted to emigrate to the US or Europe but Lim persuaded her to stay by giving her the money to invest in the Shanghai property project. Lim disagrees that the couple were ever married and took further legal action to try and prevent Koo's lawyers from describing her as his "third wife." \nIn December he scored a victory when the court ruled the couple's status was irrelevant to the case. The real issue was whether the money was a loan or a gift under contract law, said Justice Muttrie, adding: "There are men who, having vowed in a Church of England marriage ceremony `With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' or its modern equivalent, will not give their wives a cent. There are men who will give their mistresses a fortune and never expect it back. No doubt the same applies in all cultures and religions." \nBut last week an appeal court overruled that judgment, putting the legal status of concubines back on the agenda and allowing Koo her "third wife" status. \nAppeal court judge Anthony Rogers said: "The question of whether a husband should look after a concubine ... is obviously a matter which needs to be finally determined." \nKoo's Shanghai company was taken to court by a Hong Kong bank to order the repayment of the firm's overdraft, while in 1999 Lim was sentenced to three years in jail after being found guilty of bribing Taiwanese officials over a multi-million dollar land deal. He is appealing against the verdict and has yet to serve time behind bars.
A glimpse of a possible Picasso in the home of Imelda Marcos filmed during a visit by her son after his presidential election win has set off a flurry of speculation in the Philippines, where the family that once plundered billions is set to return to power. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the late dictator, won a landslide victory in Monday’s presidential election, an outcome that has appalled those who survived his father’s regime. Images released by the family showed Marcos Jr visiting the home of his mother, who had displayed Picasso’s Femme Couche VI (Reclining Woman VI),
The images of a besuited Ferdinand Marcos Jr, clad in a top hat and leaning nonchalantly on a Rolls-Royce, dating from his time in Britain in the 1970s, are as you might expect from the playboy scion of a kleptocratic dictator. Yet as the Marcos family returns to power in the Philippines after a landslide presidential victory by Marcos Jr, he is facing calls to stop misrepresenting the circumstances of his studies at the University of Oxford. The university has confirmed that he did not complete his degree in philosophy, politics and economics after enrolling in 1975. “According to our records, he did
HATE CRIME: Officials were investigating a detailed ‘manifesto’ posted online before the livestreamed shooting, in which the suspect outlined his reasoning and plans A heavily armed 18-year-old white man on Saturday shot 10 people dead at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a “racially motivated” attack that he livestreamed on camera, authorities said. The gunman, who was wearing body armor and a helmet, was arrested after the massacre, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told a news conference. Gramaglia put the toll at 10 dead and three wounded. Eleven of the victims were African Americans. The gunman shot four people in the parking lot of the Tops supermarket, three of them fatally, then went inside and continued firing, Gramaglia said. Among those killed inside the store was
‘UNITED AS ONE’: Photos showed people working on farms or walking in a North Korean town, indicating that a lockdown does not require people to stay home North Korea yesterday imposed a nationwide lockdown to control its first acknowledged COVID-19 outbreak after saying for more than two years that it had a perfect record keeping out the virus that has spread to nearly every place in the world. The size of the outbreak was not immediately known, but it could have serious consequences, because the country has a poor healthcare system and its 26 million people are believed to be mostly unvaccinated against COVID-19. Some experts say that the North, by its admission of an outbreak, might be seeking outside aid. The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that
RSS