In Olympics news, the prospect of the DPRK participating at the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea is looking up after Pyongyang reopened a border hotline with Seoul on Wednesday to discuss sending a delegation to the Olympics in Pyeongchang that begin next month.

Olympics organizing chief Lee Hee-beom previously raised the possibility of the two nations forming unified teams in figure skating and ice hockey for the Games to be held in the mountain village of Pyeongchang, just 80-kilometers from the inter-Korean border. The two countries have competed as a single nation in table tennis and football games before, but have never joined forces for multi-sports events such as the Olympics or Asian Games. South Korea and the DPRK marched together at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics for the first time, after the two sides held its first-ever summit under South Korea's liberal Kim Dae-jung government. The DPRK has participated in international multi-sports events hosted by South Korea three times - the Asian Games in Pusan in 2002, the Universiade Games in Daegu in 2003, and the Asian Games in Incheon in 2014.