South and North Korea talk in bid to calm mounting tensions

South Korea and North Korea are holding their first high-level talks in nearly a year in a bid to defuse mounting tensions that have led to the brink of a military confrontation.

The closed-door meeting at the border town of Panmunjom, where the armistice ending fighting in the Korean War was agreed in 1953, began shortly after a deadline set by North Korea for the South to dismantle loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda.