Talking points
Our editors will be looking ahead today to these developing stories ...
The High Court holds a hearing to decide whether to allow a challenge by defeated chief executive candidate Albert Ho Chun-yan against Leung Chun-ying's victory in the March 25 election. This month the court rejected an application by Leung's lawyers for Ho's petiton to be thrown out. The lawyers said that Ho, who argues that Leung misled voters, had failed to meet the deadline for lodging an objection.
Pan-democratic lawmakers will hold their first casual "lunch-box meeting" to discuss Legco affairs, in the absence of the radical People Power and League of Social Democrats. New lawmaker Gary Fan Kwok-wai, a member of the NeoDemocrats, said the two radical parties had decided to opt out because of their differences with the Democratic Party, which in 2010 agreed not to push for universal suffrage in exchange for the "superseats" that will be included in the next Legco, which opens on October 10.
Condemned killer Cleve Foster takes his third trip to the execution chamber at a prison in Huntsville, Texas. The US Supreme Court cancelled two previous executions at the last moment. Foster, 48, denies participating in the abduction and slaying of a 30-year-old Sudanese woman a decade ago near Fort Worth. Appeals are again pending. "I don't want to sound vain, but I have confidence in my attorney and confidence in my God," he says.
The UN General Assembly convenes its annual summit with more than 120 heads of state and government expected to attend. US President Barack Obama will be one of the first speakers, and is expected to call for action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also expected to attend, despite the US refusing visas to 20 of his officials.
Exiled Tibetans will hold their first assembly in four years to discuss a rise in self-immolations and China's upcoming leadership change. At the meeting, in Dharamsala, north India, 400 delegates will discuss why 51 people have set themselves on fire in three years. At the last meeting, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, said his "middle way" pro-autonomy policy was failing.
North Korea convenes a rare second session of its rubber-stamp parliament this year, to endorse economic reforms and discuss economic ties with China. The last time the Supreme People's Assembly held a second session in one year was in 2010, when Kim Jong-un was named as his father's successor. North Korea's economic struggles have worsened since the US cancelled 240,000 metric tons of food aid after its missile test-launch earlier this year.
