Six In The Morning Monday June 11

World to watch 'talks of the century'

Trump, Kim to meet Tuesday for peace on Korean Peninsula

By Kim Jae-kyoung

After a series of dramatic twists and turns, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will finally sit down together Tuesday to discuss the denuclearization of the reclusive regime.
The summit, the first between a sitting American president and a North Korean leader, will begin at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa at 10:00 a.m. (KST)
Many hope the historic summit will pave the way for a declaration to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War and bring permanent peace to the Korean Peninsula.
Depending on the agreements the two leaders will reach, it will be the "talks of the century" that will define the fate of the Korean Peninsula and reshape the regional landscape.




Southern mayors defy Italian coalition to offer safe port to migrants

Palermo mayor offers to open port to rescue vessel but may need coastguard cooperation

Patrick Wintour, Lorenzo Tondo and Stephanie Kirchgaessner

Mon 11 Jun 2018 09.02 BST

Mayors across the south of Italy have pledged to defy a move by the new Italian government – an alliance of the far right and populists – to prevent a rescue boat with 629 people on board from docking in the Sicilian capital.

But the mayors’ defiance appears unlikely to serve any practical purpose without the direct support of the Italian coastguard.

In the first evidence of the new government’s hardline approach, the interior minister, Matteo Salvini, said on Sunday that all Italian ports were closed to the rescue boat, Aquarius.

Vietnamese protest amid fear of Chinese investment in special economic zones

Vietnamese authorities have detained more than 100 people protesting against the government's plans to create new urban economic zones. Many fear that Chinese companies and investors will get the lion's share.

Hundreds of Vietnamese took to the streets in different parts of the country on Sunday to demonstrate against a government proposal to grant companies lengthy land leases.

A draft law would allow foreign investors to lease land in special economic zones for up to 99 years. Although the proposed legislation does not identify any country in particular, many in Vietnam fear that these economic zones could be dominated by Chinese firms.

"The bill is designed to give a strong boost to the development of three special administrative and economic units, including Van Don in Quang Ninh province, Bac Van Phong in Khanh Hoa province and Phu Quoc in Kein Giang province, and room for institutional experiments," the government said.

A trek from poverty through a war zone they knew nothing about

By Ben Wedeman, Gabriel Chaim and Waffa Munayyer, CNN

In small groups they trudge along the desolate desert road, young men and some women, from Somalia and Ethiopia. Some carry plastic bags with snacks, plastic water bottles, an extra scrap of clothing.

There are no trees, barely even any vegetation to provide a sliver of shade on this windswept road running along the Yemeni coast. But according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), for as many as 7,000 people who pass this way every month from the Horn of Africa, reaching war-ravaged Yemen brings them ever closer to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the land of milk and honey, jobs and hope.

OUTSIDE THE WIRE

Camp America Comes Home: Debi Cornwall’s Photos Capture the Eerie Aftermath of Guantanamo

Siddhartha Mitter

BY THE TIME Debi Cornwall landed in Algeria in May 2015, in search of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, the first phase of her photography project on the prison camp was complete. She had visited the U.S. base in Cuba three times in the previous year, making photographs that strictly complied with the rules: No faces or full-frontal views of anyone on base, no sensitive infrastructure or communications facilities, no panoramas of the site, and so on.

She pushed where she could, seeking fresh insight on the place, despite the restrictions. Of course, Cornwall made photographs “inside the wire” — the prison camp itself, or the parts where visitors were allowed, a shadow zone where the imprisoned were less seen than implied, by means of showcase cells and empty recreation pens. But equally, she turned her lens on Gitmo outside the wire, a place where over 5,600 service personnel, contractors, and family members live, most with no involvement in the prison. Her images around the base did not break protocol — the censors would have deleted them — but they expanded her view, helping Cornwall see Gitmo as a social place, albeit one with a black hole of extralegal detention, violence, and secrecy in its midst for now 16 years and counting.

India WhatsApp 'child kidnap' rumours claim two more victims

Indian police have arrested 16 people after two men became the latest victims of hysteria over WhatsApp rumours of child kidnappers.

The men had stopped to ask directions in north-eastern Assam state when they were beaten to death by a large mob.

Rumours of child kidnappings are spreading across India over WhatsApp, and have already led to the deaths of six other people in the past month.

Police say it is proving hard to debunk the messages on social media.

"When rumours start circulating on social media, it takes some time to stop them completely," senior police official Mukesh Agarwal told BBC Hindi's Dilip Kumar Sharma, adding that police were watching various social media sites to try to stop the spread of the messages.