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NORTH AND SOUTH Korea will bid jointly for the 2032 Olympics, they announced today, in an ambitious plan built on hopes of deepening a diplomatic thaw catalysed by this year’s Winter Games in the South.
The idea, which would require an unprecedented level of cooperation and mutual trust on the long-divided Korean peninsula, was included in a joint statement issued after a Pyongyang summit between the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in.
“The South and North agreed to actively participate jointly in international competitions including the 2020 Summer Olympics and to cooperate in bidding for the South-North joint hosting of the 2032 Summer Olympics,” the statement said.
No other details were given.
The North’s decision to participate in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February triggered a dramatic diplomatic turnaround on the peninsula this year.
It came after tensions mounted the previous year, with the North carrying out multiple missile launches and its most powerful nuclear test to date, and Kim trading personal insults and threats of war with US President Donald Trump.
The February games saw athletes from the two Koreas march together at the opening ceremony behind a unification flag showing an undivided peninsula.
The two countries also formed a unified women’s ice hockey side — a move initially controversial in the South, with critics saying that Seoul was depriving its own citizens of a chance to play on the Olympic stage.
Kim sent his sister Kim Yo Jong to Pyeongchang as his personal envoy, and the two leaders have since met three times as part of an ongoing diplomatic rapprochement.
The two Koreas have continued their sports diplomacy, forming joint teams for the ITTF world table tennis championships and several events at the Asian Games in Indonesia, securing one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.
They have also held friendly basketball matches.
Olympics chief Thomas Bach said this month he was open to talks with the two Koreas about marching and competing together at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
It is a marked contrast to the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, which Pyongyang boycotted after it demanded co-hosting rights and negotiations fell apart over how to share the events.
Watershed event
North Korea’s participation in hosting the Games, which include thousands of athletes from around the world and an even larger number of spectators, would be a watershed event requiring a degree of openness and financial muscle now lacking in the isolated and impoverished country.
It would also force an extraordinary level of cooperation between two Cold War foes that have no formal avenues for regular contact and are still technically at war.
The first hint of a possible joint bid came last week when South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted the country’s sports minister Do Jong-hwan as saying Seoul planned to propose the idea during this week’s Pyongyang meeting.
For the 2030 FIFA World Cup, Do said South Korea planned to propose a co-hosted tournament involving China, Japan and the two Koreas.
“In this way, we could maintain the current momentum for peace and expand peace on the Korean peninsula to the whole region”, Do said.
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I’m not suggesting single use plastic items should not be banned but in the West it’s really little more than self-satisfied virtue signalling at this stage given that most of the plastic waste in the oceans comes from Asia and Africa. Every little helps though! Now if only we could convince the rest of the world of that. Mind you Justin Trudeau is usually self-satisfied and virtue signalling anyways. This article gives a relatively clear outline of the source of the plastic waste in the oceans.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/
@William Tallon: why not instant ban on plastic sure haven’t we got biodegradable plastic now are these boyos still doing oil companies favours at a cost to the planet.one wonders…
@William Tallon: A lot of countries pay Asia and other countries to take there plastic waste.
@Robert Phelan: I think it’s more to do with profits, laziness and being slow to change more than ‘Big Oil’ to be honest. Public pressure works eventually. It also does no harm for big companies to flaunt their green credentials as it’s good for business in the present climate, pun intended. If anyone from Big Oil is reading this then please get in touch. I’ll only be too happy to post lots of positive comments about you on the Journal site for a large fee. Just joking of course! But if anybody from Big Oil is actually reading this…
@William Tallon: The west never recycled any plastic- they sent it all to poor countries and there was zero accountability for what happened once it left our shores.
Disgusting fat overconsuming self satisfied Germans are now burning their “recycling” in open fires in Poland because they can’t chuck it into the ocean via China anymore.
How dare they do it before us Irish, don’t they know we do everything first, ban smoking in Public Places, bring in Marriage equality, proclaim ourselves Alcoholics. Our plan to be First to save the Planet is just ruined now.
@John Declan:
Socked us to it!
And who will pay for it, joe soap as usual
@Ian James Burgess: your kids and your grandkids Joe soap won’t earn much if we destroy the planet.
Fantastic
have your say