ARIRANG NEWS 12:00
Coming up today,... after weeks of requests going unanswered,... North Korea finally agrees to hold working-level talks with South Korea. Pyongyang suggests meeting next Thursday.
Forensic tests confirm the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks has been killed. Another suspect remains at large... as the dragnet is expanded to the Netherlands.
Plus,... the UN General Assembly votes in record numbers to condemn North Korea for its grave human rights violations. Stay tuned for these stories and more.
Hello... it′s noon on Friday the twentieth of November... you are tuned in to our midday newscast here on Arirang TV.
Thanks for joining us,... I′m Mark Broome.
Title: N. Korea accepts Seoul′s proposal for working-level talks
We start with news that′s just come in within the last hour or so...
North Korea has accepted South Korea′s proposal to hold working-level talks aimed at holding higher-level dialogue down the road.
The North′s state-run Korea Central News Agency reports that Pyongyang has proposed holding preliminary talks next Thursday that′s November 26th on the northern side of the border village of Panmunjom.
Seoul has proposed working-level talks THREE times since September... before AND after the reunions for war-separated families that were held at North′s Mount Kumgang resort last month.
The two Koreas are expected to discuss ways to expand exchanges for separated families... and follow-up on the agenda items agreed upon during their high-level talks in August.
Title: UN committee passes N. Korean human rights resolution
The United Nations has passed a resolution on North Korea′s grave human rights situation.
The resolutions have been adopted annually for a decade,... but this year′s contains much stronger words than ones gone by.
Connie Kim reports.
The UN General Assembly′s Third Committee has overwhelmingly passed a resolution on North Korea′s human rights situation.
The resolution, drafted by the European Union and Japan, was adopted Thursday with one-hundred-12 votes in favor, 19 against and 50 abstentions.
That′s the largest support since 2005,... when the resolution was first submitted.
Like last year′s, the resolution lists the regime′s human rights abuses, including torture, public executions and rape, and calls for the North Korean leadership to be referred to the International Criminal Court.
Newly added was a call for North Korea to become a member of the International Labor Organization, abolish its political prison camps and immediately release prisoners.
It also included calls for the UN Security Council to continue discussing and engaging in North Korea′s human rights issues.
North Korea strongly denounced the resolution.
It called it a U.S.-led plot to topple the regime.
"Even if we call for cooperation, there are forces that intentionally hinder cooperation. These forces are why we can′t cooperate."
The resolution is expected to be adopted at a p
