It would be the first summit in more than a decade between Korean leaders.

Mr Moon said the Koreas should “make it happen” and encouraged the north to return to negotiations with the US.

The handwritten invitation was delivered by Mr Kim’s influential sister, Kim Yo-jong, at a landmark meeting in the presidential palace in Seoul, before the Winter Olympics.

Ms Kim and the north’s ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-nam made up the most senior delegation from the north to visit the south since the Korean War in the 1950s.

The figures from the two Koreas shared kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) and soju rice liquor, and spoke for three hours.

Ms Kim invited Mr Moon to visit “at the early date possible”, a spokesman for South Korea’s presidential palace said.

According to a tweet by the Washington Post’s Tokyo bureau chief, Ms Kim left a note at the palace expressing hope that “Pyongyang and Seoul will become closer in the heart of Koreans” and for “unification and prosperity in the near future”.

The meeting comes after the US warned against engagement with Pyongyang.

The Trump administration is cautious of Seoul falling for North Korea’s charm offensive during the Winter Olympics, which are taking place amid tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.

Correspondents say the invitation puts Mr Moon in a difficult position as he campaigned on a promise to engage with the North, but his moves in that direction go contrary to the wishes of his ally the US.

Earlier, US Vice-President Mike Pence briefly encountered Kim Yong-nam at the Games but the two tried to avoid directly facing each other, Yonhap news agency reports.

At the opening ceremony for the Games, Mr Pence, Kim Yo-jong and Kim Yong-nam were seated in close proximity to each other.

Mr Pence stayed seated when the athletes of the host nation marched in to the arena alongside those from the north.

Later on Saturday Mr Moon and Mr Kim will attend the first ice hockey match played by athletes from both North and South Korea on Saturday, according to reports.

It was not immediately reported whether Ms Kim would attend the evening match against Switzerland.

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Source: BBC

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The annual event is usually held in April, but Pyongyang hit back at US criticism of its decision to bring it forward.

State TV began showing patriotic films in what appeared to be a prelude to a live broadcast.

But reports later surfaced that it had already taken place.

“It seems that North Korea opened the parade at 10:30 a.m. (Seoul time),” anonymous government sources told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

On Thursday, North Korea said it has no intention of meeting US officials during the Games, according to the North’s official KCNA news agency.

South Korean government officials had said last month that some 13,000 troops and 200 pieces of equipment had been spotted near an airport in Pyongyang in what appeared to be a rehearsal for the parade.

Experts say North Korea was expected to showcase its long-range missiles.

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Source: BBC

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The North Korean leader struck an unusually conciliatory note in his annual New Year’s Day address Monday, declaring his wish “for a peaceful resolution with our southern border.”

In the televised address, Kim called for peace on the Korean peninsula and said North Korean representatives should start talks with their South Korean counterparts “as soon as possible” to discuss sending a delegation to the 2018 Winter Games, to be hosted in South Korea next month.

Moon, who has long advocated for closer relations with the North, described Kim’s remarks “as a response to our proposal to turn the Pyeongchang Olympic Games into an epoch-making opportunity to improve inter-Korean relations and establish peace.

“Moon said he would ask the Unification Ministry — the government department responsible for inter-Korean relations — and the Ministry of Culture and Sports “to quickly come up with follow-up measures for the speedy restoration of South-North Korean dialogue and realize the North Korean delegation’s participation in the Pyeongchang Olympics.”
The 2018 Winter Olympics, which are scheduled to begin on February 9, have been championed by Moon as an opportunity to open dialogue with Kim and help ease tensions on the Korean peninsula. In an interview with CNN in November, the South Korean president described the games as an opportunity for inter-Korean peace and reconciliation, and expressed his hope that North Korea would participate.

The games are due to take place 30 years after Seoul hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics, a turbulent era in which a number of nations — including North Korea — decided to boycott the games.

To date, only two North Korean athletes had qualified for the games, figure skaters Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sik, however, the country’s National Olympic Committee did not meet an October 30 deadline to accept their spot. There has been talk of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granting an additional quota, something previously proposed by Choi Moon-soon, governor of the Gangwon province that will host the Winter Games.

On Tuesday, South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon proposed high-level government talks with North Korea on January 9 at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

“The government proposes the North to hold high level inter-Korean government talks at the Peace House of Panmunjom in consideration that the Winter Olympics is about a month away and to discuss related matters such as the participation of North Korea’s delegation in the PyongChang Olympics,” Cho said during a press briefing in Seoul on Tuesday.

He also reaffirmed that the South Korean government is willing to have a dialogue with North Korea and is “open to suggestions for the timing, venue and format.”

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Source: CNN

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31-year old Akwasi Frimpong has started a journey that he hopes will take him to PyeonChang and complete a process that has been ongoing for 5 years.

In 2012, he was part of the Dutch pre-Olympic sprint team but a tendon injury ruled him out of the Games in London.

But what do you do when you cannot run in the sunshine? Forget about your dream and try to live your life? That may be the answer for other athletes but for Akwasi Frimpong, he decided to compete in the snow.

“I got the opportunity to be part of the Dutch bobsled team and I was the brakeman, the guy at the back of the bobsled who had the speed,” he told Citi Sports in an interview from his training base in Utah.

(Bobsled or bobsleigh is a sport which requires a team to be in a bobslep; a capsule-like device which zooms around a track at amazing speeds.)

The pace developed on the running track was going to be put to good use.

However, he could not go to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia and it was time to think about school and books in the United States.

But after advice from one of his coaches, he decided to take up the skeleton event. The event is a single-athlete sport in which the competitor has to lie face down on a board and race down a track at a great speed.

It seems speed and Akwasi Frimpong have always had a lifelong relationship.

At age 15, he met athletics and he liked it. That was 7 years after he arrived in Amsterdam with his parents from Ghana.

Now, he is hoping to blow past opponents and clocks on his way to the Winter Games.

Headline stuff, isn’t it? But that too is not new to Frimpong.

After all, his mother made the newspaper front pages and top chart positions from her many wonderful gospel songs in Ghana

His mother? Yes. The very popular Esther Amoako, who gave Ghanaians songs like ” Keep On Praying”, “He Can Do It”, “He Is Alive” and “Metrimupo”.

The motivational and inspirational fuel that is primordial for his journey seems covered on that score but Frimpong knows that getting to South Korea will require more than heavenly intervention.

He recognises the work he has to put in and he is getting all the help needed to send him to the big time.

“It may be a one-man sport but I have a team that is helping me. I have different coaches dealing with different things. For instance, I have a sliding coach who is taking me through the work of navigating the sled around the course.

It has taken me about six years to learn that well because it is a finesse sport. I do a lot of speed training to help me with my start. I am very good at that and I need to work on it. I also work in terms of lifting weights but I am keeping an eye on that so that my upper body is right for the sled.”

He is also getting a lot of support from the United States skeleton sport team and that pleases him greatly as he aims to be in the world’s top 60 by January 2018 so that he can head to the Winter Games.

He has plans of competing in several competitions for the needed points and experience.

Already, he has won medals in several competitions such as the 2017 IBSF World Championships, the 2013 Americans Cup and the 2012 Gold GoldenSprint Challenge Invitational.

Off the track, Frimpong’s efforts are being heavily supported by Cocoa From Ghana, who are sponsoring him.

Unique in his own right

Frimpong is not the first Ghanaian to go on the snow of the Winter Games.

In 2010, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong was at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver in the skiing event but Frimpong’s journey speaks of a man who has not allowed himself to be put down and he has found ways to re-invent himself.

He says the 2022 Games is his major target and he wants to chart the path for the younger generation so that that they can also go on the snow and shine and he is living those words through his work with Right To Dream Netherlands as an ambassador.

“If I can do it, anybody in Ghana can do the same thing. My biggest goal is to get more Ghanaian kids to get into Winter sports.”

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By: Nathan Quao/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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This renewed partnership with the International Olympic Committee will take in the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and the Olympic Games in 2024 in a city yet to be selected.

The announcement follows the completion of a competitive tender in the region.

SuperSport will also work with the IOC to support the development of the Olympic Channel, including the production of localised content and linear distribution across the region.

IOC President Thomas Bach said: “We are delighted to be working with DStv SuperSport to be able to bring Olympic fans more coverage than ever before. I have visited many countries across Africa and have witnessed first-hand the important role that sport and the Olympic Games play on the African continent.

The IOC redistributes 90 per cent of the revenue derived from its commercial agreements to support the development of sport around the world, including in Africa.”

Said Gideon Khobane, chief executive of SuperSport: “As long-time partners of the International Olympic Committee, SuperSport is delighted to have secured these excellent Olympic rights.

The Games produce consistently good ratings, no doubt because of the non-stop drama and action that make for compelling viewing. We look forward to putting together a multi-platform, multi-channel offering that will reflect the Olympics in their full glory.”

According to Cecil Sunkwa Mills, General Manager, MultiChoice Ghana “athletics fans in Ghana are assured uninterrupted coverage of all the action live from China and Tokyo in HD quality pictures only on DStv.”

Coupled with this announcement is the massive reduction in prices for our HD Zapper decoder. He explained that as a customer centric organization, this reduction will be making great entertainment more accessible and affordable at the new decoder price of Ghs149.”

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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