Talking points

Our editors will be looking ahead today to these developing stories ...

Ma welcomes high-ranking American visitors

US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman will be in Taipei from today until Wednesday, the highest-ranking US government official to visit Taiwan in more than a decade. Poneman will meet President Ma Ying-jeou (pictured) and local business leaders, according to the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy on the island. Several senior US officials visited Taiwan this year, including Sandra Henriquez, assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Assistant Secretary of commerce Suresh Kumar.

US special envoy talks to Beijing on Myanmar

Derek Mitchell, the US special envoy on Myanmar, will visit Beijing today and tomorrow after holding meetings last week in Japan and South Korea. The United States and China will discuss developments in Myanmar, seen as strategically important to both Washington and Beijing, after US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's landmark visit to the longtime Beijing ally.

Shy Chelsea takes centre stage on television

Chelsea Clinton, the only child of America's most famous political couple, will today abandon her once-cherished privacy, and make her debut with a high-profile role on national television. At 31, Clinton (pictured) has largely avoided the glare of public scrutiny that her parents, former president Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, not only endure, but court. That will change when she pops up on NBC as a special correspondent on the show Rock Centre with Brian Williams and on the channel's nightly news.

Watchdog releases Royal Bank of Scotland details

The Financial Services Authority, Britain's market watchdog, is due to release a controversial report into the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which required a GBP45.5 billion (HK$554.6 billion) taxpayer rescue - the world's biggest banking bailout. RBS posted the largest loss in British corporate history in 2008, and became a rallying point for critics of the banking sector.

Bensouda takes on hunt for war criminals

Gambia's Fatima Bensouda (pictured) will today be formally elected chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court as the hunt for war criminals and genocidal masterminds becomes increasingly political. Bensouda's will be the only name put to the 120 member states in the election at the UN's headquarters. Currently the ICC deputy prosecutor, Bensouda takes over in June from her boss Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who blazed a trail with warrants against the likes of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Election Committee names to be made public

Winners of the 766 seats on the chief executive Election Committee will be unveiled from 7am to noon. They will join uncontested candidates, nominated and ex-officio committee members to form the 1,200-member committee which will elect the city's next leader on March 25. The spotlight will be on the power struggle between Leung Chun-ying and Henry Tang Ying-yen, and whether the pan-democrats can secure 150 tickets to field a candidate - either the Democratic Party's Albert Ho Chun-yan or Frederick Fung Kin-kee, of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood.