Talking points

Hong Kong elects its NPC delegates

The 36-strong delegation that will represent Hong Kong in China's parliament for the next five years is elected. Some 52 candidates, including former security chief Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong and incumbents Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai and Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun, will attempt to sway the votes of some 1,620 electors to serve as delegates to the National People's Congress.

UBS set to agree rate-fixing punishment

Swiss banking giant UBS is expected to confirm that it will pay about US$1.5 billion to settle charges that some traders at a Japanese unit rigged Libor interest rates. While it is lower than the settlement recently announced by HSBC, it would be the latest in a series of blows to UBS, which suffered a US$2.3 billion loss through a rogue trader in London last year, and a US$780 million fine after a US tax investigation in 2009.

Balotelli challenges City fine in tribunal

Controversial soccer ace Mario Balotelli finds himself in the headlines again as he takes English Premier League champions Manchester City to a tribunal in an attempt to overturn a fine for poor discipline. The Italian striker had £340,000 (HK$4,265,000) deducted from his salary - two weeks' wages - after missing 11 games last season because of suspensions.

Talks to apply pressure on intellectual property

Vice-Premier and newly elected Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Qishan will join the Sino-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in Washington. Wang, who will spend two days in the US capital, will co-chair the 23rd session of the joint commission with US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank and trade representative Ron Kirk. The talks are expected to see the US press for stronger intellectual property protection in China, the largest supplier of US goods imports.

South Korea picks new president

South Korea goes to the polls in a too-close-to-call presidential election. Ruling conservative party candidate Park Geun-Hye is looking to make history as the first female president of a still male-dominated nation. Standing between Park and the presidential Blue House is the liberal Moon Jae-In from the main opposition party, a former human rights lawyer.

Strauss-Kahn case back in court

A Paris court delivers a verdict on the former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of participating in a suspected prostitution ring that operated out of the luxury Carlton Hotel in the French town of Lille. The court is due to decide whether the investigation should be continued or, as Strauss-Kahn has argued, dropped.