They also agreed to field a joint women’s ice hockey team in rare talks at the truce village of Panmunjom.

These are the first high-level talks between the two Koreas in more than two years.

The Games will take place between 9 and 25 February in Pyeongchang in South Korea.

If the plans are realised, a hundreds-strong North Korean delegation – including 230 cheerleaders, 140 orchestral musicians and 30 taekwondo athletes – could cross into the South via the land border to attend.

The North has also agreed to send a smaller, 150-member delegation to the Paralympics in March.

Both South Korea’s hockey coach and conservative newspapers had expressed concern about the prospect of a united hockey team, saying it could damage South Korea’s chances of winning a medal.

Tens of thousands of people are said to have signed online petitions urging President Moon Jae-in to scrap the plan.

And it will have to be approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday, because North Korea has missed registration deadlines or failed to qualify.

South Korea will also need to find ways to host the North Korean delegation without violating UN Security Council sanctions outlawing cash transfers to Pyongyang, and blacklisting certain senior officials from Pyongyang.

Japan has viewed the latest detente with suspicion, with Foreign Minister Taro Kono saying the world should not be blinded by Pyongyang’s recent “charm offensive”.

“It is not the time to ease pressure or to reward North Korea,” Mr Kono said, according to Reuters news agency. “The fact that North Korea is engaging in dialogue could be interpreted as proof that the sanctions are working.”

That would in turn pave the way for the nuclear issue to be addressed and open the way to dialogue between the North and the US, he said according to Yonhap news agency in Seoul.

The North has made rapid recent advances in its nuclear and conventional weapons programmes.

Its latest ballistic missile test, on 28 November, sparked a new series of fresh sanctions from the UN targeting petrol shipments and travel.

But soon afterwards North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he was “open to dialogue”.

Japan’s Foreign Minister Kono issued his caution about talks in Vancouver, Canada, where some 20 nations that fought alongside the US-backed South in the bloody 1950-53 war – which ended in stalemate and sealed the peninsula’s division – met to discuss its future.

On the sidelines of the talks, ministers from South Korea, the US and Japan agreed to maintain pressure on the North to denuclearise while offering support for the bilateral talks, reported Yonhap agency.

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Source: BBC

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It put Mr Moon on 41.4%, with his nearest challenger, conservative Hong Joon-Pyo, on 23.3%.

Mr Moon favours greater dialogue with North Korea, in a change to current South Korean policy.

The early election was called after a corruption scandal led to the impeachment of the former president.

Park Geun-hye is accused of allowing a close friend to extort money from companies. She denies all wrongdoing.

A former member of South Korea’s special forces turned human rights lawyer, Mr Moon, of the Democratic Party of Korea, unsuccessfully ran against Ms Park in 2012 elections.

He has positioned himself as the man who can move the country on from the scandals of Ms Park’s era.

“I feel that not only my party and myself but also the people have been more desperate for a change of government,” he said while casting his vote earlier on Tuesday.

What are his policies?

Mr Moon has advocated greater dialogue with the North while maintaining pressure and sanctions, in contrast to Ms Park who cut almost all ties.

He has been critical of the two previous conservative administrations for failing to stop North Korea’s weapons development.

But while tensions on the Korean peninsula ensured the election was closely watched, for South Koreans the priority has been corruption and the economy.

Mr Moon has talked of reforming South Korea’s huge family-run conglomerates, known as chaebols, which dominate the domestic economy.

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Source: BBC

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Lt Gen HR McMaster told ABC News there was consensus with China that this was a “situation that just can’t continue”.

The comments come after a failed missile test launch by North Korea and a massive military parade.

President Trump had earlier said China was “working with us” on the issue.

Beijing, Pyongyang’s biggest ally, has come under pressure from Washington to exert more pressure on its neighbour.

Sunday’s comments appear to be the first confirmation that both countries are working together on how to deal with the North Korean issue.

Gen McMaster, who was in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said the US would respond “in the best interest of the American people”.

“The president has made clear that he will not accept the United States and its allies and partners in the region being under threat from this hostile regime with nuclear weapons,” he said.

“I think there’s an international consensus now, including the Chinese and the Chinese leadership, that this is a situation that just can’t continue.”

President Donald Trump last week met Chinese President Xi Jinping, who offered co-operation on “communication and co-ordination”, the BBC’s Robin Brant in Shanghai reports.

• All about North Korea’s missile programme
• In pictures: Pyongyang parade (with pom-poms)

Earlier on Sunday, South Korean and US military officials said a North Korean missile had detonated soon after launch. The US Pacific Command said it believed it to be a ballistic missile.

One unnamed US official said it was unlikely to have been an intercontinental (ICBM) missile, but investigations were continuing.

Ballistic missiles follow high trajectories and are initially powered and guided, but fall to their target under gravity. ICBMs follow a sub-orbital trajectory, others stay within the atmosphere.

North Korea is banned from any missile or nuclear tests by the UN, though it has repeatedly broken those sanctions.

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson issued another warning to North Korea after its failed missile launch.

“They must stop these belligerent acts and comply with UN resolutions,” he said.

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Source: BBC

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Ghana’s industrial sector recorded negative growth in recent years.

But Dr. Lloyd Amoah believes adopting the strategies of world economies like Korea will reverse the situation.

Speaking to Citi News on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of a 3-day conference organised by Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon to commemorate 40 years of Ghana -Korea Relations this year [2017], Mr. Amoah said: “If you look at Korea today, you are looking at a country whose GDP ranges in the trillions, and for Ghana we are still in single digit billions. Clearly, the divergence is obvious, Korea is now an advanced economy producing cars and other high-value technologies with the use of robotics. Ghana’s industrial base has more or less collapsed. We recorded negative growth in the industrial sector two years ago. So we have a lot of work to do.”

“Korea had a string of leaders who managed to hold the agenda over a period of time, and that consistency and focus has made the difference. And that is the test for Ghana, and in this century it’s something that we must try to do.”

He noted that “We are having this conference so that we will be able to reflect on these things so that young Ghanaian students, scholars etc, can focus on these questions and develop capacity in this area. Let’s learn from this example,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Head of Korean Missions in Ghana, Lisa Han, recounted to Citi News projects undertaken in Ghana, saying they are signs of strong bilateral relations between the two countries.

The conference was organized by the Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon.

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By: Caleb Kudah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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