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SEED

SEED is a block cipher developed by the Korea Information Security Agency (KISA). It is used broadly throughout South Korean industry, but seldom found elsewhere. It gained popularity in Korea because 40-bit encryption was not considered strong enough, so the Korea Information Security Agency developed its own standard. However, this decision has historically limited the competition of web browsers in Korea, as no major SSL libraries or web browsers supported the SEED algorithm, requiring users to use an ActiveX control in Internet Explorer for secure web sites.

On April 1, 2015 the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) announced its plan to remove the ActiveX dependency from at least 90 percent of the country's top 100 websites by 2017. Instead, HTML5-based technologies will be employed as they operate on many platforms, including mobile devices. Starting with the private sector, the ministry plans to expand this further to ultimately remove this dependency from public websites as well.

Design
SEED is a 16-round Feistel network with 128-bit blocks and a 128-bit key. It uses two 8 × 8 S-boxes which, like those of SAFER, are derived from discrete exponentiation (in this case, x247 and x251 – plus some "incompatible operations"). It also has some resemblance to MISTY1 in the recursiveness of its structure: the 128-bit full cipher is a Feistel network with an F-function operating on 64-bit halves, while the F-function itself is a Feistel network composed of a G-function operating on 32-bit halves. However the recursion does not extend further because the G-function is not a Feistel network. In the G-function, the 32-bit word is considered as four 8-bit bytes, each of which is passed through one or the other of the S-boxes, then combined in a moderately complex set of boolean functions such that each output bit depends on 3 of the 4 input bytes.

SEED has a fairly complex key schedule, generating its thirty-two 32-bit subkeys through application of its G-function on a series of rotations of the raw key, combined with round constants derived (as in TEA) from the Golden ratio.

Use and adoption
SEED has been adopted by several standard protocols: S/MIME (RFC 4010), TLS/SSL (RFC 4162), IPSec (RFC 4196), and ISO/IEC 18033-3:2010.

NSS software security library in Mozilla's Gecko platform has implemented support for SEED, and Mozilla Firefox as of 3.5.4 supports SEED as a TLS cipher; however, Mozilla decided to drop the support of SEED by default in Firefox 27 and above because support for SEED has not had any practical positive effect in terms of helping South Korea migrate away from ActiveX-based e-commerce, and other browsers are not offering any SEED-based cipher suites. NSS still supports SEED-based cipher suites.

The Linux kernel has supported SEED since 2007.

Bloombase supports SEED in their full suite of data cryptography solutions.

title: SEED


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stock image

Stock image
No-one seems to have created this page, so I suppose I will. I'm not sure why this got listed on VfD. It seems real enough based on some quick googling. It may be worthwhile to disambig the page from stock images / stock photography though Zachlipton 05:10, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pay attention to your google search. Look at the main website that comes up thats NOT stock photography, which should be the website linked too by the article. Look at who wrote that website. Then look at the history of the article to see who wrote it. Its the same person, neologism and primary research. Delete.

 * Ok fair enough. Delete. Looks like a neologism to me, besides, people looking for "stock image" want to know about pictures, not finance. Zachlipton 16:30, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * It looks very like original research. All the greenfinch links point back to his own site - ie. not to a published book, for example.  delete.--Tomheaton 17:08, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)  (+ further edits but I don't know how to do strikethroughs).

 * Delete. Would it be useful to move stock photography to stock image?  -Sean Curtin 04:06, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Ich

Ich, ich or ICH may refer to:

Places

 * Ich, Semnan, a village in Semnan Province, Iran
 * Ich, Zanjan, a village in Zanjan Province, Iran
 * Ich, alternative name of Ij, Zanjan, a village in Zanjan Province, Iran

Medicine

 * The ego (German: Ich), one of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche
 * Infectious canine hepatitis, an acute liver infection in dogs
 * Intracranial hemorrhage, bleeding within the skull
 * Intracerebral hemorrhage, bleeding into brain tissues and/or brain vessicles
 * International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use
 * UCL Institute of Child Health, University College London, UK

Science and technology

 * Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, often shortened to ich, a disease of freshwater fish
 * Cryptocaryon or marine ich, a similar disease of marine fish
 * Intangible cultural heritage, a concept in cultural anthropology

Technology

 * I/O Controller Hub, an Intel Southbridge technology
 * Intelligent Corruption Handling, a corruption-handling method used in eMule

Other

 * Ich, a German pronoun meaning I, also a Middle English form of  I
 * Ich (album), a 2006 album by German rapper Sido
 * Indian Coffee House, a restaurant chain in India
 * Interagency Council on Homelessness, United States

title: Ich


text: File:Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! poster.JPG


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Pieces of Me (song)

"Pieces of Me" is the debut single of American pop/rock singer Ashlee Simpson and the first single from her debut album, Autobiography (2004). The song, which was jointly written and composed by Simpson, Kara DioGuardi and John Shanks and produced by Shanks, is a blend of pop and rock with lyrics about finding comfort and happiness in a relationship with a new boyfriend.

"Pieces of Me" was released as the first single from Autobiography on May 17, 2004. It peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Outside of the U.S., the song reached the top 10 in several countries, including Australia, Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Billboard ranked the song at number 97 in their 2017 list of "The 100 Greatest Choruses of the 21st Century" and number 26 in their 2020 list of "The 50 Greatest Minivan Rock Songs". As of, it remains Simpson's most successful song as well as her only song to reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 or the UK Singles Chart.

Background and composition
The recording of "Pieces of Me" features in "Valentine's Bummer", the fourth episode of the first season of Ashlee Simpson's reality show, The Ashlee Simpson Show, and was inspired by Simpson's relationship with the musician Ryan Cabrera, a friend with whom she became romantically involved. As she said, "It was just really nice to be with somebody who's just real and who's nice — just a good person. So I wrote that about him, and when I finished it, I was so excited and so was he." The two were reported to have broken up in August 2004. In another interview, Simpson said, "It's a feel good song, it's easy to listen to and every time I perform it or listen to it or whatever, ... it just feels good."

Jeff Rothschild played drums on the track, John Shanks played guitars and bass, and Simpson and Kara DioGuardi performed background vocals.

Critical reception
The song received generally favorable reviews from music critics. IGN.com said of the song that it "lopes along to a feel good melancholic guitar strum while [Simpson] waxes like any lovelorn 19-year old would about the current love of their life." Another review said that the "stringy" guitar riffs in "Pieces of Me" were "simple, yet effective", with the "catchy chorus bringing the song to life." According to one review of the album, Simpson's singing on the track goes from "impassioned wail to innocent cooing ably." A UK review of the single called it "palatable" "as guitar-led lipstick confessionals go". It has also been described as a "perfect choice" for the album's first single, having "a tempo between fast and slow, with hints of both throughout the song."

Commercial performance
"Pieces of Me" began receiving widespread radio play in the U.S. in May 2004, well before the album's release on July 20. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, 97 stations added "Pieces of Me" to their play lists in the week ending on May 17, which it said was the strongest week for any single in 2004 at that point in the year. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 61 in June 2004 (the chart's top début for the week) and reached the top 10 in August with a rise from number 13 to number nine. It then rose to number eight the next week, where it spent two weeks before peaking at number five on the Hot 100 in September 2004. After spending one week at number five, it fell to number six and then to number seven. "Pieces of Me" remained in the top 50 on the Hot 100 chart until November 2004. It also reached number one on the Billboard Top 40 Tracks chart. The single was certified gold in October 2004 and platinum in January 2005. "Pieces of Me" was number 39 on Billboard ' s 2004 year end Hot 100 Singles & Tracks chart and number 36 on the year end Hot 100 Singles Sales chart.

The U.S. CD single was released by Geffen Records on June 29, 2004, and debuted at number three in single sales (behind American Idol stars Fantasia Barrino and Diana DeGarmo) with almost 8,000 copies sold. The single includes the album version of the song as well as an instrumental. On the cover, Simpson has dark hair, and the artwork is similar to that of the album Autobiography; an earlier, promotional version of the single shows a blonde Simpson with a yellow jacket. This promotional version includes only the original version of the song.

The single was released in the United Kingdom on September 27, 2004, on two CDs; the first includes a David Garcia & High Spies remix, and the second includes remixes, a medley of snippets of songs from Autobiography ("Shadow", "Autobiography", "La La", and "Better Off"), and the "Pieces of Me" music video. "Pieces of Me" debuted at number four on the UK Singles Chart for the week ending October 3 and remained in the top 40 for seven weeks.

Simpson has described her excitement when she first heard the song on the radio:

"I was in L.A. and my sister heard me on the radio and was freaking out and called me so I turned on the radio in my apartment with my two best friends and started jumping around and freaking out."

In Australia, "Pieces of Me" made its debut on the ARIA singles chart at number 14, and peaked for two weeks at number 7 in September; it fell out of the top 40 in late November 2004. "Pieces of Me" was also accredited as a gold single in Australia. In New Zealand, the song debuted on the RIANZ top 40 singles chart at number 33 in September 2004, peaked at 32 the next week, and fell out of the top 40 after its third week.

In Germany, "Pieces of Me" reached number 26 on the singles chart, and in Austria it debuted at number 43 and peaked at 15 in its sixth week. In Switzerland, it debuted at number 17 and peaked at 11 in its third week, in October 2004. In Italy, "Pieces of Me" peaked at 24 in October 2004, in its fourth week on the top 50 singles chart after debuting at 47; after seven weeks, it fell out of the top 50. In Denmark, the song debuted at 5 and peaked at 4, after which it fell off the chart; in Sweden, it reached a peak of number 31 on the singles chart, while in Norway it stayed on the top 20 singles chart for 12 weeks, peaking at 3 in its fifth week.

In Japan, "Pieces of Me" was a popular hit on radios reaching the top spot in domestic and international top in Japan Radio. It also reached the top 5 in countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan.

Release and promotion
"Pieces of Me" was released as the lead single from Autobiography on June 29, 2004. The music video for the song, directed by Stefan Smith, features Simpson (wearing a white shirt emblazoned with the word "punk" and a pink dress, as well as using Fostex T20RP headphones) and her band in the studio interspersed with clips of reality TV footage. The video is fairly simplistic, and Simpson refers to the more elaborate video for her second single, "Shadow", as her first "real" video.

Simpson appeared on MTV's Total Request Live on May 17, 2004, and the "Pieces of Me" video was premiered on the show on this date. On June 2, she also appeared on the show and performed the song. The video did not debut on the countdown's top 10 until July 19; however, it reached number one for the first time on August 4 and remained on the countdown through September 13. The "Shadow" video premiered on the following day and took the place of "Pieces of Me" on the countdown.

Simpson has frequently performed "Pieces of Me" live, including a number of notable television performances. She sang the song at Summer Music Mania on May 20, and it aired on FOX on June 1. Simpson sang "Pieces of Me" (followed by a brief interview with Jay Leno) on the May 24, 2004, episode of The Tonight Show, and she also sang the song on the Late Show with David Letterman on July 16. She performed "Pieces of Me" (after a brief interview with Charles Gibson) on Good Morning America on July 19, the day before her album was released in the U.S., and on July 27, she sang it (after an interview) on Ryan Seacrest's talk show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest. On August 8 she performed "Pieces of Me" on the Teen Choice Awards, and the song also received the "Song of the Summer" award. On August 29, Simpson performed the song during the pre-show for the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards.

The song made its debut somewhat later in the United Kingdom, where the album was also released several months after it was in the U.S. In September 2004, Simpson made several notable television appearances in the UK in which she performed the song, including on Top of the Pops (September 17), Top of the Pops Saturday (September 25), CD:UK and Popworld.

Later in 2004, on the October 23 episode of Saturday Night Live, Simpson performed "Pieces of Me" as her first of two songs that night; when she started to perform her second song (which was supposed to be "Autobiography"), a recording of "Pieces of Me" was mistakenly played instead, indicating that Simpson was using some sort of vocal aid. She began to do an impromptu jig (which she later named as a hoedown) when she realized she had been caught lip-syncing, and then left the stage. (She later explained it as being due to her acid reflux condition.) For her next performance, at the Radio Music Awards on October 25, Simpson poked fun at the SNL incident by having some of "Pieces of Me" play at the beginning of her performance, to suggest that she was caught in the same situation as before, only to then smile and exclaim that she was "just kidding" and begin performing "Autobiography." The incident was also parodied in Good Charlotte's "I Just Wanna Live" music video and later on Family Guy.

Simpson subsequently performed "Pieces of Me" (in addition to a performance of "La La") on Jingle Ball Rock, a television special on FOX featuring performances by a number of popular artists; it was taped on December 3 and aired on the evening of December 17. She also sang the song as part of a concert broadcast live over the Internet on December 6, and during the performance she pulled a member of the audience up on stage with her. Simpson later performed the song on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2005, in which she also hosted the West Coast portion of the show.

The video for "Pieces of Me" was nominated for "Best Pop Video" for the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost to Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone." The video was also nominated for the same category for the 2005 MTV Australia Video Music Awards, but lost to Guy Sebastian's "Out with My Baby."

As part of the promotion for her third album, Bittersweet World, Simpson performed "Pieces of Me", together with her newer single "Little Miss Obsessive", on The TODAY Show on April 18, 2008.

Track listings

 * US CD single
 * 1) "Pieces of Me" (album version)
 * 2) "Pieces of Me" (instrumental)

 * UK CD1
 * 1) "Pieces of Me" (album version) – 3:37
 * 2) "Pieces of Me" (David Garcia & High Spies remix radio edit) – 3:15

 * UK CD2
 * 1) "Pieces of Me" (radio edit) – 3:11
 * 2) "Pieces of Me" (David Garcia & High Spies remix club mix) – 7:09
 * 3) "Pieces of Me" (29 Palms remix vocal edit) – 4:04
 * 4) "Album Snippets Track" – 5:20
 * 5) "Pieces of Me" (video)

 * European CD single
 * 1) "Pieces of Me" (radio edit) – 3:11
 * 2) "Pieces of Me" (David Garcia & High Spies remix club mix) – 7:09

 * Australian CD single
 * 1) "Pieces of Me" (radio edit) – 3:11
 * 2) "Pieces of Me" (David Garcia & High Spies remix club mix) – 7:09
 * 3) "Pieces of Me" (instrumental) – 3:37
 * 4) "Pieces of Me" (video)

 * Japanese CD single
 * 1) "Pieces of Me" (radio edit) – 3:11
 * 2) "Pieces of Me" (David Garcia & High Spies remix club mix) – 7:09
 * 3) "Pieces of Me" (instrumental) – 3:38

title: Pieces of Me (song)


text:
Joseph Massino

Joseph Charles Massino (January 10, 1943 – September 14, 2023) was an American mobster. He was a member of the Mafia and boss of the Bonanno crime family from 1991 until 2004, when he became the first boss of one of the Five Families in New York City to turn state's evidence.

Massino was a protégé of Philip Rastelli, who took control of the Bonanno family in 1973. Rastelli spent most of his reign in and out of prison, but was able to get the assassination of Carmine Galante, a mobster vying for power, approved in 1979. Originally a truck hijacker, Massino secured his own power after arranging two 1981 gang murders, first a triple murder of three rebel captains, then his rival Dominick Napolitano. In 1991, while Massino was in prison for a 1986 labor racketeering conviction, Rastelli died and Massino succeeded him. Upon his release the following year, he set about rebuilding a family that had been in turmoil for almost a quarter of a century. By the dawn of the new millennium, he was reckoned as the most powerful Mafia leader in the nation. Massino became known as "The Last Don", the only full-fledged New York boss of his time who was not in prison.

In July 2004, Massino was convicted in a RICO case based on the testimony of several cooperating made men, including Massino's disgruntled underboss and brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale. He was also facing the death penalty if convicted in a separate murder trial due to be held later that year, but after agreeing to testify against his former associates, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for both indictments in 2005. Massino testified twice for the government, helping to win a murder conviction against his acting boss Vincent Basciano in 2011, and was resentenced to time served in 2013.

Early years
Joseph Massino was born on January 10, 1943, in New York City. He was one of three sons of Neapolitan-American Anthony and Adeline Massino. Raised in Maspeth, Queens, Massino has admitted to being a juvenile delinquent by the age of 12 and claimed that at 14 he ran away from home to Florida. He dropped out of Grover Cleveland High School in tenth grade.

Massino first met his future wife Josephine Vitale in 1956, and married her in 1960. The couple had three daughters. Massino also befriended Josephine's brother, Salvatore Vitale, who, after briefly serving in the Army, became one of Massino's most trusted allies. While athletic in youth, Massino was an avid cook, and grew overweight in adulthood. His weight gained him the nickname "Big Joey", and during a 1987 racketeering trial, when he asked FBI agent Joseph Pistone who was to play him in a film adaptation of his undercover work, Pistone joked that they could not find anyone fat enough. By 2004, Massino was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure as well.

After he turned state's evidence, Massino claimed his first murder victim was a Bonanno crime family associate named Tommy Zummo, whom he shot dead some time in the 1960s. The killing aroused the ire of Maspeth-based Bonanno caporegime Philip Rastelli, but he remained unaware of Massino's participation, and a nephew of Rastelli ultimately helped Massino become his protégé. Rastelli would set Massino up as a lunch wagon operator as part of his "Workmen's Mobile Lunch Association", an effective protection racket; after paying a kickback to Rastelli in the form of membership dues, Massino was assured no competition where he operated.

Rise to power
By the late 1960s, Massino was a Bonanno associate. He led a successful truck hijacking crew, with the assistance of his brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale and carjacker Duane Leisenheimer, while fencing the stolen goods and running numbers using the lunch wagon as a front. He also befriended another mob hijacker, future Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. Increasingly prosperous, Massino opened his own catering company, J&J Catering, which became another front for his activities. In 1973, boss Natale Evola died. On February 23, 1974, at a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan, the Commission named Massino's mentor, Rastelli as boss. On April 23, 1976, Rastelli was convicted of extortion, and on August 27, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In his absence Carmine Galante, a former consigliere and convicted drug trafficker, seized control of the Bonannos as unofficial acting boss.

In 1975, Massino and Vitale participated in the murder of Vito Borelli, who Massino claimed was primarily executed by Gotti at the behest of Paul Castellano of the Gambino crime family. The Borelli hit was significant for Massino in that he "made his bones"—proved his loyalty to the Mafia by killing on its behalf—and put him close to becoming a made man, a full member, in the Bonanno family. Massino also arranged the murder of one of his hijackers, Joseph Pastore, in 1976, after having Vitale borrow $9,000 from him on his behalf. While later acquitted of the crime, both Vitale and Massino would admit to participation after turning state's evidence.

In March 1975, Massino was arrested along with of one of his hijackers, Raymond Wean, and charged with conspiracy to receive stolen goods. He was scheduled to go on trial in 1977, but the charges were dropped after he successfully argued that he had not been properly mirandized, disqualifying statements Massino gave to police from being used in trial.

On June 14, 1977, Massino was inducted into the Bonanno family along with Anthony Spero, Joseph Chilli Jr. and a group of other men in a ceremony conducted by Carmine Galante. He worked as a soldier in James Galante's crew, and later worked in Philip "Phil Lucky" Giaccone's crew. Massino nevertheless remained loyal to Rastelli, then vying to oust Galante despite his imprisonment. Fearing Galante wanted him dead for insubordination, Massino delivered a request to the Commission, the governing body of the American Mafia, on Rastelli's behalf to have Galante killed. The hit was approved and executed on July 12, 1979; Rastelli subsequently took full control of the family and rewarded Massino's loyalty by promoting him to capo.

By the beginning of the 1980s, Massino ran his crew from the J&S Cake social club, a property just behind J&J Catering. The building was seized in 1988 during a crackdown on the Bonannos' gambling activities.

Three capos and Napolitano murders

Following the Galante hit, Massino began jockeying for power with Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, another Rastelli loyalist capo. Both men were themselves threatened by another faction seeking to depose the absentee boss led by capos Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Dominick "Big Trin" Trincera and Philip Giaccone. The Commission initially tried to maintain neutrality, but in 1981, Massino got word from his informants that the three capos were stocking up on automatic weapons and planning to kill the Rastelli loyalists within the Bonanno family to take complete control. Massino turned to Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Gambino boss Paul Castellano for advice; they told him to act immediately.

Massino, Napolitano and Gerlando Sciascia, a Sicilian-born capo linked to the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, arranged a meeting at a Brooklyn social club with the three capos for May 5, 1981. They had four gunmen, including Vitale and Bonanno-affiliated Montreal boss Vito Rizzuto, hiding in a closet to ambush them. When Trinchera, Giaccone and Indelicato arrived with Frank Lino to meet Massino, they were shot to death, with Massino himself stopping Indelicato from escaping. Lino escaped unscathed by running out the door. The hit further improved Massino's prestige, but was marred by both Lino's escape and the discovery of Indelicato's body on May 28.

Massino quickly won Lino over to his side, but Indelicato's son, Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato, vowed revenge. Napolitano assigned associate Donnie Brasco, who he hoped to make a made man, to kill Indelicato. "Brasco", however, was in fact an undercover FBI agent named Joseph Pistone; shortly after the hit was ordered, Pistone's assignment was ended and Napolitano was informed of their infiltration.

Already skeptical of Napolitano's support of "Brasco", Massino was deeply disturbed by the breach of security when he learned of the agent's true identity. Vitale would later testify that this was the reason Massino subsequently decided to murder Napolitano as well; as he would later quote Massino, "I have to give him a receipt for the Donnie Brasco situation." In his own testimony, Massino instead claimed Napolitano was targeted for trying to take over the Bonannos himself. On August 17, the former renegade Frank Lino and Steven Cannone drove Napolitano to the house of Ronald Filocomo, a Bonanno family associate, for a meeting. Napolitano was greeted by captain Frank Coppa, then thrown down the stairs to the house's basement by Lino and shot to death. Napolitano's body was discovered the following year.

Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, who helped Pistone formally become a Bonanno associate, was also targeted, but was arrested en route to the meeting where he was expected to be murdered. On February 18, 1982, Anthony Mirra, the soldier who first "discovered" Pistone, was assassinated on Massino's orders. Mirra had gone into hiding upon Pistone's exposure but was ultimately betrayed and murdered by his protégé and cousin, Joseph D'Amico.

Fugitive and Bonventre murder
On November 23, 1981, based on information gained by Pistone's infiltration, six Bonanno mobsters, including the then-missing Napolitano, were indicted on racketeering charges and conspiracy in "the three capos" hit.

In March 1982, Massino was tipped off by a Colombo-associated FBI insider that he was about to be indicted and went into hiding in Pennsylvania with Leisenheimer. On March 25, 1982, Massino was also charged with conspiracy to murder Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera and truck hijacking. In hiding, Massino was able to see the prosecution's strategy and better plan his defense as well as eventually face trial without association with other mobsters. Pistone later speculated Massino also feared retaliation upon the revelation that his associate, Raymond Wean, had turned state's evidence. Massino was visited by many fellow mobsters, including Gotti, and Vitale would secretly deliver cash to support him.

On April 21, 1983, Rastelli was paroled, and he and Massino ordered the murder of Bonanno capo Cesare Bonventre, the leader of the family’s Sicilian faction. Still a fugitive, Massino summoned Vitale, Louis Attanasio and James Tartaglione to his hideout and gave them the order. By this time, even though Rastelli was still officially head of the family, Massino was considered by most mobsters to be the family's street boss and field commander in all but name, as well as Rastelli's heir apparent. According to Vitale, Massino had Bonventre killed for giving him no support when he was in hiding.

In April 1984, Bonventre was called to a meeting with Rastelli in Queens. He was picked up by Vitale and Attanasio and driven to a garage. En route, Attanasio shot Bonventre twice in the head but only wounded him; he would kill Bonventre with two more shots when they reached their destination. The task of disposing of Bonventre's corpse was handed to Gabriel Infanti, who promised Vitale that Bonventre's remains would disappear forever. However, after a tipoff, the remains were discovered on April 16, 1984, in a warehouse in Garfield, New Jersey, stuffed into two 55-gallon glue drums.

For his part in the hit, Massino had Vitale initiated into the Bonanno family.

1986 conviction and 1987 acquittal
Through Gotti associate Angelo Ruggiero, Massino was able to meet with defense attorney John Pollok in 1984 to negotiate his surrender. He finally turned himself in on July 7 and was released on $350,000 bail. That year, Massino and Salvatore Vitale secured no-show jobs with the Long Island based King Caterers in exchange for protecting them from Lucchese extortion.

In 1985, Massino was indicted twice more, first as a co-conspirator with Rastelli in a labor racketeering case for controlling the Teamsters Local 814, then with a conspiracy charge for the Pastore murder that was added to the original three capos indictment. The second indictment also charged Vitale as a co-conspirator in the hijacking cases.

The labor racketeering trial began in April 1986, with Massino as one of 12 defendants including Rastelli and former underboss Nicholas Marangello. While Massino protested in confidence to other mobsters he never had the opportunity to profit from the racket, he was implicated by both Pistone and union official Anthony Gilberti, and on October 15, 1986, was found guilty of racketeering charges for accepting kickbacks on the Bonannos' behalf. On January 16, 1987, Massino was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, his first prison term. Rastelli, also convicted and in poor health during the trial, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Around this time, Massino was believed to be the Bonanno family's official underboss. With Rastelli in declining health, Massino was also reckoned as the operating head of the family, though consigliere Anthony "Old Man" Spero was nominally acting boss.

In April 1987, Massino and Vitale went on trial for truck hijacking and conspiracy to commit the triple murder, defended by Samuel H. Dawson and Bruce Cutler respectively. Prosecutor Michael Chertoff, describing Massino's rise in his opening statements, would characterize him as the "Horatio Alger of the mob." Raymond Wean and Joseph Pistone testified against Massino, but both proved unable to conclusively link Massino with any of the murder charges. On June 3, while both men were convicted on hijacking charges, they were cleared of the murder conspiracy charges. Further, the only proven criminal acts took place outside the RICO act's five-year statute of limitations; without evidence that the "criminal enterprise" was still active in this timeframe the jury returned a special verdict clearing Massino and Vitale of these charges as well.

During Massino's imprisonment at Talladega Federal Prison for his 1986 conviction, Vitale functioned as his messenger, effectively becoming co-acting boss alongside Spero. On Massino's orders, Vitale organized the murder of Gabriel Infanti, who had also botched a 1982 hit on Anthony Gilberti and was suspected of being an informant.

The family regroups
During his meetings with Massino in prison, Vitale, on behalf of the Bonannos' capos, urged his brother-in-law to become boss in name as well as in fact. Rastelli had spent all but two years of his reign behind bars, and many felt Massino would bring the family stability. Massino was reluctant to take over as long as Rastelli was alive. Not only was he respectful of Rastelli's sponsorship of his Mafia career, but Mafia tradition dictates that a boss keeps his title for life unless he abdicates. However, in the spring of 1991, Massino ordered Vitale to "make me boss" as soon as Rastelli died; Rastelli died on June 24, 1991. A few days after his funeral, Massino instructed Vitale to call a meeting of the family's capos, and Massino was acclaimed as boss.

Massino was granted two years' supervised release on November 13, 1992. During that time, he could not associate with convicted mafiosi. To get around this restriction, Massino named Vitale underboss and retained him as his messenger for the duration of his supervised release. While the FBI suspected Vitale was a mafioso, he had never been convicted of a Mafia-related crime. The FBI would thus have no reason to be suspicious of him associating with Massino since they were brothers-in-law. He returned to his job at King Caterers, and in 1996 became co-owner of Casablanca, a well-reviewed Maspeth Italian restaurant.

Massino was 48 years old at the time of his accession, and knew that he potentially had a long reign ahead of him. With this in mind, he was determined to avoid the pitfalls that landed other Mafia bosses in prison. Inspired by Genovese boss Vincent Gigante, Massino forbade his men from saying his name out loud due to FBI surveillance. Instead, they were to touch their ears when referring to him. Massino gained the nickname "The Ear" because of this. Massino took a great number of precautions in regards to security and the possibility of anything incriminating being picked up on a wiretap. He closed the family's longtime social clubs. He also arranged family meetings to be conducted in remote locations within the United States. In some cases, he held meetings in foreign countries, and had his capos bring their wives along so they could be passed off as vacations. Remembering how Pistone's infiltration had damaged the family, he also decreed that all prospective made men had to have a working relationship with an incumbent member for at least eight years before becoming made, in hopes of ensuring new mafiosi were as reliable as possible. Unusually for bosses of his era, he actively encouraged his men to have their sons made as well. In Massino's view, this would make it less likely that a capo would turn informer, since if that happened the defector's son would face almost certain death.

To minimize the damage from informants or undercover investigations Massino decentralized the family's organization. He created a clandestine cell system for his crews, forbidding them from contacting one another and avoiding meeting their capos. He would instead create a new committee that would relay his orders to the crews. In contrast to his contemporaries, particularly the publicity-friendly Gotti and the conspicuous feigned insanity of Gigante, Massino himself was also able to operate with a relatively low public profile; both Pistone and mob writer Jerry Capeci would consequently refer to Massino as the "last of the old-time gangsters."

A side effect of these reforms was the reduction of Vitale, in his own words, to "a figurehead." By the time of Massino's release the Bonanno family had grown tired of Vitale, regarding him as greedy and overstepping his authority. In the new structure of the family, Vitale lost the underboss's usual role as a go-between for the boss, as well as the share of the family's profits those duties entailed, and Massino made it clear to Vitale his unpopularity was a factor in these changes. Vitale remained loyal, however, and helped Massino organize the March 18, 1999 murder of Gerlando Sciascia. Massino indicated to fellow mobsters that Sciascia was killed for feuding with fellow Massino-confidant capo Anthony Graziano, accusing him of using cocaine, while in his own testimony Massino claimed Sciascia was killed for killing another mobster's son. Sciascia's body was not covertly buried but instead left to be discovered in a street in the Bronx, an attempt to make the hit look like a botched drug deal rather than a Mafia-ordered hit, and Massino had his capos attend Sciascia's funeral.

Shortly after becoming boss, Massino announced that his men should no longer consider themselves as part of the Bonanno family. Instead, he renamed it the Massino family, after himself. Like many mafiosi, he was angered at family namesake Joseph Bonanno's tell-all autobiography, A Man of Honor, and regarded it as a violation of the code of omertà. He told Vitale that in his view, "Joe Bonanno disrespected the family by ratting." The new name was first disclosed after Massino was indicted in 2003 and did not catch on outside the Mafia.

Relations with other families
Before Massino became boss, John Gotti was one of his closest allies. Massino had backed Gotti in his plot to take over the Gambino family, and as Gambino boss, Gotti tried to get Massino a seat on the Commission as the Bonannos' acting boss. Gotti was reportedly infuriated that Massino had been officially promoted without him being consulted, and Massino would later testify he believed Gotti conspired with Vitale to kill him. Gotti, however, was marginalized by his 1992 racketeering and murder conviction and consequent life imprisonment. Massino, for his own part, was angered at Gotti's high public profile and later criticized Gotti for killing Gotti's predecessor, Paul Castellano. Massino also had a poor relationship with Vincent Gigante, who had backed the opposition to Rastelli and blocked Gotti's attempts to bring Massino onto the Commission.

The Bonanno family had been in decline for the better part of the last quarter century since Joe Bonanno's ouster in the 1960s, and it was kicked off the Commission altogether following Pistone's infiltration. By the late 1990s, the situation was reversed and the Bonanno family was now reckoned as the most powerful crime family in New York and the nation, in no small part because Massino was the only full-fledged New York boss who was still on the streets. As it turned out, being thrown off the Commission actually worked in the Bonannos' favor; they were the only family whose leadership wasn't decimated in the Mafia Commission Trial. Wary of surveillance, Massino generally avoided meeting with members of other Mafia families and encouraged his crews to operate independently as well. In January 2000, however, Massino did preside over an informal Commission meeting with the acting bosses of the other four families. As the most powerful Mafia leader in both New York and the nation, Massino was in a position to make general policies for the Five Families. Under his direction, the Commission tightened qualifications to become a made man, requiring candidates have full Italian descent (previously having an Italian-American father was the minimum requirement) and imposed restrictions on initiating associates convicted on drug charges.

According to Capeci, the murder of Sciascia soured relations between the Bonanno and Rizzuto families. Originally considered merely a Canadian Bonanno crew, the Rizzutos responded by taking even less heed from New York.

Run-up to prosecution

At the beginning of his reign as boss, Massino enjoyed the benefit of limited FBI attention. In 1987, with the Bonannos weakened, the FBI merged its Bonanno squad with its Colombo family squad, and this squad was initially preoccupied with the Colombos' third internal war. Another dedicated Bonanno squad would be established in 1996.

The Bonanno squad's chief, Jack Stubing, was well aware of the measures Massino had taken to avoid scrutiny. He therefore decided to go after Massino with a rear-guard action. He convinced his bosses to lend him a pair of forensic accountants normally used in fraud investigations, believing that they could easily pinpoint conspirators in the family's money laundering schemes. Stubing believed that the threat of long prison sentences would be sufficient to get any conspirators to turn informer, and thus make it easier to trace how the money flowed to Massino. In the meantime, the FBI also targeted other members of the Bonanno administration. In 1995, consigliere Anthony Spero was sentenced to two years' imprisonment after being convicted of loansharking, then to life imprisonment in 2002 for murder. Graziano would assume Spero's duties, but he too pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in December 2002 and was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Vitale would also plead guilty to loansharking charges in June 2002. Vitale was not immediately sentenced, and was placed under house arrest in the interim, but the relatively low maximum sentence he was eligible for led Massino to wrongly suspect he was cooperating with law enforcement. He secretly ordered that, if he was arrested, Vitale was to be "taken down"—demoted or killed.

Until 2002, the Bonannos had been the only family in the modern history of the New York Mafia (i. e., since the Castellammarese War) to have never had a made man turn informant or government witness. Massino used this as a point of pride to rally his crime family. That year Frank Coppa, convicted on fraud and facing further charges from the FBI's forensic accounting investigation, became the first to flip. He was followed shortly by acting underboss Richard Cantarella, a participant in the Mirra murder, who was facing racketeering and murder charges. A third, Joseph D'Amico, subsequently turned state's evidence with the knowledge that Cantarella could implicate him for murder as well. All of these defections left Massino, at last, vulnerable to serious charges.

2004 conviction
On January 9, 2003, Massino was arrested and indicted, alongside Vitale, Frank Lino and capo Daniel Mongelli, in a comprehensive racketeering indictment. The charges against Massino himself included ordering the 1981 murder of Napolitano. Massino was denied bail, and Vincent Basciano took over as acting boss in his absence. Massino hired David Breitbart, an attorney he had originally wanted to represent him in his 1987 trial, for his defense.

Three more Bonanno made men would choose to cooperate before Massino came to trial. The first was James Tartaglione; anticipating he would shortly be indicted as well he went to the FBI and agreed to wear a wire while he remained free. The second was Salvatore Vitale. In custody Massino again put out the word, to a receptive Bonanno family, that he wanted Vitale killed. After learning of Massino's earlier plans to kill his brother-in-law from Coppa and Cantarella, prosecutors informed Vitale. Vitale was already dissatisfied by the lack of support he and his family received from Massino after his arrest. On the day he was arraigned with Massino, Vitale decided to flip as soon as it was safe to do so; he formally reached a deal with prosecutors in February. He was followed in short order by Lino, knowing Vitale could implicate him in murder as well. Also flipping was longtime Bonanno associate Duane Leisenheimer, concerned for his safety after an investigator for Massino's defense team visited to find out if he intended to flip.

With these defections, Massino was slapped with a superseding indictment charging him with seven additional murders: the three capos (this time for participation in the murder itself rather than conspiracy), Mirra, Bonventre, Infanti and Sciascia. Of particular interest was the Sciascia hit, which took place after a 1994 amendment to racketeering laws that allowed the death penalty for murder in aid of racketeering.

Massino's trial began on May 24, 2004, with judge Nicholas Garaufis presiding and Greg D. Andres and Robert Henoch heading the prosecution. He now faced 11 RICO counts for seven murders (due to the prospect of prosecutors seeking the death penalty for the Sciascia murder, that case was severed to be tried separately), arson, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling, and money laundering. By this time, Time magazine had dubbed Massino as "the Last Don", in reference to his status as the only New York boss not serving a prison sentence at that point. The name stuck.

Despite a weak start, with opening witness Anthony Gilberti unable to recognize Massino in the courtroom, the prosecution would establish its case to link Massino with the charges in the indictment through an unprecedented seven major turncoats, including the six turned made men. Vitale, the last of the six to take the stand, was of particular significance. He had spent most of his three decades in the Mafia as a close confidant to Massino, and his closeness to his brother-in-law allowed him to cover Massino's entire criminal history in his testimony. Breitbart's defense rested primarily on cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses, with his only witness being an FBI agent to challenge Vitale's reliability. His defense was also unusual in that he made no attempt to contest that Massino was the Bonanno boss, instead stressing the murders in the case took place before he took over and that Massino himself "showed a love of life...because the murders ceased." Vitale had admitted to 11 murders, but for his cooperation, was sentenced to time served in October 2010, and entered the witness protection program.

After deliberating for five days, the jury found Massino guilty of all 11 counts on July 30, 2004. His sentencing was initially scheduled for October 12, and he was expected to receive a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. The jury also approved the prosecutors' recommended $10 million forfeiture of the proceeds of his reign as Bonanno boss on the day of the verdict.

Turning state's evidence
Immediately after his July 30 conviction, as court was adjourned, Massino requested a meeting with Judge Garaufis, where he made his first offer to cooperate. He did so in hopes of sparing his life; he was facing the death penalty if found guilty of Sciascia's murder. Indeed, one of John Ashcroft's final acts as Attorney General was to order federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Massino. Massino thus stood to be the first Mafia boss to be executed since Lepke Buchalter was executed in 1944.

Massino subsequently claimed he decided to turn informer due to the prospect of his wife and mother having to forfeit their houses to the government. Mob authors and journalists Anthony D. DeStefano and Selwyn Raab both consider the turning of so many made men as a factor in disillusioning Massino with Cosa Nostra, the former also assuming Massino had decided to flip "long before the verdict". Massino was the first sitting boss of a New York crime family to turn state's evidence, and the second in the history of the American Mafia to do so (Philadelphia crime family boss Ralph Natale had flipped in 1999 when facing drug charges). It also marked the second time in a little more than a year that a New York boss had reached a plea bargain; Gigante had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges in 2003 after prosecutors unmasked his long charade of feigning insanity.

At his advice, that October the FBI revisited the Queens mob graveyard where Alphonse Indelicato's body was found, and unearthed the bodies of Trinchera and Giaccone as well. They also hoped to find the body of John Favara, who accidentally killed Gotti's son, and the body of Tommy DeSimone. Massino also reported that Vincent Basciano, arrested in November, had conspired to kill prosecutor Greg Andres, but after failing a polygraph test regarding the discussion he agreed to wear a wire when meeting the acting boss in jail. While Massino was unable to extract an unambiguous confession regarding Andres, he did record Basciano freely admit to ordering the murder of associate Randolph Pizzolo.

By the end of January 2005, when Basciano was indicted for the Pizzolo murder, Massino was identified by news sources as the then-anonymous fellow mobster who secretly recorded his confession, to the public disgust of Massino's family. Further confirmation of Massino's defection came in February as he was identified as the source for the graveyard, then in May when the Justice Department dropped the threat of the death penalty regarding the Sciascia case. In a hearing on June 23, 2005, Massino finalized his deal and pleaded guilty to ordering the Sciascia murder. For this and his 2004 conviction he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, with a possible reduction depending on his service as a witness. That same day Josephine Massino negotiated a settlement to satisfy the forfeiture claim, keeping the homes of herself and Massino's mother as well as some rental properties while turning over, among other assets, a cache of $7 million and hundreds of gold bars both of which were kept in his Howard Beach home, and the Casablanca restaurant.

Massino was not replaced as Bonanno boss until 2013 when Michael Mancuso, who had replaced Basciano as acting boss, was reported to have formally assumed the title.

Testimony and release
Massino was conspicuously absent from the prosecution witnesses at the 2006 racketeering trial of Basciano, the prosecution deciding he was not yet needed; he was also expected to testify against Vito Rizzuto regarding his role in the three capos murder, but the Montreal boss accepted a plea bargain in May 2007 before Rizzuto's case went to trial. He finally made his debut as a witness at Basciano's trial for the murder of Randolph Pizzolo in April 2011; Massino's testified both during the trial itself and, after Basciano was convicted, on behalf of the prosecution's unsuccessful attempt to impose the death penalty. During his testimony Massino noted, as a result of his cooperation, "I’m hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel."

Massino testified again in the 2012 extortion trial of Genovese capo Anthony Romanello, primarily to provide background as an expert on the American Mafia. While Massino had not worked closely with Romanello, prosecutors decided to use him after another mobster-turned-witness was dropped; the case ended in an acquittal. Massino had also been considered as a witness in the 2013 murder trial of Colombo acting boss Joel Cacace, but was dropped after he was unable to fully remember the meeting where he claimed Cacace indicated his involvement in the murder of NYPD officer Ralph Dols.

In June 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a request to Judge Garaufis for a reduction of Massino's sentence; prosecutors cited both the impact of Massino's unprecedented cooperation and his failing health as reasons for a reduction of his sentence. Garaufis granted their request on July 10, resentencing Massino to time served and supervised release for the remainder of his life.

Massino lived out his final years in the Federal Witness Protection Program, residing at an upscale retirement community in the Greater Cleveland area under the alias "Ralph Rogers". After he was recognized during a visit to a Downtown Cleveland casino by a man who later confronted him at his retirement home, Massino was instructed by the FBI and U.S. Marshals to relocate, although he declined and instead remained in Ohio.

Death
Massino died following a short illness at a rehabilitation facility in Glen Cove, Long Island on September 14, 2023, at the age of 80. He had been living in Ohio until shortly before his death.

title: Joseph Massino


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Wang Yun (Han dynasty)

Wang Yun (137–4 July 192 ), courtesy name Zishi, was a Chinese politician and official who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty. He served in the Han government through the reigns of three emperors – Emperor Ling ((r. 168 – 189)), Emperor Shao ((r. undefined – undefined)189) and Emperor Xian ((r. 189 – 220)). The highest offices he served in were Manager of the Affairs of the Masters of Writing and Minister over the Masses in the early reign of Emperor Xian. In 192, with help from the general Lü Bu and others, he plotted a successful coup in Chang'an against Dong Zhuo, a tyrannical warlord and regent who controlled the Han central government, and assassinated him. However, later that year, Dong Zhuo's followers staged a counter-coup and seized back control of the central government in Chang'an. Wang Yun, along with his family members, was captured and executed.

In the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wang Yun was the adoptive father of the fictional maiden Diaochan, whom he used to stir up conflict between Lü Bu and Dong Zhuo, causing the former to betray and assassinate the latter.

Life
According to Book of Later Han, Wang Yun was from Qi County, Taiyuan. His family had many members who had served as administrative officials in the regional government for generations. Wang Yun himself was an official at the age of 19, and became the Inspector of Yu Province (豫州刺史). However, later he failed in the power struggle with the eunuch Zhang Rang. He had to abandon his position and hide himself in the countryside. After the death of Zhang Rang, the general He Jin came into power, and Wang Yun was promoted to the Gentleman of the Household and later to the Intendant of Henan (河南尹).

In 190, the capital Luoyang fell into chaos following the death of He Jin and a bloody clash between the powerful Ten Attendants and government officials. Dong Zhuo, a warlord from Liang Province (凉州) managed to take control of the situation and eventually placed in the throne a puppet emperor whom he held in his power. At the time, Wang Yun held the positions of the Minister over the Masses (司徒), replacing Yang Biao, and the Prefect of the Masters of Writing (尚書令).

Dong Zhuo's subsequent tyrannical and cruel behaviour aroused the wrath of many. Wang Yun then colluded with several other officials in a plot to assassinate Dong Zhuo. The plan received a huge boost when the conspirators managed to recruit the help of Lü Bu, a formidable warrior serving as a general under Dong Zhuo. Bringing along a dozen men, Lü Bu cornered Dong Zhuo outside the palace gate and slew him.

After the death of Dong Zhuo, rumours spread that Wang Yun, now the de facto head of the Han central government, wanted to purge and execute all of Dong Zhuo's former subordinates. When Wang Yun refused to grant amnesty to Dong Zhuo's former subordinates, they took up arms under the leadership of Li Jue and Guo Si, who led them to attack Chang'an. Li Jue and Guo Si defeated the Han imperial forces guarding Chang'an and occupied the capital. While Lü Bu was planning to flee Chang'an before the city fell, he asked Wang Yun to escape together with him. However, Wang Yun refused to abandon Emperor Xian and remained behind. Li Jue and Guo Si's forces captured him and killed him along with his family. Some of Wang Yun's relatives managed to escape and survive; one of them was Wang Ling, a nephew of Wang Yun, who later became a general in the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period.

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Wang Yun appears as a character in two chapters of the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which romanticises the events in the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period of China. In the novel, Wang Yun devised an elaborate plot to eliminate Dong Zhuo. It involved two of the Thirty-Six Stratagems: Beauty Trap and Chain Stratagems.

In Chapter 8, Wang Yun was thinking about how to get rid of Dong Zhuo when he encountered Diaochan, a singer in his household whom he had been treating like his daughter. An idea struck him: Make use of Diaochan to sow discord between Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu, and instigate Lü Bu to assassinate Dong Zhuo. He then invited Lü Bu and Dong Zhuo to his residence for a party on two occasions. On both occasions, he asked Diaochan to perform for the guest and catch his attention. He initially promised to marry Diaochan to Lü Bu; later, he let Dong Zhuo bring Diaochan home. When Lü Bu found out, he suspected that Dong Zhuo had seized Diaochan for himself and became very angry. One day, while Dong Zhuo was out, Lü Bu sneaked into his room to meet Diaochan. She wept and pleaded with him to save her from Dong Zhuo. In the meantime, Dong Zhuo had returned and he saw Lü Bu embracing Diaochan. He was so furious that he threw a ji at Lü Bu which narrowly missed him as he fled. After calming down, Dong Zhuo spoke to Diaochan and asked if she was willing to marry Lü Bu, but she said she would rather die and attempted suicide. Dong Zhuo then believed her.

In Chapter 9, as Lü Bu became increasingly resentful of Dong Zhuo, Wang Yun used the opportunity to instigate and incite Lü Bu to turn against Dong Zhuo. Wang Yun managed to convince Lü Bu to kill Dong Zhuo, and then set up an ambush near the palace gates. He then lied to Dong Zhuo, saying that Emperor Xian wanted to abdicate his throne to him, and lured Dong Zhuo into the ambush, where he met his end at Lü Bu's hands. Later in Chapter 9, when Chang'an was surrounded by Li Jue and Guo Si's forces, Wang Yun made them promise to not harm Emperor Xian and then committed suicide in front of them by jumping off the viewing platform above the city gates.

title: Wang Yun (Han dynasty)


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Brian Donnelly (New Zealand politician)

Brian John Donnelly (5 November 1949 – 25 September 2008) was a New Zealand politician. He was a member of the New Zealand First party.

Early life and career
Donnelly was born in Auckland, New Zealand as the third of five children. His father worked as a fabric cutter and later as a real estate agent. Donnelly attended Sacred Heart College on a scholarship. He studied at Massey University and Auckland University, and received a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Education, a Master of Educational Administration, a Diploma in Teaching, and a Diploma in Second Language Teaching. He then worked in the education sector in New Zealand and the Cook Islands, which included deputy principal at Titikaveka College in Rarotonga from 1977 to 1980, and principal of Whangarei Intermediate School from 1990 to 1996 (only resigning from the latter on entering parliament).

Member of Parliament
In the 1993 election, he stood for the newly formed New Zealand First in the Whangarei electorate, but was unsuccessful. In the 1996 election, with the advent of the MMP system, Donnelly was ranked third on the New Zealand First list, and entered Parliament. He has retained his third-place position in New Zealand First's list until his retirement.

When New Zealand First formed a coalition with the National Party, Donnelly became Minister Responsible for the Education Review Office, Associate Minister of Education, and Associate Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. When the coalition disintegrated, and New Zealand First itself began to splinter, Donnelly was one of those MPs who remained loyal to the party. He was one of five New Zealand First MPs to avoid the collapse of the party's vote in the 1999 election. After the 2002 election he was appointed chair of Parliament's Education and Science Committee.

Donnelly has been regarded as a social liberal within his caucus, and voted for civil unions in New Zealand as well as Sue Bradford's member's bill to remove the provision allowing parents to use reasonable force in correcting their children. In retaliation, current New Zealand First President Dail Jones threatened demotion of the long-serving List MP, as well as fellow repeal supporter Doug Woolerton. Donnelly was widely respected by Members from other political parties.

In February 2008, Donnelly was appointed as New Zealand's High Commissioner to the Cook Islands, and Dail Jones was sworn in to replace him as a list MP on 15 February 2008. Donnelly was a speaker of Cook Islands Māori, unlike most Foreign Affairs diplomats.

In the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours, Donnelly was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order, for public services.

Personal life
Donnelly met his wife Linda through teaching and they married in 1970. They had three children, Theresa, Ioane, and Erena.

Illness and death
In August 2008, Donnelly resigned from his position due to ill health. He died on 25 September 2008.

title: Brian Donnelly (New Zealand politician)


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Peter Harold Wright

Company Sergeant Major Peter Harold Wright VC (10 August 1916 – 5 April 1990) was a British Army soldier and an English recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Early life and military career
Peter Harold Wright was born in Mettingham, near Bungay in Suffolk on 10 August 1916, during the First World War. Until the age of 20, he worked on his father's farm but decided to join the Coldstream Guards, one of the oldest regiments in the British Army. He served with the 3rd Battalion of his regiment.

VC citation
Wright was 27 years old, and a company sergeant major in the 3rd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, British Army during the Second World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 25 September 1943 near Salerno, Italy, a steep, wooded hill was being assaulted by the 3rd Bn. Coldstream Guards, and Company Sergeant Major Wright's company, most of its officers killed, was held up near the crest. Sergeant Major Wright took charge and single-handed he silenced with grenades and bayonet three Spandau posts and then led his men to consolidate the position. He then beat off a counter-attack, and disregarding the heavy fire, brought up extra ammunition.

Wright's Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) was substituted for the VC on the instructions of King George VI.

After the war
Wright retired from the army in 1945 and in the following year he married Mollie Hurren from Wenhaston, Suffolk. Together they farmed Church Farm at nearby Blythburgh.

Peter Harold Wright died in Ipswich, Suffolk on 5 April 1990, at the age of 73, and is buried in the village churchyard of All Saints at Ashbocking, also in Suffolk.

title: Peter Harold Wright


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Salvatore Vitale

Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale (born September 22, 1947) is an American former underboss of the Bonanno crime family before he became a government informant. After his arrest in 2003, Vitale agreed to cooperate with the government and testify against his brother-in-law, boss Joseph Massino, and in July 2004, Massino was convicted in a RICO case. Vitale had admitted to 11 murders, however, in October 2010, was sentenced to time served due to his cooperation, and entered the witness protection program.

Early life
Vitale was born on September 22, 1947, in Maspeth, Queens in New York City. He was the son of Giuseppe and Lilli Vitale, who had emigrated from the village of San Giuseppe Jato in Sicily after World War II; the couple had already had three daughters, but Salvatore was their only son to survive childbirth. Salvatore was described by his family as emotionally distant as a child.

Vitale first met Joseph Massino, future boss of the Bonanno family, as a child. Massino had begun dating Vitale's sister Josephine in 1956, and the couple married in 1960. Massino also befriended Salvatore Vitale, becoming a surrogate "big brother" to his future brother-in-law.

Unlike Massino, Vitale graduated from Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, Queens. He also attempted to have a legitimate career; Vitale entered the U.S. Military and had been trained as a paratrooper. Discharged in 1968, he went on to work briefly as a New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision corrections officer, working in Queens with drug offenders.

He and his wife Diana moved to Long Island, a safe distance from mob-entrenched Maspeth to have a better life for themselves. Salvatore managed his own social club in Maspeth not far from Joseph Massino's CasaBlanca Restaurant and Catering Service where he would meet with his underlings. His son Anthony would later work for mob associate Robert Perrino at The New York Post after he dropped out of college.

Criminal career
When he quit that job, Vitale approached Joseph Massino for criminal work. He soon became involved in burglaries and transport truck hijacking. He was given a no-show job as a food consultant for King Caterer's.

Massino began jockeying for power with Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, another loyalist capo to the boss Philip Rastelli. Both men were themselves threatened by another faction seeking to depose the absentee boss led by capos Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Dominick "Big Trin" Trincera and Philip Giaccone. The Commission initially tried to maintain neutrality, but in 1981, Massino got word from Carmine "Tutti" Franzese (Sonny Franzese's cousin) that the three capos were stocking up on automatic weapons and planning to kill the Rastelli loyalists within the Bonanno family to take complete control. Massino turned to Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Gambino boss Paul Castellano for advice; they told him to act immediately.

Massino, Napolitano and Gerlando Sciascia, a Sicilian-born capo linked to the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, arranged a meeting at a Brooklyn social club with the three capos for May 5, 1981. They had four gunmen, including Vitale and Bonanno-affiliated Montreal boss Vito Rizzuto, hiding in a closet to ambush them. When Trinchera, Giaccone and Indelicato arrived with Frank Lino to meet Massino, they were shot to death, with Massino himself stopping Indelicato from escaping. Lino escaped unscathed by running out the door. The hit further improved Massino's prestige, but was marred by both Lino's escape and the discovery of Indelicato's body on May 28.

On April 21, 1983, Rastelli was paroled, and he and Massino ordered the murder of Bonanno soldier Cesare Bonventre. Massino summoned Vitale, Louis Attanasio and James Tartaglione to his hideout and gave them the order. By this time, even though Rastelli was still officially head of the family, Massino was considered by most mobsters to be the family's street boss and field commander in all but name, as well as Rastelli's heir apparent. According to Vitale, Massino had Bonventre killed for giving him no support when he was in hiding.

In April 1984, Bonventre was called to a meeting with Rastelli in Queens. He was picked up by Vitale and Attanasio and driven to a garage. En route, Attanasio shot Bonventre twice in the head but only wounded him; he would kill Bonventre with two more shots when they reached their destination. The task of disposing of Bonventre's corpse was handed to Gabriel Infanti, who promised Vitale that Bonventre's remains would disappear forever. However, after a tipoff, the remains were discovered on April 16, 1984, in a warehouse in Garfield, New Jersey, stuffed into two 55-gallon glue drums. For his part in the hit, Massino had Vitale initiated into the Bonanno family.

Later in 1984, Massino and Salvatore Vitale secured no-show jobs with the Long Island based King Caterers in exchange for protecting them from Lucchese extortion. In 1985, an indictment charged Vitale as a co-conspirator in the hijacking cases alongside Massino.

On October 15, 1986, Massino was found guilty of racketeering charges for accepting kickbacks on the Bonannos' behalf. On January 16, 1987, Massino was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, his first prison term. Rastelli, also convicted and in poor health during the trial, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Around this time, Massino was believed to be the Bonanno family's official underboss. With Rastelli in declining health, Massino was also reckoned as the operating head of the family, though consigliere Anthony "Old Man" Spero was nominally acting boss.

In April 1987, Massino and Vitale went on trial for truck hijacking and conspiracy to commit the triple murder, defended by Samuel H. Dawson and Bruce Cutler respectively. On June 3, while both men were convicted on hijacking charges, they were cleared of the murder conspiracy charges. Further, the only proven criminal acts took place outside the RICO act's five-year statute of limitations; without evidence that the "criminal enterprise" was still active in this timeframe the jury returned a special verdict clearing Massino and Vitale of these charges as well.

During Massino's imprisonment, Vitale functioned as his messenger, effectively becoming co-acting boss alongside Spero. On Massino's orders, Vitale organized the murder of Gabriel Infanti, who had also botched a 1982 hit on Anthony Gilberti and was suspected of being an informant. During his meetings with Massino in prison, Vitale, on behalf of the Bonannos' capos, urged his brother-in-law to become boss in name as well as in fact. Rastelli had spent all but two years of his reign behind bars, and many felt Massino would bring the family stability. Massino was reluctant to take over as long as Rastelli was alive. Not only was he respectful of Rastelli's sponsorship of his Mafia career, but Mafia tradition dictates that a boss keeps his title for life unless he abdicates. However, in the spring of 1991, Massino ordered Vitale, "If Rastelli dies, make me boss."

Rastelli died on June 24, 1991. A few days after his funeral, in accordance with Massino's orders, Vitale called a meeting of the family's capos, and Massino was acclaimed as boss.

Massino was granted two years' supervised release on November 13, 1992. During that time, he could not associate with convicted mafiosi. To get around this restriction, Massino named Vitale underboss and designated him as his messenger for the duration of his supervised release. While the FBI suspected Vitale was a mafioso, he had never been convicted of a Mafia-related crime. The FBI would thus have no reason to be suspicious of him associating with Massino since they were brothers-in-law. He returned to his job at King Caterers, and in 1996 became co-owner of Casablanca, a well-reviewed Maspeth Italian restaurant.

To minimize the damage from informants or undercover investigations Massino decentralized the family's organization. He created a clandestine cell system for his crews, forbidding them from contacting one another and avoiding meeting their capos. A side effect of these reforms was the reduction of Vitale, in his own words, to "a figurehead." By the time of Massino's release the Bonanno family had grown tired of Vitale, regarding him as greedy and overstepping his authority. In the new structure of the family, Vitale lost the underboss's usual role as a go-between for the boss, as well as the share of the family's profits those duties entailed, and Massino made it clear to Vitale his unpopularity was a factor in these changes. Vitale remained loyal, however, and helped Massino organize the March 18, 1999, murder of Gerlando Sciascia. Massino indicated to fellow mobsters that Sciascia was killed for feuding with fellow Massino-confidant capo Anthony Graziano, accusing him of using cocaine, while in his own testimony Massino claimed Sciascia was killed for killing another mobster's son. Sciascia's body was not covertly buried but instead left to be discovered in a street in the Bronx, an attempt to make the hit look like a botched drug deal rather than a Mafia-ordered hit, and Massino had his capos attend Sciascia's funeral.

Vitale was put under house arrest in 2001 after pleading guilty to his role in an extortion scheme on Long Island. Vitale later also pleaded guilty to loansharking charges in June 2002. Vitale was not immediately sentenced, and was placed under house arrest in the interim. However, the maximum sentence Vitale faced was so low that Massino wrongly suspected his underboss was cooperating with law enforcement. He secretly ordered that, if he was arrested, Vitale was to be "taken down"—demoted or killed.

Informant
Until 2002, the Bonannos had been the only family in the modern history of the New York Mafia (i. e., since the Castellammarese War) to have never had a made man turn informant or government witness. Massino used this as a point of pride to rally his crime family. That year, Frank Coppa, convicted on fraud and facing further charges from an FBI forensic accounting investigation, became the first to flip. Coppa gave information that directly implicated both Vitale and acting underboss Richard Cantarella in the Perrino murder. Cantarella himself flipped soon afterward.

On January 9, 2003, Massino was arrested and indicted, alongside Vitale, Frank Lino and capo Daniel Mongelli, in a comprehensive racketeering indictment. On the day of Vitale's arrest, FBI agents dropped a bombshell–they had evidence that Massino believed Vitale had turned informer, and had gone as far as to put a contract on him.

It turned out that Coppa and Cantarella had told the FBI of Massino's earlier plans to kill his brother-in-law. While in custody, Massino again put out the word that he was "very upset" with Vitale and wanted to "give him a receipt"–his term for a whacking. Other Bonanno defendants awaiting trial began calling Vitale "Fredo" (after Fredo Corleone, Michael Corleone's turncoat brother in The Godfather Part II). The FBI took the threat very seriously, going as far as to house Massino and Vitale in separate prisons (Massino in Brooklyn, Vitale in Manhattan) and keep them apart when they were not appearing in court.

Vitale was already dissatisfied by the lack of support he and his family received from Massino after his arrest. Despite this, he had every intention of staying loyal until learning that Massino wanted him killed. On the day he was arraigned with Massino, Vitale decided to flip as soon as it was safe to do so; he formally reached a deal with prosecutors in February.

Shortly after Vitale reached his deal, Lino flipped as well. Lino knew that Vitale could implicate him in at least four murders–including that of Sonny Black. Also flipping was longtime Bonanno associate Duane Leisenheimer, whom Vitale implicated in several crimes, including two murders. When an investigator for Massino's defense team started probing to see if Leisenheimer would flip, Leisenheimer feared that Massino would put a contract on him and cut a deal with prosecutors for his own safety.

While the prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of five other turncoats, Vitale was of particular significance to the prosecution's case. Not only was he the third confessed underboss of a New York crime family to turn informer (after the Gambinos' Sammy Gravano and the Luccheses' Anthony Casso), but he had spent most of his three decades in the Mafia as a close confidant to Massino. This closeness allowed prosecutors to introduce evidence of over three decades of criminal activity by Massino, and enabled Vitale to cover his brother-in-law's entire criminal history in his testimony. The only witness called by Massino's defense was an FBI agent to challenge Vitale's reliability.

On the strength of testimony from Vitale and other turncoats, Massino was convicted on all 11 RICO counts on July 30, 2004. Facing the prospect of the death penalty for ordering Sciascia's murder, Massino almost immediately began talks for a plea deal of his own. He formally pleaded guilty to that charge on June 23, 2005, and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.

Vitale had admitted to 11 murders, but for his cooperation, was sentenced to time served on October 29, 2010, and entered the witness protection program. Vitale's testimony led to the convictions of 51 organized crime figures. Vitale returned to the stand again in March 2012 to testify against Thomas Gioeli.

title: Salvatore Vitale


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title: User talk:200.203.28.25


text:
Ann Hui

Ann Hui On-wah, (born 23 May 1947) is a film director, producer, screenwriter and actress from Hong Kong who is one of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers of the Hong Kong New Wave. She is known for her films about social issues in Hong Kong which include: literary adaptations, martial arts, semi-autobiographical works, women's issues, social phenomena, political changes, and thrillers. She served as the president of the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild from 2004 to 2006.

Hui has won numerous awards. She won Best Director at the Golden Horse Awards three times (1999, 2011, 2014); Best Film at the Asia Pacific Film Festival; and Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards six times (1983, 1996, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018).

Only two films have won a Grand Slam (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress) at the Hong Kong Film Awards; they are Summer Snow and A Simple Life, both directed by Ann Hui. She was honored for her lifetime accomplishments at the 2012 Asian Film Awards. In 2017, the US based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited Hui to become a member.

Early life
On 23 May 1947, Hui was born in Anshan, a Chinese iron-mining city in Liaoning Province. Hui's mother was Japanese and her father was Chinese. In 1952, Hui moved to Macau, then to Hong Kong at the age of five. Hui attended St. Paul's Convent School. She grew up in an old-fashioned Chinese family. Since her grandfather and father both love classical literature, Hui learned to recite many ancient Chinese poems. When she was in college, Ann Hui worked in the student theater troupe performing as an extra, doing busywork and designing posters. When she had trouble she couldn't solve, she would go to the cinema to watch a movie.

Education
In 1972, Hui earned a master's in English and comparative literature from the University of Hong Kong. Hui studied at the London Film School for two years. Hui wrote her thesis on the works of Alain Robbe-Grillet, a French writer and filmmaker.

Career
When Hui returned to Hong Kong after her stay in London, she became an assistant to prominent Chinese film director King Hu. She then began working for Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) as a scriptwriter-director and produced documentaries such as Wonderful, four episodes of CID, two of Social Worker, and one of the Dragon, Tiger, Panther series. In March 1977 she directed six dramas for the Independent Commission Against Corruption, a Hong Kong organization created to clean up government misconduct. Two of these films were so controversial that they were banned. A year later, Hui directed three episodes of Below the Lion Rock, a documentary series about people from Hong Kong, produced by public broadcasting station, Radio Television Hong Kong. The most recognized episode of Hui's is Boy from Vietnam (1978), which is the start of her Vietnam Trilogy.

In 1979, Hui finally directed her first feature-length film, The Secret, which presents images from the gloomy and dreary old Western District, with its worn-out mansions, shadowy alleys, fallen leaves and religious rituals, such as the ceremonial rite of releasing the soul from purgatory by burning paper money and cutting off the head of a chicken. The Secret earned Hui a Golden Horse Award for Best Feature Film.

In the 1980s, Hui's career was growing internationally. The most popular films of that time were Eastern variations of Hollywood gangster and action films. But Hui did not follow the trend, and instead created more personal films. Many of her best films dealt with cultural displacement. In particular, her central characters are often forced to relocate to another country where they struggle to learn and survive. Hui explores the characters' reactions to new environments and their responses to their return home. During this "New Wave" period, most of her films are sharp and tough, with satirical and political metaphors, reflecting her concern for people; for women; for orphans devastated by war; and for Vietnamese refugees. Her best known works in this category are The Story of Woo Viet (1981) and Boat People (1982) – the remaining two parts of her Vietnam Trilogy. Boat People won the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Film and Best Director. Although Hui has directed some generic films, another common theme she works with is family conflict, such as in the 1990 film My American Grandson.

Hui's concern for regular people, and especially women, became the most common theme in her films. She creates stories of the experiences of women. One of her most personal works is Song of the Exile (1990), a semi-autobiographical film about family connections and identity. It depicts the story of a young woman, Cheung Hueyin, returning to Hong Kong for her sister's wedding after studying film in London for several years. Hueyin and her mother, who is Japanese, do not seem to have a steady relationship. As the film follows Hueyin's journey to her mother's home town in Japan, Hueyin and her mother are forced to re-examine their relationship, as both have been uprooted from their own countries. "Its narratives of migration also spoke to the displacement of the Hong Kong people as they left the colony in panic to escape the impending Chinese rule." The film won both the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Award for Best Director. She served as the president of the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild in 2004.

In the 1990s, Hui worked on more commercial films. She directed fewer films herself, as she focused on behind-the-scenes work for other filmmakers. The theme of displacement still recurs in her work. During the mid-1990s, Hui started a film project about the Tiananmen Square massacre and the reactions of Hong Kong citizens, but the project was not completed due to lack of funding. Throughout her career, Hui has taken chances to develop more intense and ambitious films while making a name for herself.

Hui said in an interview that she wants to do more socially conscious projects. She knows the difficulties of finding projects that would do that and "attract investors as well as appeal to the public." Her goal was to "present something that is watchable and at the same time attractive" and allow the public to analyse the social issues involved. Hui is known for making controversial films; the interview, in particular, described the horrors of increased crime and unemployment rates in Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong. Two of her films that focus on these issues are The Way We Are (2008) and Night and Fog (2009), while maintaining a motif of displacement.

The 45th annual Hong Kong International Film Festival was held in April 2021. Hui is one of the six veteran Hong Kong filmmakers who directed Johnnie To Kei-Fung's highly anticipated anthology film: Septet: The Story of Hong Kong (2020). The other filmmakers were Sammo Hung, Ringo Lam, Patrick Tam Kar-Ming, Tsui Hark, Yuen Woo-ping and Johnnie To. The short films were shot entirely on 35 mm film; each touches on a nostalgic and moving story set across time periods, with each an ode to the city.

Vietnam Trilogy
"Collectively, the three have been named the 'Trilogy of Vietnam', as they all focus on problems involving Vietnam. They are about the tragic destinies of displaced individuals seeking a place to which they can belong and who are struggling in a period of changes, leading in the end to failure."

Boy from Vietnam (1978) is the first film of Hui's Vietnam Trilogy. It chronicles a teenager's illegal entry to Hong Kong and adjustment to life in the city. "As the boy locates his brother, who is already in Hong Kong, moves from a safe house and takes up work, Hui and writers Shu Kei and Wong Chi carefully shed light on the hardships immigrants face in Hong Kong. The new home, it turns out, is no promised land for refugees but more a transit point on a journey elsewhere, and a place where injustice and prejudice are common." This film is historical: in the late 1970s, a large number of Vietnamese boat people illegally immigrated to Hong Kong. This film describes the experience of those who risked their lives in Hong Kong, and shows the setbacks, discrimination and exploitation they experienced when they were only teens.

In 1981, The Story of Woo Viet continued to describe the problem of Vietnamese boat people. Woo Viet, an overseas Chinese of Vietnam, smuggles himself into Hong Kong after trying many times. He gets a pen pal from Hong Kong to help him start over in the United States. However, he is stuck in the Philippines as a hired killer for saving his love. This film describes the hardship of smuggling, the memories of war, the sinister nature of refugee camps, and the crisis in Chinatown.

In 1982, the People's Republic of China, having just ended a war with Vietnam, permitted Hui to film on Hainan Island. Boat People (1982) set in 1978, after the Communist Party lead Vietnam, through the point of view of a Japanese photojournalist, Shiomi Akutagawa, showed the condition of society and political chaos after the Vietnam War. Boat People was the first Hong Kong movie filmed in Communist China. Hui saved a role for Chow Yun-fat, but because at that time Hong Kong actors working in mainland China were banned in Taiwan, Chow Yun-fat declined the role out of fear for being blacklisted. Six months before filming was set to start, and after the film crew was already on location in Hainan, a cameraman suggested that Hui give the role to Andy Lau. At that time, Lau was still a newcomer in the Hong Kong film industry. Hui gave Lau the role and flew him to Hainan before a proper audition or even seeing what he looked like.

Transition from television to film
Hui left television in 1979, making her first feature, The Secret, a mystery thriller based on real life murder case and starring Taiwanese star Sylvia Chang. It was immediately hailed as an important film in the Hong Kong New Wave. The Spooky Bunch (1981) was her take on the ghost story genre, while The Story of Woo Viet (1981) continued her Vietnam Trilogy. Hui experimented with special effects and daring angles; her preoccupation with sensitive political and social issues is a recurrent feature in most of her subsequent films. Boat People (1982), the third part of her Vietnam Trilogy, is the most famous of her early films. It examines the plight of the Vietnamese after the Vietnam War.

In the mid-1980s Hui continued her string of critically acclaimed works. Love in a Fallen City (1984) was based on a novella by Eileen Chang, and the two-part, ambitious wuxia adaptation of Louis Cha's first novel, The Book and the Sword, was divided into The Romance of Book and Sword (1987) and Princess Fragrance (1987). In 1990, one of her most important works to date, the semi-autobiographical The Song of Exile, was released. The film looks into the loss of identity, disorientation and despair faced by an exiled mother and a daughter faced with clashes in culture and historicity. As in the film, Hui's mother was Japanese.

Post-hiatus work
After a brief hiatus in which she returned briefly to television, Hui returned with Summer Snow (1995), about a middle-aged woman trying to cope with everyday family problems and an Alzheimer-inflicted father-in-law. In 1996, she was a member of the jury at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.

Eighteen Springs (1997) reprises another Eileen Chang novel. Hui's Ordinary Heroes (1999), about Chinese and Hong Kong political activists from 1970s to the 1990s, won the Best Feature at the Golden Horse Awards.

In 2002, her July Rhapsody, the companion film to Summer Snow about a middle-aged male teacher facing a mid-life crisis, was released to good reviews in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Her film, Jade Goddess of Mercy (2003), starring Zhao Wei and Nicholas Tse, was adapted from a novel from Chinese writer Hai Yan.

In 2008, Hui directed the highly acclaimed domestic drama, The Way We Are. In an interview with Esther M. K. Cheung, Hui recalls working on The Way We Are being the same as working during her "earlier TVB days".

The Way We Are was followed by Night and Fog. "The two films revolve around the mundane lives of the inhabitants of Tin Shui Wai's public housing blocks." In an interview with Muse magazine, Hui explains how she sees the two films as about something uniquely Hong Kong: "[on Night and Fog] I think that this film can represent something; it can express a kind of feeling about the middle and lower class, and maybe even Hong Kong as a whole. Everyone can eat at McDonald's or shop at malls. That's a way of life, but spiritually, there's dissatisfaction, especially with families on welfare. They don't really have any worries about life, but there's an unspeakable feeling of depression.

A Simple Life (2011) premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival where it was nominated for the Golden Lion. The film centres around the relationship of two characters, Ah Tao (Deanie Ip) and Roger (Andy Lau). It is a tale about a master and his long-time servant and was based on the relationship producer Roger Lee had with his servant. The film was chosen as Hong Kong's submission to the Academy Awards but did not make the shortlist. Hui could not afford to film A Simple Life until she found Andy Lau. "You make a movie and a lot of people ask you why you do it, and this time I was moved by one person's behavior, by the script." "Because she has always shot a very authentic Hong Kong theme, the reaction on the mainland will not be too special", said Andy Lau. When Hui reached him, she said something that made him sad: "I haven't had enough money for a long time. Can you help me?" Andy Lau said it touched him. "I feel so sad. Sometimes when you make a movie, they say, aren't you afraid to lose money? It's not the best-selling, it's not the most famous, but sometimes you're moved, maybe it's the action, maybe it's the script, and the many little drops add together to make me do it. I work hard to make money every day, so I won't be stupid". He invested 30 million yuan before Yu Dong (president of Bona Film Group Limited) joined. "Both the director and I wanted the film to come out, so we calculated the cost and used it to produce, what I lost was just my salary, just count it as finding someone to play with me for two months."

Hui's 2014 film The Golden Era premiered out of competition at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. It was a biopic based on the lives of writers Xiao Hong and Xiao Jun. Tang Wei and Feng Shaofeng starred.

Our Time Will Come is a 2017 war film, starring Zhou Xun, Eddie Peng and Wallace Huo. It revolves around the resistance movement during Japan's occupation of Hong Kong. Mark Jenkins writes, "Fictionalized from actual events, the sumptuously photographed drama centers on Lan (Zhou Xun), a teacher before the Japanese closed the local schools. After she helps smuggle out a noted author (Guo Tao), the young woman is recruited by the insurgents' swashbuckling leader (Eddie Peng). Lan eventually learns that her ex (Wallace Huo Chienhwa) has infiltrated the occupation headquarters, where he discusses classical Chinese verse with a Japanese officer (Masatoshi Nagase, who also portrayed another poetry lover in 'Paterson')." The film opened in China on 1 July 2017, to commemorate and to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China.

In 2022, Hui was invited to be the Jury President of the 59th Golden Horse Awards.

In February 2024, Hui served as a jury member at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.

Style, themes and legacy
Hui starts with the female perspective, depicting the hearts of women. Most of her films show daily life of women in Hong Kong and create vivid female images through delicate artistic expression. In her movies, women are independent individuals with their own personality. Her films are always full of a sense of drama, but they do not make the audience feel hopeless. They all have an atmosphere of grief, but without pessimism. In her films, there is no terrible conflict, but she uses a plain method to represent the female world. In her movies, women always feel powerlessness, but not all surrender to fate, and they work hard and strive. Hui's feminist films are rich with women's emotions and female consciousness, making the audiences feel the struggle and warmth of women's lives.

As one of the leading figures of Hong Kong's New Wave, Hui has continuously challenged herself and broadened her film career while bringing the audience surprises. This is highlighted in women's stories forming her artistic style. As a female, Hui has created female images using a film language which is unique in the Hong Kong film industry.

In addition, Hui's works discuss the ideas of race and sex in Asian cultures in a sharp tone. Her semi-autobiography work Song of the Exile is one of the examples, showing how a female's identity has been strugglingly constructed in such a cultural context. Audrey Yue writes, "When it was released in 1990, the film's themes of cross-cultural alienation, inter-ethnic marriage, generational reconciliation and divided loyalties resonated with the British colony's 1997 transition to Chinese sovereignty." This "cunningly metaphoric" is said to be one of the most important features of a Hong Kong director in the last few years.

Of Song of the Exile, Audrey Yue writes, "The central motif is the diaspora as the inheritance of exile ... Unlike the term 'exile' that more specifically refers to the psychological condition of people who have been forcefully removed from the homeland, the concept of 'diaspora' focuses more on the conditions of displacement (and resettlement) in the hostland. Migration, mobile work contracts, globalization and cosmopolitanism have enabled the formation of a new world of shifting populations or ethnoscapes."

Hui's films reflect diverse female images. Firstly, she creates submissive women, for example, with Sum Ching in The Story of Woo Viet (1982), Cam Nuong in Boat People (1982), Mang Tit Lan in Zodiac Killers (1991), and Ling in Night and Fog (2009). Facing the injustice of life, these women will only passively accept the arrangement of fate, and silently endure the hardship of life. Hui gives more attention and sympathy to such women, and such films permeate her deep thinking on female destiny. However, Hui also creates female characters with strong sense of rebellion, such as Bai Liu-Su in Love in a Fallen City (1984), May Sun in Summer Snow (1995), Gu Manzhen in Eighteen Springs (1997), and Xiao Hong in The Golden Era (2014). In these films, women are no longer the submissive and cowardly appendages of traditional patriarchy. Instead, they become women who have the courage to fight for their rights.

Ambiguous references to politics are also present. The political dimensions in Hui's films are unconscious. According to Ka-Fai Yau, Hui has said in an interview that she does not understand politics and therefore just does not think about it. But this denial of the political seems at odds with her films and how spectators have viewed them. She also revealed her attitudes on her intention of constructing the stories by reflecting the conditions in social reality:

In an interview with Esther M. K. Cheung, Hui revealed:

"Hui also uses voice-over as a device to link scenes and shots. This is a hallmark of Hui's films. In Hui's features, voice-over functions not solely to (1) narrate the plot and (2) bring to the surface the interior thoughts and feelings of the characters, but also (3) to catalyze the connection between shots. In most cases, voice-over is employed to give oral expression to the interior thoughts and feelings of the characters"

The 2021 documentary film Keep Rolling provides an insight into her life's work. It was directed by Hui's frequent collaborator Man Lim-chung in his directorial debut.

As actress
Ann Hui has appeared mostly in cameo roles in several films:
 * Love Massacre (1981)
 * Winners and Sinners (1983) - Fast food clerk
 * Summer Snow (1995) - Neighbour
 * Somebody Up (1996) - Teacher
 * Who's the Woman, Who's the Man? (1996)
 * The River (1997) - Director
 * Jiang hu: The Triad Zone (2000)
 * Merry-Go-Round (2001)
 * Forever and Ever (2001)
 * Fighting to Survive (2002)
 * My Name Is Fame (2006) - Film director
 * Simply Actors (2007)
 * Echoes of the Rainbow (2010) - Kindergarten teacher
 * Our Time Will Come (2017) - Interviewer

title: Ann Hui