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Asia and Australia Edition
By Charles McDermid
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here\u2019s the sign-up.)
Good morning. All eyes on Singapore, towers of Indian trash and Barnaby Joyce\u2019s video fight. Here\u2019s what you need to know:
\u2022 President Trump and Kim Jong-un are in Singapore, with their on-again, off-again meeting \u2014 set to be the first encounter between a U. S. president and a North Korean leader \u2014 planned for tomorrow.
Some fear mismatched expectations. Few analysts believe that Mr. Kim is ready to give up his nuclear arsenal for the economic help Mr. Trump could offer.
They may not even define issues like \u201cdenuclearization\u201d the same way. Here is a look at the issues behind the basic terminology in question.
And our Beijing bureau chief heard from analysts who say that Chinese leaders are suddenly jittery that Mr. Kim might try to counterbalance their own influence by embracing Washington.
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\u2022 The meeting in Singapore comes directly after a contentious Group of 7 meeting .
Mr. Trump \u2014 apparently incensed by a news conference in which his host, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, defended Canada\u2019s trade policies \u2014 abandoned the G-7\u2019s joint statement and derided Mr. Trudeau as \u201cvery dishonest and weak.\u201d
While supporters rushed to defend the president (his top economic adviser said he was \u201cnot going to permit any show of weakness on a trip to negotiate with North Korea\u201d), many others were dismayed.
\u201cThis wasn\u2019t just with Trudeau. This is with our best allies,\u201d a Democratic senator said. \u201cNot to sign a statement of solidarity, which stands for everything that we stand for, is a big mistake.\u201d
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\u2022 Malaysia\u2019s new leader, the 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, above, is aggressively ramping up an investigation into the apparent theft of billions of dollars from the state investment fund established and overseen by his predecessor, Najib Razak.
The U. S. Department of Justice estimates that $4.5 billion went missing from the fund, known as 1MDB \u2014 including $731 million that it says was deposited into Mr. Najib\u2019s own bank accounts.
Mr. Mahathir has made investigating the scandal and recovering the money a top priority. Mr. Najib denies any wrongdoing.
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\u2022 \u201cIf this continues to happen, the city will drown in its waste.\u201d
That was an environmental official speaking about New Delhi\u2019s towering trash heaps. About 80 billion pounds of garbage have accumulated at four dumpsites on the fringes of a capital already struggling with dangerously polluted air and water.
The dumps in Delhi, and in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, are some of the largest, least regulated and most hazardous in the world, a waste management expert said. Dislodged cascades can be lethal.
Politicians have been slow to react, but the government has now vowed to eliminate single-use plastic by 2022.
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\u2022 And tributes from around the world are pouring in for Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef and television host who took his life on Friday. (Read his obituary, and an appraisal by our restaurant critic.)
His death sent shock waves through the culinary industry \u2014 and through the small French village where he died .
In Vietnam, the owner of a noodle shop in Hanoi where Mr. Bourdain shared a $6 meal with former P resident Barack Obama in 2016, said she was shocked.
\u201cHe praised our bun cha dish and its fish-sauce broth,\u201d Nguyen Thi Nga told the Agence France-Presse. \u201cHe loved Vietnamese food.\u201d
\u2022 Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have disagreed over the risks of artificial intelligence for years, including at a previously unreported dinner in 2014. Meanwhile, the fight over the future of A. I. has spread across the tech industry.
\u2022 A judge is expected to rule Tuesday on the U. S. government\u2019s effort to block AT&T\u2019s merger with Time Warner \u2014 an antitrust case that has enthralled Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue. Other headlines to watch for this week: U. S. net neutrality rules are set to expire, and the White House will release its final list of Chinese products subject to tariffs.
\u2022 Sydney\u2019s train system got an investment of more than $800 million that will see \u201cParis and London technology\u201d on all lines by the \u201cmid-2020s\u201d and could allow trains to run every 90 seconds.
\u2022 \u201cJurassic World: Fallen Kingdom\u201d opened in 48 international markets, topping all of them for a tidy $151 million over the weekend.
\u2022 Here\u2019s a snapshot of global markets .
\u2022 Vietnamese police detained more than a dozen protesters in Hanoi carrying anti-China banners and broke up demonstrations in other cities against plans for special economic zones. Many fear that Chinese investors will snap up the zones\u2019 beneficial, long-term leases. [ Reuters]
\u2022 The Taliban followed the Afghan government\u2019s announcement of an eight-day cease-fire with their own three-day suspension of operations for the Muslim celebration Eid al-Fitr. [ The New York Times]
\u2022 Barnaby Joyce posted footage of an altercation with a photographer who accuses the former deputy prime minister of threatening to punch him. [ News.com.au]
\u2022 The middle path? A giant shopping mall in the western Chinese city of Xi\u2019an is trying a novel strategy to deal with \u201cthe heads-down tribe\u201d: pedestrian lanes specifically for people glued to their cellphones. [ The New York Times]
\u2022 The king of clay. Rafael Nadal, 32, won his 11th French Open singles title, defeating the only person who has beaten him on clay since 2016: Dominic Thiem, a 24-year-old Austrian. [The New York Times]
\u2022 Mass skinny dip: In Ireland, 2,505 women swam naked, setting a new world record to raise funds for a children\u2019s cancer charity. \u201cWe are all different shapes and sizes and ages and it was just super,\u201d one participant said. [ The New York Times]
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
\u2022 On learning to stop worrying and love electric scooters .
\u2022 Our Midlife Tuneup will help you feel young at heart .
\u2022 Recipe of the day: Spicy Sichuan noodles are ready in half an hour.
\u2022 Susi Pudjiastuti, Indonesia\u2019s fisheries minister, isn\u2019t backing down to China. She has seized illegal fishing boats and sometimes blown them up, saving fish but aggravating her bosses. (\u201cMy family thinks I am a little bit of a nut case,\u201d she told our correspondent.)
\u2022 \u201cGlamping\u201d at 1,320,000 feet. A new company, Axiom Space, is giving those with piles of money and an adventuresome spirit something new to lust after: an eight-day trip to space. Price per person: $55 million. (\u201cIt\u2019s a bargain,\u201d the C. E. O. said.)
\u2022 And do bees know nothing? Researchers say bees have shown that they understand the absence of things as a numerical quantity: none or zero. The only nonhuman animals so far to show the same understanding are primates and a single African gray parrot.
The upscale resort island in Singapore where President Trump plans to meet Kim Jong-un tomorrow is named Sentosa. In Malay, the word means \u201ctranquillity.\u201d
But the island has a troubled past.
Until 1970, it was known as Pulau Blakang Mati, a reference to a hill there whose name means \u201cBehind Death.\u201d One theory holds that the island was long a sanctuary for the spirits of warriors who had been buried on an adjacent island ( which was itself associated with piracy).
Pulau Blakang Mati was also the site of a then-mysterious epidemic (probably malaria) during Singapore\u2019s British colonial era, and one of the places where Japanese soldiers killed thousands of Chinese male civilians after invading Singapore in 1942.
In 1969, four years after Singapore gained independence, the government attempted to rebrand Pulau Blakang Mati by soliciting ideas for a new name. It later awarded $500 each to the five people who proposed \u201cSentosa.\u201d
A cable car was also built from Sentosa to Singapore\u2019s main island in 1974. A local newspaper said in 1969 that the project would be the city-state\u2019s \u201ctrump card in its campaign to lure tourists.\u201d
Mike Ives wrote today\u2019s Back Story.
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