Talking Points
Our editors will be looking ahead today to these developing stories ...
Some 1,500 participants plunge into Victoria Harbour for the New World Harbour Race, a year on from the relaunch of the traditional cross-harbour swim. The swimmers will take a new course from Lei Yue Mun on the Kowloon side of the harbour to Sai Wan Ho on Hong Kong Island. The cross-harbour event will be held at the same time - and in the same area - as the fifth Asian Open Water Swimming Championships for professional swimmers.
A joint funeral is held for sweethearts Edwin Hui Ka-wai and Yumi Au, who died in the National Day ferry crash. Hui, 24, was a trainee engineer at Hongkong Electric and had just completed his master's degree at Polytechnic University. Au was a 20-year-old student. The two had only been dating for two months, and Au's parents were unaware she was dating until her death. The couple's parents came together to honour their relationship with a joint service.
Libya marks the first anniversary of the capture and killing of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi, with the country still struggling to impose order. An uncertain, shadowy landscape of self-formed militias has come to constitute the only source of social order since the fall of Gaddafi. A few, like the militia group Ansar al-Shariah that officials in Washington and Tripoli agree was behind the deadly attack on the consulate in Benghazi, have embraced an extremist ideology hostile to the West.
While most of Hong Kong enjoys a day off, former KPMG Asia-Pacific chairman Carlson Tong Ka-shing takes on a new job, beginning his tenure as chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission. Tong will oversee decisions such as how the SFC should spend its huge reserves in his new, non-executive post.
Millions of Catholics in the Philippines celebrate the canonisation of the country's second saint, a missionary killed 340 years ago. The nation's TV networks will broadcast live the ceremony at the Vatican during which Pedro Calungsod, who was hacked to death while trying to convert locals in Guam, will be made a saint. About 5,000 Filipino pilgrims have accompanied the Philippines' Catholic leaders to the Vatican for the ceremony.
Palestinians in the West Bank head to the polls for the first time in nearly seven years, casting their ballots in local elections. But the long-delayed vote will only be held in parts of the West Bank. The last time Palestinians went to the polls was in January 2006 for general elections won decisively by the Islamist Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip and is refusing to take part in today's vote.
