Delegates at the annual gathering will also debate adding locations including Kenya’s Lake Turkana and Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley to those sites considered “in danger”, but could remove the Belize Barrier Reef from the risk list due to an oil activity ban.

The roster of contenders for this year’s new additions spans the globe from the Aasivissuit and Nipisat hunting grounds in the frozen expanses of Greenland to the sun-scorched Al-Ahsa Oasis in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

Eye-catching — or lip-smacking — sites among them include the Prosecco Hills in northwest Italy where famed sparkling wine has been made for centuries, as well as the town of Zatec in the Czech Republic renowned for its hops.

In India, a collection of Victorian and Art Deco landmarks in bustling Mumbai is being billed as “the largest such conglomeration of these two genres of architecture in the world”.

This photo taken on November 8, 2017 shows pedestrians passing by an Art Deco building near Marine Drive in Mumbai. // AFP PHOTO

The push to include funeral and memorial sites in Belgium and France for those killed on World War I’s Western Front has sparked debate over how to treat locations associated with recent conflicts.

In an April report, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises UNESCO, called for a further “period of reflection”, despite locations including Hiroshima and Auschwitz already being on the list.

Getting on the World Heritage List could be a major boon for the nominees, as being deemed of “outstanding universal value” can boost tourist numbers and bring in funding.

– ‘Danger’ list –

But the committee also considers whether to remove locations from the list that do not do enough to protect their heritage — although such moves are rare.

Possibly facing the chop this year over disruptive building work is the historic centre of Shakhrisyabz in Uzbekistan, once the site of a palace of Turco-Mongol leader Amir Timur, that was added in 2000.

“They have erased a whole traditional neighbourhood that was on the list,” Mechtild Rossler, director for UNESCO’s Division for Heritage and World Heritage Centre, told a news conference.

Some major natural wonders could also be placed on the danger list at the Manama meeting, with fears mounting for the national parks of Lake Turkana in Kenya after the construction of the mammoth Gibe III dam on a tributary in Ethiopia.

On a more positive note, however, experts may remove the Belize Barrier Reef — one of the biggest coral reef systems in the world — from the list of sites at risk after hailing the Central American nation for halting offshore oil exploration.

The gathering comes at a sensitive time for UNESCO, as the global body’s education, science and culture organisation scrambles for funding following the withdrawal by the United States last year.

President Donald Trump’s administration pulled out of UNESCO citing its continuing “anti-Israel bias” six years after the organisation allowed the Palestinians to join.

Cedella Roman, 19, ran across the border just south of the town of White Rock in Canada’s British Columbia, into the US state of Washington on the evening of May 21, she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

She headed back when the tide began to come in, going up toward a dirt path before stopping to take a photo of the stunning scenery, then turned around to retrace her steps.

It was then that she was apprehended by two US Border Patrol officers who told her she had crossed illegally and had been caught on camera.

“I told him I had not done it on purpose, and that I didn’t understand what was happening,” she told CBC.

Roman protested that she hadn’t seen any warning signs, and didn’t initially anticipate how serious the matter would become.

“I said to myself, well I may have crossed the border — but they’ll probably only give me a fine or they’ll tell me to go back to Canada or they’ll give me a warning.”

Complicating matters, Roman, who had come to Canada to visit her mother and work on her English, wasn’t carrying any government-issued ID on her at the time.

She was transferred by the officers to the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, run by the Department of Homeland Security, 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the south.

“They put me in the caged vehicles and brought me into their facility,” she said. “They asked me to remove all my personal belongings with my jewelry, they searched me everywhere.

“Then I understood it was getting very serious, and I started to cry a bit.”

When she reached the center, she contacted her mother, Christiane Ferne, who quickly reached the center with her passport and study permits — but the workers at the site said the documents would have to be verified by Canadian authorities.

She was held at the center for two weeks before the matter was resolved and she was allowed to return to Canada.

Ferne said the lack of clear signs had led to her daughter’s predicament. “It’s like a trap… anybody can be caught at the border like this,” she said.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to CBC that Roman was discharged on June 6. But neither the ICE nor Immigration Canada would comment further on the case, citing privacy concerns.

A spokesperson for the US Customs and Border Protection told CBC that anyone who enters the US outside an official port of entry and without inspection has crossed the border illegally and will be detained.

“This applies regardless of whether or not the individual claims to have inadvertently crossed the border,” the department said.

Gambling is illegal in Vietnam apart from the state-run lottery and a few casinos which are only open to foreigners.

But the law is widely flouted, especially during top-tier sports competitions when many punters head online or to illegal gambling dens to try their luck.

The four people were arrested in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, according to a report published the same day in the police’s official Cong An Nhan Dan newspaper. Several others were also summoned for questioning.

The suspects allegedly admitted to operating transactions through a website hosted in the Philippines.

“Since early 2017, the total transactions of the gambling ring have been worth more than 600 billion dong ($26 million)”, state-run Vietnam Television reported, adding that thousands of people across Vietnam had used its services.

Under Vietnam’s criminal code, anyone participating in gambling or organising gambling could face up to 10 years in jail.

The government has moved to ease restrictions, introducing a pilot programme in 2017 that would allow wagers on a limited number of international football matches and adopting a law earlier this month that permits state-sanctioned betting.

But the illegal market remains dominant as the small amount allowed for betting — $44 per match — is deemed too miniscule by passionate punters.

Authorities around the region are stepping up scrutiny of sports betting as the 2018 World Cup in Russia leads to a spike in online bets.

Thailand arrested more than 2,500 suspected gamblers from June 14 to June 20 as part of a sweeping crackdown, according to deputy national police spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen.

Most of those arrested will face suspended sentences and a small fine, police said.

In neighbouring Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen told listeners in a speech broadcast live on his Facebook page this week not to bet on the tournament because “the ball is round” and unpredictable.

Kim was once a top figure in South Korean conservative politics, and along with former presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, is considered one of the country’s most influential politicians in the 1980s and 1990s.

That era came to be known as the age of the “three Kims”.

The trio was banned from politics from 1980 to 1987 when then-military dictator Chun Doo-hwan was in power.

Chun yielded to a popular pro-democracy uprising in 1987 and reinstated the three Kims.

Kim Jong-pil’s political career took off in 1961 when he joined then-Major General Park Chung-hee in staging a successful military coup.

He helped Park consolidate his grip on power by establishing the notorious Korean Central Intelligence Agency, which acted as a tool of repression for Park’s authoritarian rule.

The Korean CIA wielded unlimited and unchecked power, arbitrarily arresting, torturing and persecuting Park’s political opponents.

Kim Jong-pil also led secret negotiations to normalise ties with Korea’s former colonial ruler Japan, sparking waves of angry protests across the South in the mid-1960s.

He served as prime minister under Park from 1971 to 75, and again from 1998 to 2000 under then-president Kim Dae-jung.

The first Sino-Thai Joint Think Tank Forum, held in Beijing by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, included over 80 academics and officials from the two countries. They explored models for synergy between the China-proposed initiative and Thailand’s development program.

The innovation-driven Thailand 4.0 development program is highly consistent with the aims and goals of the Belt and Road Initiative, said Gao Peiyong, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Both countries have a significant need to boost linkages with other countries and promote industrial upgrading, Gao said. He named infrastructure, telecommunications, digital economy, energy and internet technology as the five key areas for the bilateral cooperation in the next five years.

Thailand 4.0 is a strategy put forward by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s government in 2016, aiming to transform Thailand into an economy driven by innovation and technologies.

The strategy’s flagship project is the Eastern Economic Corridor, a special economic zone set up in three southeastern Thai provinces to develop high-valued industries.

General Surasit Thanadtang, director of the Thai-Chinese Strategic Research Center at the National Research Council of Thailand, said the corridor project could benefit China, Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia.

Thanadtang said the project aims to make Thailand a regional center for aircraft maintenance as part of a $5.7 billion upgrading of U-Tapao International Airport, serving the cities of Rayong and Pattaya cities along the coast.

The increased terminal capacity would help cope with the influx of tourists, given that China is not only Thailand’s major trade and investment partner but also the largest source of tourists.

Apart from the airport, the EEC project also calls for investment in high-speed rail, smart cities and industry development, where Thanadtang said the Belt and Road Initiative can be of help.

Joe Horn-Phathanothai, founder and CEO of advisory firm Strategy613, said the initiative is expected to heavily favor Southeast Asia due to its large market, proximity and cultural ties.

“As neighboring countries, China and Thailand are close partners and reliable friends. The two countries have established a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and strengthened cooperation in multiple areas such as agriculture, railway connectivity and trade,” he said.

In addition to helping Thailand build needed infrastructure, the synergy between the initiative and Thailand 4.0 would help transform Thailand into a key logistics hub between Southeast Asia and China, he said.

While the US leader bowed to global outrage over the splitting of families, conflicting messages were contributing to a sense of chaos in the handling of the crisis.

Government agencies were unable to say what would happen to the children already sent to tent camps and other facilities spread across the country while their parents were charged with immigration offenses.

Having been forced into a climbdown on the hot-button issue of immigration, Trump swung back into fighting mode — insisting he remained committed to the “zero tolerance” policy that aims to deter the flow of migrants from Central America.

“We must maintain a Strong Southern Border. We cannot allow our Country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections,” he tweeted.

Trump also met at the White House with parents of victims killed by undocumented immigrants.

The parents standing with Trump have been “permanently separated from their loved ones,” the president said, “because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens.”

Trump continued to make political hay out of the crisis, accusing Democrats of “playing games” and not supporting tougher border policies. To fellow Republicans, his message was to “stop wasting their time on Immigration” until after the November midterm congressional elections.

On Thursday, divided congressional Republicans failed to pass one immigration reform bill, and a second proposal that includes language ending family separations was put off until next week.

While Melania Trump sought to demonstrate concern with a surprise visit to migrant children at the border on Thursday, the administration remained under siege amid continued accounts of parents unable to find their children and no system in place for reuniting them.

Lawyers working to reunite families said they were struggling to navigate a labyrinthine process.

“It’s very difficult to reunite children with their parents because these government agencies were not prepared, and they’re not designed, for family separation,” said Efren Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project that represents 381 migrant parents.

‘How is she?’

Near Washington, protestors shouting “Shame!” demonstrated early Friday outside the home of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, two days after Trump announced her department would take over the handling and processing of families at the border.

Some reunifications were taking place, though it was unclear whether they involved the 700 children taken from parents between October and April, or the 2,300 since the mandatory prosecution of illegal border crossers, whose children were taken away as a result, began in early May.

Others remained in painful limbo.

One woman, Cindy Madrid from El Salvador, repeatedly dictated her US-resident sister’s phone number to her six-year-old daughter before she crossed the border and the family was separated.

The child was one of those heard crying out — and reciting the number — in an audio recording reportedly made inside a detention center, which galvanized opposition to the separations.

“It’s maddening because at every moment I ask myself, ‘How is she? Has she eaten? Are they taking care of her? Do they shower her?'” Madrid told CNN Thursday from a detention center in Port Isabel, Texas.

“There are many more rooms full of women going through the same thing,” she said.

Going back ‘not an option’

A senior Salvadoran government official, Liduvina Magarin, said she will travel next Sunday “to investigate the situation” of children from her country separated from family and held in McAllen, Texas.

The crisis has exposed bitter divisions on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers accused one another of political grandstanding — and at least one used the ProPublica audio recording to hammer his point home.

As Democratic congressman Ted Lieu derided the separations as “a functional equivalent of kidnapping,” he played the audio into a microphone, to a startled House chamber.

The presiding officer ordered Lieu to stop, but Lieu played the wails for four full minutes.

“I think the American people need to hear this,” he said.

After several Democrats visited multiple facilities in recent days, Republican senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz went to government-run centers housing separated children to see conditions for themselves.

“Won’t be easy to house families together, but we must do it,” Rubio tweeted after visiting a facility in Homestead, Florida.

“Because we can never again go back to policy of either separating families or releasing everyone.”

Tens of thousands of people from impoverished, violence-stricken Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and parts of Mexico have crossed the US border since last year requesting asylum.

Trump’s crackdown hasn’t deterred them, at least not yet.

“We don’t see going back to where we came from as an option,” Jose Abel Mendez, 28, who traveled from El Salvador with his wife and children, aged 10 months, six and 10, told AFP in the border city of Tijuana.

The Mendezes have been waiting two weeks for US officials to let them formally request asylum. The delay pushes many to cross the border illegally, activists say.

The press conference was held in response to a Funcinpec Party request to the Interior Ministry to launch a probe into the traffic accident, which was the third involving the prince – the leader of Funcinpec – and his family.

At the press conference, General Him Yan, deputy National Police chief in charge of traffic, said the SUV hitting Prince Ranariddh’s car was a result of the negligence of its driver.

“The car was loaded with seven passengers and driving over the speed limit. This is not a murder or political case as claimed by Funcinpec on its Facebook page,” the general said.

According to Toyota’s website, the various models of Highlander, the SUV driven by the man who allegedly caused the accident, seats between seven and eight people.

“The result of the investigation,” Yan continued, “as we will show here, is absolutely just a traffic accident, and the National Police would like to dispel all inaccurate information surrounding this investigation.”

Yan said that the traffic accident was caused by Mil Sareth, 34, who drove his vehicle as a taxi service.

The state of the car carrying Prince Norodom Ranariddh and his wife, Ouk Phalla, after it was hit head on by an SUV on Sunday. Photo supplied

He said investigations found that immediately before the crash, the suspect sped up to overtake a car when he encountered the prince’s convoy in the opposite lane.

“Sareth sped up to overtake the car but turned too sharply upon his return to the right-hand lane. This caused him to lose control, swerving his vehicle which returned to the left-hand lane, and slammed into the car carrying the prince and Phalla,” he said.

Funcinpec party spokesman Nheb Bun Chin accepted the result of the National Police’s investigation.

“We asked the authorities to carefully inspect the incident in a professional manner. If the result proved that it was a traffic accident caused by carelessness, then we need to accept it,” he said.

As of press time, Prince Ranariddh had not been informed of Phalla’s death on June 17.