NEWSLINE AT NOON 12:00 S. Korea-U.S.-Japan to discuss N. Korea′s nuke issues

ARIRANG NEWS 12:00 Coming up today,... hoping to revive dialogue with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program,... senior officials from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are set to meet in Tokyo to coordinate their policies. Local manufacturers are feeling more confident than they have in a few months... but the impact of the MERS outbreak is still hampering business sentiment. Plus,... researchers say the number of heat-related deaths in Korea is set to quadruple by 2030 because of a combination of global warming, an aging population and urbanization. Stay tuned for these stories and more. Hello... it′s noon on Friday the thirty-first of July... you are tuned in to our midday newscast here on Arirang TV. Thanks for joining us,... I′m Mark Broome. Title: S. Korea-U.S.-Japan to discuss N. Korea′s nuke issues We start with the renewed international efforts to coax North Korea back to talks on its nuclear weapons program. Senior officials from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are set to meet in Tokyo this afternoon. Buoyed by its recent nuclear deal with Iran,... the United States hopes Pyongyang can be convinced to return to the negotiating table. Kim Hyun-bin reports. The deputy nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold three-way talks in Tokyo on Friday to discuss ways to resume the long-stalled six-party talks aimed at the denuclearization of North Korea. This latest meeting comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity between all the members of the six-party talks,... with the exception of Pyongyang. Kim Gunn , South Korea′s director general for North Korean nuclear affairs at the Foreign Ministry, will join his Japanese and U.S. counterparts - Shigeki Takizaki and Sydney Seiler - in Tokyo. Seiler is the U.S. special envoy for the six-party talks and arrives at the meeting fresh from separate one-on-one talks with Kim and his Chinese counterpart earlier this week. Seoul and Washington have been stepping up efforts to revive the six-party framework following the historic nuclear deal the U.S. sealed with Iran this month. There had been increased optimism North Korea could be tempted to follow in Tehran′s footsteps,... but the regime has vocally rebuffed efforts for talks on its nuclear program over the past couple of weeks. Following his meeting with Kim in Seoul on Monday,... Seiler said the two sides would try to apply lessons learnt from the Iran deal to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table. Both South Korea and the U.S. believe China, North Korea′s closest ally, will put more pressure on the regime to resume talks. The six-party talks,... that involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, have been stalled since late 2008. Watchers say Friday′s meeting in Tokyo will likely be used as a forum to coordinate the three countries′ position on the North Korean nuclear issue before it′s discussed at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Malaysia next week. Kim Hyun-bin, Arirang Ne