SECURITY CONCERNS AS TENSIONS RISE

S. Korea tightens Games safety measures amid N. Korea threats

RATTLED by rising tensions with North Korea, South Korea is taking extra measures to try to ensure the safety of the 2018 Winter Games, including setting up a crack cyber defence team and doubling the number of troops, according to officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.

The Games take place next February in the mountainous resort town of Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the heavily fortified border with North Korea.

They come after a series of missile and nuclear tests show the North making rapid advances in its weapons programme and as inflammatory rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington stirs up concerns about another conflict on the Korean peninsula.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry will deploy some 5,000 armed forces personnel at the Games, double the 2,400 on duty during the 2002 World Cup, which South Korea co-hosted with Japan, according to government officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.

Pyeongchang’s organising committee for the 2018 Games (POCOG) is also selecting a private cyber security company to guard against a hacking attack from the North, tender documents show.

The committee is seeking to fast-track the selection as tensions rise in the wake of South Korea’s controversial deployment of the US THAAD anti-missile system, and as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tests weapons at an unprecendented rate.

South Korea has blamed the North for a series of hacking attempts in the last few years, including a 2013 cyber attack against South Korean banks and broadcasters that froze computer systems for more than a week. Pyongyang denied any responsibility.

The POCOG is hiring a private security contractor, stipulating the firm should be capable of running around 500 personnel to operate X-ray screening each day during the event, a separate document seen by Reuters shows.

An official from the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s spy agency, is in charge of security operations, working with the government’s anti-terrorism centre, the organising committee’s spokeswoman told Reuters.

While some observers view Pyongyang’s threats as bluster, others point to instances of North Korean aggression during the 2002 World Cup and ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics as reasons to be concerned.

In June 2002, as South Korea prepared to play Turkey in the playoff for third place at the World Cup, North Korean patrol boats crossed the disputed maritime border and exchanged fire with South Korean vessels, killing six South Korean sailors.

In November 1987, just nine months before South Korea was set to host the Summer Games in Seoul, North Korean agents detonated a bomb on Korean Air Flight 858, killing all 104 passengers and 11 crew.

One of the agents later told investigators the order had come from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and one of the aims had been to frighten international athletes and visitors from attending the Seoul Olympics.

Chang Ung, North Korea’s IOC member, said earlier this month that the Pyeongchang Olympics will not be affected by the escalating crisis on the peninsula and North Korea will hopefully be able to send athletes. Reuters