UNITED NATIONS

North Koreans meet with U.N. human rights envoy

North Korean officials said Monday they have met for the first time with a United Nations special investigator on human rights and “envisage” him visiting their country. A U.N. official confirmed the meeting.

The special rapporteur is “very optimistic about that and very happy to hear from our side,” Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean foreign ministry official in charge of human rights issues, said afterward.

Choe said no date had been fixed, but his country is looking for a “new and objective report” on North Korea’s human rights situation.

“Previous reports he has prepared have been based on rumors and fabrications, as well as distortions,” he said.

The meeting comes a day before Marzuki Darusman presents his annual report on North Korea to the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee.

An advance copy of his report “strongly urges” that the U.N. Security Council refer the country to the International Criminal Court over its dismal human rights record.

Jordan seeks U.N. meeting on behalf of Palestinians

A spokesman for Jordan’s mission to the United Nations says his country will request an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on behalf of the Palestinians, who have written to the council president about “dangerously escalating tensions” in east Jerusalem.

Laith Ibrahim Obeidat said Monday that his country will ask the council president to set a date. A letter from Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour to the council president calls on the international community to demand that Israel “cease forthwith all of its illegal settlement activities” in east Jerusalem and elsewhere.

LOS ANGELES

Man convicted of murdering two Chinese grad students

A man who was recorded confessing to the killings of two Chinese graduate students near the University of Southern California was convicted Monday of first-degree murder.

Javier Bolden, 23, was found guilty of shooting Ming Qu and Ying Wu as they sat in a double-parked car about a mile from campus on April 11, 2012. Bolden could face life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced on Nov. 17.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

Delivery to space station called off in final minutes

A space station delivery mission was called off Monday, just hours after the orbiting lab had to sidestep a piece of treacherous junk.

Orbital Sciences Corp. got to within the 10-minute mark for the Virginia launch of its unmanned Cygnus capsule. But a sailboat ended up in the restricted danger zone, and controllers halted the evening countdown.

The Virginia-based company will try again Tuesday evening.

Early Wednesday afternoon, space station flight controllers steered the complex and its six inhabitants away from satellite wreckage. The debris – part of an old, destroyed Russian satellite – would have passed within two-tenths of a mile of the station if not for the maneuver.

Mission Control was informed of the space junk over the weekend.

—From news service reports

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