Talking points

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and opposition groups begin their first face-to-face negotiations in Geneva today in an attempt to end Syria's civil war as part of UN-brokered talks backed by the United States and Russia. A first order of business is setting a time frame for the talks - probably no more than a month - which is to be set by the UN's envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, who has said they should not be open-ended.

The Hong Kong Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service will hold its annual press conference today to review its work over the past year. A situation forecast and forthcoming donor recruitment programmes for this year will be presented by the service's consultant Dr Lee Cheuk-kwong. Lee said last year that the change of the secondary school education system from seven to six years in 2009 had contributed to a decline in donations because university students generally donated blood less often than secondary school pupils did. The teams collected fewer than 59,000 bags of blood in 2012, compared with almost 69,000 in 2011.