Étiqueté : Olympics

Seoul, South Korea – In a gritty commercial area in Seoul’s Dongdaemun District in the city’s northeast, there’s a cluster of streets where the signboards are more likely to be in Cyrillic than Korea’s Hangul script. Beside all the restaurants are the businesses that cater to Russians and Central Asians from the former USSR. Here, merchants…

Gangneung, South Korea – The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has cancelled plans for a mobile prayer room in Gangneung for tourists at the 2018 Winter Olympics after strong opposition by anti-Muslim campaigners, the city tourism department’s chief told Al Jazeera. While just 0.2 percent of South Korea’s population of 51 million is Muslim, the KTO decided…

Seoul, South Korea – When the 2018 Winter Olympics kick off in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang on February 9, delegations from both North and South Korea will march together under one flag. The symbolic move comes alongside the formation of a joint female ice hockey team, the arrival of a squad of cheerleaders from…

South Korea has offered to hold high-level talks with North Korea on January 9 to discuss bringing athletes from Pyongyang to the Winter Olympics. The proposal came a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that he was « open to dialogue » with Seoul and that Pyongyang may attend the games, set to begin in…

The International Olympic Committee has banned Russia from competing in next year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea over doping allegations. The Russian Olympic Committee has been suspended from the upcoming games in PyeongChang, but Russian athletes will still be able to compete « under strict conditions », the IOC said in a statement. The decision comes after…