Talking points

Controversial former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is in town as a guest of the Asia Society - but only a handful of guests will hear him speak. Thaksin, ousted in a coup in 2006, has lived abroad since 2008 to avoid a jail term for abuse of power, despite his sister Yingluck Shinawatra's victory in polls last year. He will discuss Thai affairs with a small audience whose members have been instructed to keep his comments off the record.

Britain's union leaders discuss a date for a one-day general strike in the latest step in a wave of industrial unrest sweeping across crisis-torn European economies. The Trades Union Council agreed at its annual conference earlier this year to consider the practicalities of a strike involving workers in the public and private sectors in protest against austerity measures designed to ease Britain's massive fiscal deficit. Leaders of some public-sector unions are pressing for the strike to take place early in the new year.