Sailing on the wind of US-North Korean reconciliation, South Korea yesterday approved a $34 million (£23 million) investment plan to build a stadium in North Korea.
The investment was Seoul's first reconciliatory gesture towards the Stalinist North after Washington eased sanctions against Pyongyang last week in return for an end to the North's missile programme.
South Korea's giant conglomerate Hyundai Group will build the sports facility in Pyongyang, Seoul's Unification Ministry said in a statement.
The approval came one day after Mr Hwang Won-Tak, a leading security adviser to the South Korean President, Mr Kim Dae-Jung, promised to help the famine-stricken North improve ties with the outside world. Washington last week eased 50-year-old US sanctions against North Korea after bilateral talks in Berlin earlier this month.