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The article discusses how the North Korean and South Korean Olympic Games athletes plan to march together under a Korean unity flag during the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and it mentions diplomacy involving South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un (Kim). The authors' claim that geopolitical tensions involving the U.S., North Korean, and South Korean governments will return following the Olympic Games.

(Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will extend several loan origination flexibilities related to Covid-19 by a month to Dec. 31, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said. The flexibilities include alternative appraisals on purchase and rate term refinance loans, and alternative methods for documenting income and verifying employment before loan closing, it said in a statement late Friday. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- The chief executive officer of Australia's largest locally-owned media company Nine Entertainment Hugh Marks resigned from his post. Marks announced his departure to staff in a message on Saturday, according to a copy of the note provided by a company spokesman. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Nine Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Hugh Marks resigned from his post, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, citing an email he sent to his staff Saturday. Marks said the company would initiate a formal process to find a replacement He didn't provide a reason for his departure ©2020 Bloomberg L.P. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. President-elect Joe Biden assured the leaders of Japan and South Korea of his commitment to alliances with the two Asian nations in phone calls on Thursday morning, signaling that he will pursue a markedly different strategy from Donald Trump. Japan's Ultimate Insider Faces Test Navigating U.S.-China Feud Chinese and Japanese government vessels constantly chase one another around the islands, which are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border, in an explosive rebuke to Seoul that appeared designed to draw maximum global attention with little immediate risk of war. The move represented North Korea's most serious provocation in years and follows an escalating series of threats against South Korean President Moon Jae-in's government. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border, in an explosive rebuke to Seoul that appeared designed to draw maximum global attention with little immediate risk of war. The move represented North Korea's most serious provocation in years and follows an escalating series of threats against South Korean President Moon Jae-in's government. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border Tuesday, South Korea said, shortly after threatening military action in the region over anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent into its territory. "North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office", South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a text message, confirming what many had begun to expect after media reports of an explosion in the area. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea appears to have blown up an inter-Korean liaison office, the Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday, after Kim Jong Un's regime threatened to move its military back into border region. The smoke and an explosion were observed rising from an area close to the Kaesong industrial park, Yonhap said. [Extracted from the article]

Korea Crushed a Huge Virus Outbreak. "We've learned a few things from how the virus has been trending", said Kwon Jun-wook, deputy director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, referring to recent outbreaks. "Covid-19 landed in South Korea when we had the system in place for such disease control and we had trained for it for years", said Jung Ki-suck, a former director of the Korea CDC now teaching pulmonology at Hallym University Medical Center. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- A top official at a global human rights organization criticized South Korea for trying to shut down two activist groups who sent anti-Kim Jong Un leaflets by balloon across the border into North Korea. Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korea's leader, previously accused South Korea of tolerating a "sordid and wicked act of hostility.". [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Both North Korea and left-leaning supporters of South Korean President Moon Jae-in want him to restore economic ties broken by security tensions. North Korea's relations with Moon haven't been the same since Trump walked out of a summit with Kim in February 2019 in Hanoi. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea tested the patience of South Korea by delaying a regularly scheduled phone conversation at a liaison office, after saying it was abolishing the project that once allowed the rivals to communicate around the clock. Last week, North Korea lashed into South Korea for allowing anti-Pyongyang leaflets to be sent across the border and said it was considering taking decisive measures to completely destroy contact spaces with its neighbor. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea was not answering the phone at a liaison office with South Korea for the first time since it opened in 2018 after saying it was abolishing the project that once allowed the rivals to communicate around the clock. Last week, North Korea lashed into South Korea for allowing anti-Pyongyang leaflets to be sent across the border and said it was considering taking decisive measures to completely destroy contact spaces with its neighbor. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- South Korea's financial authorities will provide one trillion won ($828 million) in liquidity to Korean Air Lines Co. by issuing government-guaranteed bonds as early as the end of this month, Yonhap News reported. The move to aid Korean Air follows the government's recent meeting on how to run the five-year fund and issue bonds, Yonhap said. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- South Korea reported its biggest spike in new coronavirus cases in nearly two months, raising fears of a second wave of infections that challenges its highly touted testing and contact tracing strategy to stem the pandemic. Second Waves That Are Hard to Trace Plague Asia's Virus Recovery Coupang said in a statement Thursday that an employee at another distribution center northwest of Seoul was confirmed with the virus, leading the company to shut down the facility. Rather than taking severe measures such as lockdowns and banning travel, South Korea has focused on massive testing and contact tracing to find infections and treat them before the virus can spread further. [Extracted from the article]

South Korea Probes Group for Wartime "Sex Slaves", Daily Says (Bloomberg) -- South Korea's top prosecutor has ordered an investigation into financial fraud allegations made against a support group for women who were forced to work in colonial-era Japanese military brothels, a local newspaper reported. Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday that President Moon Jae-in's ruling Democratic Party wants Yoon Mee-hyang, recently elected to parliament as a ruling party member, to address the allegations made against the group that she once led. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co. has sought high-level assurances from Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. they will continue to supply memory chips despite mounting pressure from the U.S. to isolate the Chinese telecommunications company, the Korea Economic Daily reported. Huawei is one of the five biggest clients for Samsung and SK Hynix, spending around 10 trillion won ($8.1 billion) to buy DRAM and NAND flash memory chips from the Korean companies every year, the newspaper said. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co. has asked Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. for a stable memory chip supply despite apparently mounting pressure from the U.S. to isolate the Chinese telecommunications company, the Korea Economic Daily reported. Huawei is one of the five biggest clients for Samsung and SK Hynix, spending around 10 trillion won ($8.1 billion) to buy DRAM and NAND flash memory chips from the Korean companies every year, the newspaper said. [Extracted from the article]

The schools are reopening in stages, with high school seniors returning first on Wednesday and middle and elementary students slated to go back to school in the following weeks. Education officials said that a school would be shuttered immediately if an infection is confirmed among the school's students, faculty and staff. [Extracted from the article]

The schools are reopening in stages, with high school seniors returning first on Wednesday and middle and elementary students slated to go back to school in the following weeks. Education officials said the plan would be scraped immediately and all schools shuttered if a single infection is confirmed among students, faculty and school staff. [Extracted from the article]

The "come forward, get tested" strategy that's helped South Korea contain the coronavirus has run into an obstacle: the country's longstanding homophobia. After the Korean government revealed in its push alerts the names of the bars that the coronavirus positive patient had visited, anti-gay comments accumulated on the Facebook page of Seoul-based King Club. [Extracted from the article]

The Trump administration has cited success stories in South Korea and Austria as it calls for Americans to return to work -- but those countries moved faster than the U.S. to combat the pandemic and have been more cautious in reopening their economies. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett have said in the past two weeks that the Trump administration is monitoring those three nations as it plans for the U.S. to reopen. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- The "come forward, get tested" strategy that's helped Korea contain the coronavirus has run into an obstacle: the country's longstanding homophobia. Following an outbreak linked to gay clubs in central Seoul, health officials are trying to track more than 5,500 people who visited the bars between April 24 and May 6. [Extracted from the article]

The Trump administration has cited success stories in South Korea and Austria as it calls for Americans to return to work -- but those countries moved faster than the U.S. to combat the pandemic and have been more cautious in reopening their economies. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett have said in the past two weeks that the Trump administration is monitoring those three nations as it plans for the U.S. to reopen. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- A gas leak at an LG Chem Ltd. polymer plant in southern India has killed at least 11 people and forced the evacuation of thousands in the city of Visakhapatnam after the company tried to restart operations following the partial easing of the country's coronavirus lockdown. "The unfortunate event took place past midnight when they tried to restart the polymer plant, which is pretty old", said P. V. Ramesh, secretary to the chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- An overnight gas leak at an LG Chem Ltd. polymer plant in southern India has killed at least seven people and forced the evacuation of thousands in the city of Visakhapatnam after the company tried to restart operations following the partial easing of the country's coronavirus lockdown. "The unfortunate event took place past midnight when they tried to restart the polymer plant which is pretty old", said P. V. Ramesh, secretary to the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, the southern state where the accident took place. The government will issue new safety guidelines for factories being restarted after the lockdown to avoid more such accidents, Ramesh said. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is unlikely to have undergone surgery during his 20-day absence from public events, Yonhap News reported, citing an official at South Korea's presidential Blue House. The official also denied reports that Kim had had a simple operation, Yonhap reported. [Extracted from the article]

South Korea said the North's action was in violation of a 2018 military agreement to suspend hostile actions that could prompt tensions and conflict. "In past cases, the North tended to notify the South that it was an accident, if it was a real accident", said Kim, who was part of South Korea's military leadership in charge of the central border in 2003. "Our military, through the military communication line, is taking actions with the North to figure out the situation and also to prevent additional actions from taking place, while maintaining military readiness", the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- South Korean and North Korean troops exchanged gunfire in the demilitarized zone between the nations Sunday morning, and the two sides are now in talks via a military communication line. North Korea fired at a South Korean military guard post several times around 7:41 a.m. local time, prompting it to shoot back twice and send out a verbal warning, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- South Korean and North Korean troops exchanged gunfire at their border Sunday morning, and the two sides are now in talks via a military communication line, Yonhap News reported. The exchange started after North Korea fired at a South Korean guard post, and it responded with a warning shot, the report said, citing South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- The place North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited may be just as significant as showing his face in public after a three-week absence that raised questions about his health and control of the nuclear-armed state. Under Kim, weapons experts said North Korea developed a hydrogen bomb and an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a warhead to all of the U.S., its main adversary. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Kim Jong Un ended his almost three-week absence from public events with a factory visit, an appearance that will ease, but not end, concern about the stability of the North Korean regime and control of its nuclear arsenal. The office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in -- who had helped mediate Trump's first summit with Kim almost two years ago -- said the appearance confirmed its statements that the North Korea leader had been governing as normal. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- The Day of the Sun -- the April 15 holiday celebrating Kim Jong Un's late grandfather, Kim Il Sung -- has long been the most important date on North Korea's political calendar. The Daily NK, a Seoul-based news outlet that gathers information from people inside North Korea, reported April 20 that Kim underwent a "cardiovascular surgical procedure" the previous week and was now mostly recovered. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Speculation about Kim Jong Un's health intensified over the weekend after tantalizing -- yet unverified -- reports about a visit by a Chinese medical team and movements of the North Korean leader's armored train. The train, which Kim took to his failed summit with Trump in Hanoi, arrived at a nearby railway station on or before April 21, 38 North wrote, citing satellite imagery. [Extracted from the article]