Pence uses Olympics to push tougher stance on North Korea

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.

Lookalikes of U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who caused a stir at Friday’s Pyeongchang Olympics opening ceremony have thanked organizers for their tender loving care.

Undeterred, North Korea held a military parade attended by leader Kim just a day before the Olympics opening.

What happened at the dinner?

“Had it not been for the Pyeongchang Olympics, some of us might not have had chance to be together in the same room”, he said at the reception for VIPs before the Opening Ceremonies.

Luge veteran Erin Hamlin has entered her last Olympics carrying the US flag, which started as a feel-good story but quickly turned controversial.

North and South Korea competed together for the first time at an Olympics on Saturday as the first of 102 gold medals were decided against a fast-moving backdrop of diplomatic manoeuvring.

“We are here today because the Pyeongchang Olympics, a pure sports events, has turned into propaganda for the North Korean regime, Kim Jong Un’s regime, that is against our will”, said Kyung Hye Kim.

According to the AP, Pence was seated in close proximity to Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, but the two did not interact during the Opening Ceremony.

Up the road, however, an elderly husband and wife, each draped in the South Korean flag, denounced Moon as a “fake president”.

Kim Yo Jong, 28, is the first member of the ruling Kim family bearing the bloodline of the sacred Mount Paektu, a centerpiece of the North’s idolization and propaganda campaign, to cross the border into the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim, who is said to be very close to her brother, was promoted to the North’s powerful politburo previous year. She represented the new Korea, which we were desperately trying to get across.

All eyes have been on Ms Kim Yo Jong, who has rapidly risen up the ladder since her brother inherited power from their father.

Kim has also been active in using her position as an opportunity for charitable works, volunteering and donating funds to Catholic Hospitals, universities, and other charitable organizations, and working alongside the Catholic bishops in Korea as a spokeswoman for Catholic charities in Seoul.

The Games have triggered rapid reconciliation between the two Koreas, who are still technically at war.

Turns out it wasn’t a secret plan for the newly unified Korean women’s hockey team to beat Switzerland. Pyongyang has sent more than 500 people in all, including officials, athletes, artists and cheerleaders.

On one side of the arena, about 75 North Korean cheerleaders dressed in matching red with white caps made noise from the opening faceoff.

On Thursday, Pyongyang staged a military parade, where it displayed what appeared to be intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead anywhere in the USA in a thinly veiled threat to Washington.

As many expected, Yuna Kim lit the Olympic torch at the Opening Ceremony to officially start the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

He attended the Cheonan memorial with Fred Warmbier, the father of student Otto Warmbier, who died past year shortly after North Korea sent him home in a coma following 17 months of detention for stealing a propaganda poster.