Ex-U.N. chief Ban expects safe Pyeongchang 2018 despite nuclear tension

Newly elected head of the International Olympic Committee's ethics commission, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks during the 131st IOC session in Lima, Peru, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo

(Reuters) - Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is confident that next year's Winter Olympics in his native South Korea will be safe and successful, despite tensions surrounding North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Less than five months before the start of the Games in Pyeongchang, world powers are grappling for a response to a series of nuclear tests by the North and its repeated test-firing of ballistic missiles, of which the latest flew over Japan and far out into the Pacific on Friday.