Hong Kong  - The wife of a wealthy American investment banker Tuesday won the right to appeal her life sentence for killing her husband in the so-called "milkshake murder" case.

Nancy Kissel, 44, drugged husband Robert, a senior Merrill Lynch banker, with a strawberry milkshake then killed him by smashing him over the head with a statuette in their luxury Hong Kong apartment in 2003.

Hong Kong  - Three illegal immigrants from China have been found dead in waters off Hong Kong after they apparently tried to swim to the wealthy former British colony, a news report said Tuesday.

The bodies were found in separate locations on Saturday and Monday and the victims are believed to have come from southern China, where tens of thousands of people have been made jobless by factory closures.

Hong Kong  - An alleged rapist faced court in Hong Kong, after being arrested when his victim tricked him into giving her his phone number to arrange a date, a news report said Tuesday.

The 21-year-old woman pretended she wanted to see her alleged attacker again after the assault and got him to exchange mobile phone numbers with her, the South China Morning Post reported.

Instead, she alerted police who arrested Sohail Nadeem, 27, in a sting operation in a restaurant after the woman had phoned him to set up a date, according to the newspaper.

Hong Kong, Feb. 9 : The Hong Kong-based International Risk says in a review of terrorism trends in Asia, published today, that the terror threat in South Asia is set to intensify this year, particularly in the wake of rising tensions between India and Pakistan.

Hong Kong  - Unions representing bank workers in Hong Kong were Monday planning protest action over mass job cuts that they believe could see 1,000 employees in the city fired.

Union representatives say they have information suggesting that around 1,000 of the 18,000 people employed by HSBC in Hong Kong will lose their jobs as early as this week.

Hong Kong  - Membership prices for elite clubs, symbols of prestige and wealth in Hong Kong, have crashed because of the widening global economic slump, a news report said Monday.

Dealers in second-hand memberships for clubs such as the Hong Kong Golf Club and Hong Kong Cricket Club say prices are down by as much as 30 per cent to 45 per cent, according to the South China Morning Post.