Today's Story Line

An opportunity to thaw the last cold war standoff. Leaders of North and South Korea meet for the first time tomorrow.

With the passing of Syria's President Hafez al-Assad, the Israel-Syria peace track is likely to be put on hold.

Mexico's main leftist party revives and looks set to win Mexico City.

- David Clark Scott World editor

REPORTERS ON THE JOB

WHICH FOX? Mexico correspondent Howard LaFranchi says his unofficial polling of Mexicans reveals that the PAN presidential candidate Vicente Fox is on the tip of most tongues. "People mention Fox first, either in support or because they can't abide him," Howard says. But Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo feigned ignorance of Fox while en route to Washington, D.C., last week. "Zedillo stepped back to the cabin where journalists were seated on the presidential plane, and one of the reporters asked Zedillo 'How do you see Fox?' " Howard says. "Zedillo hesitated a moment and then, as if a light had come on, said, 'Do you mean the movie studio or the TV network?' "

KOREANS-ONLY SUMMIT: Like many of the international journalists in Seoul this week, the Monitor's Cameron Barr wishes he were in Pyongyang. Cameron repeatedly faxed appeals to an official in the North Korean capital seeking a visa. It was a long shot. The Communist state hardly ever admits journalists. But Cameron argued that the North would get fairer treatment if it welcomed a few foreign reporters. Otherwise, the media would be reliant on South Korean commentators and officials. On June 8, Cameron got his reply: "[T]he arrangement for the event, which is purely our national issue, does not include any foreign media's on-the-scene activity whatsoever." "In any case," Counsellor[sic] Pak Chol added, "we are in the belief that The Christian Science Monitor, a highly qualified media, will continue to be fare [sic], objective and responsible ...." Cameron says he will do his best.

FOLLOW-UP ON A MONITOR STORY..

THE WINNER: 'John' gets the $125,000 prize in 'Big Brother', Germany's voyeuristic TV game show reported on May 1.

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