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UN: North Korea won’t cooperate with rights probe

FILE - In this July 27, 2013 file photo, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un waves to spectators and participants of a mass military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in Pyongyang, North Korea. Spring’s threats of nuclear war have given way to a summer of mini-breakthroughs on the Korean Peninsula. But scratch the surface and Pyongyang’s charm offensive seems more about the money than any great leap forward in diplomacy. And despite hope that the Koreas will soon resume various languishing cooperative projects, North Korea has shown no willingness to temper a nuclear weapons drive opposed by South Korea, the United States and the United Nations. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

GENEVA (AP) — Unlike Dennis Rodman’s basketball diplomacy, a U.N. human rights probe isn’t connecting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

FILE – In this July 27, 2013 file photo, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un waves to spectators and participants of a mass military parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in Pyongyang, North Korea. Spring’s threats of nuclear war have given way to a summer of mini-breakthroughs on the Korean Peninsula. But scratch the surface and Pyongyang’s charm offensive seems more about the money than any great leap forward in diplomacy. And despite hope that the Koreas will soon resume various languishing cooperative projects, North Korea has shown no willingness to temper a nuclear weapons drive opposed by South Korea, the United States and the United Nations. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

Michael Kirby, who heads the U.N. commission examining North Korea’s human rights record, says his July 16 letter to the leader hasn’t been answered and the government has not cooperated.

Kirby, a former judge in Australia’s highest court, told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday that the commission it created in March nonetheless gathered testimony from dozens of victims and experts at public hearings in Seoul and Tokyo last month that has “given a face and voice to great human suffering.”

Following his second trip to visit Kim Jong Un, Rodman announced plans this month to stage two exhibition games in North Korea in January.

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