Our editors will be looking ahead today to these developing stories ...
Nominations deadline for World Bank's top job
Nominations for World Bank president close, with South Africa and Brazil expected to nominate Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo in a challenge to the United States' grip on the institution's top job. With the bank's largest voting share and the expected support of most developed nations, the US is likely to ensure another American succeeds Robert Zoellick (left), whose term is up at the end of June. The Obama administration is expected to put forward its nominee today. The US has held the presidency since the bank was founded after the second world war, while a European has always led its sister organisation, the International Monetary Fund.
Pro-Beijing party picks its chief executive candidate
The central committee of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong decides tonight for which chief executive candidate its 147 members on the 1,193-member Election Committee will vote on Sunday. Fifty-two Election Committee members from the city's main Beijing-friendly party have already nominated Leung Chun-ying.
EU to act against Syrian president's wife
The European Union is set to ban Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's wife, Asma (left, with her husband), from travelling to and shopping in the EU, in a bid to increase pressure on the Assad regime to end its bloody crackdown. A British-born former investment banker who once projected an image of a woman inspired by Western values, Asma al-Assad has become a hate figure for many Syrians. She has stood by her husband during the year-long crackdown, which the UN says has cost at least 8,000 lives. In recent weeks, she became the focus of media attention when a trove of leaked e-mails between her and her husband showed them discussing shopping for pop music and luxury items amid the bloodshed.
