South Korea will unveil measures to curb household debt in a way that "strikes a balance" between toughening lending rules based on borrowers' repayment capability and protecting those in actual need of loans for home rentals, the head of the country's financial regulator said Monday. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) is expected to announce a set of measures to tame soaring household debt this week, likely to focus on speeding up implementation of stricter rules on lending base

South Korea ranks fourth in relative poverty among major economies in the world, data showed Monday, in a sign of its high income inequality. The country's relative poverty rate, referring to the percentage of people with an income below 50 percent of the median income, came to 16.7 percent in 2018-19, according to the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is the fourth-highest rate among 37 member countries of the Paris-based club of rich nations. Sout

Kakao Pay, the mobile payment service arm of Kakao Corp., South Korea's top messenger app, on Monday kicked off a two-day public subscription for its initial public offering (IPO), seen as this year's last high-profile share sale. Kakao Pay has allowed retail investors to subscribe to 4.25 million new common shares to be sold under the IPO slated for Nov. 3, or 25 percent of the total share sale. Kakao Pay has set the IPO price at 90,000 won ($76.5) per share, which will enable the company to

On Oct. 4, Fumio Kishida became Japan’s 100th prime minister, succeeding Yoshihide Suga, who held the office for only a year. Kishida secured the top job by prevailing in the four-person race to lead the Liberal Democratic Party. On Oct. 31, he and the LDP will face a national election for the House of Representatives, the lower but more powerful chamber of the Japanese Diet. Together with its coalition partner, the Komeito Party, the LDP is expected to win decisively. The latest NHK pol

The philosopher Immanuel Kant famously said, “Whoever wills the end also wills … the indispensably necessary means to it that is in his control.” Put simply, when we set a goal, we ought to take the actions needed to achieve it. This is an essential maxim for our governments, and it should guide G-20 leaders when they meet in Rome at the end of October to confront the climate crisis. The world set a goal in the Paris climate agreement: to keep global warming within 1.5 degre

CAPE TOWN (AP) -- In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world's poorest people. The energy in the gleaming labs matches the urgency of their mission to narrow vaccine disparities. By working to replicate Moderna's COVID-19 shot, the scientists are effectively making an end run around an ind

VATICAN (AFP) -- Pope Francis on Sunday called on the global community to resolve the Libyan migrant crisis, even as EU leaders disagree on how to best manage flows of migrants crossing to Europe. "I express my closeness to the thousands of migrants, refugees and also others in need of protection in Libya. I don't forget you ever. I hear your cry and pray for you," Francis said following his traditional Sunday Angelus prayer on Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican. "So many of t

South Korea's spy agency said Sunday media reports of North Korean leader's sister succeeding coup against her brother are not true at all. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) dismissed reports that claimed Kim Yo-jong ousted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after a coup. A separate government official also said such reports are not true. Citing a report from US-based tabloid "Globe," some news outlets here said Kim Yo-jong staged a coup between May 6 and June 5, and removed Kim

BERLIN (AFP) -- Germany's interior minister said Sunday it was "legitimate" to protect borders, after several EU states asked Brussels to pay for barriers to prevent illegal migrants from entering the bloc. The call came earlier this month, as Poland proposed building a 350 million-euro ($410 million) wall on its border with Belarus to keep migrants out. The EU accuses the Belarusian authorities of flying migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Minsk and then sending them into

Seoul man under home care dies, the first since program’s launch last month

In 2022, an area that is likely to strain companies’ transition toward a resilient, sustainable economy is the ESG risks in the supply chain. Companies must now closely monitor issues stemming from climate change, labor rights and health and safety throughout the procurement process. Supply chain due diligence Until recently, the management team’s focus on supply chain and procurement has been primarily on technical quality, cost-effectiveness, speed of delivery and reliability. H

British artist Julian Opie is presenting his third solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery in Seoul, after two solo exhibitions in the country in 2017 and 2018. Inspired by familiar subjects from everyday life, Opie presents 31 works that span the gallery’s K2 and K3 exhibition halls, as well as its garden. The artist became well known in South Korea after he made a strong presence in Seoul in 2011 with his light-emitting diode art piece “Crowd,” displayed via Seoul Square’s l

The US will explore possibilities surrounding declaring a formal end to the Korean War with South Korea, with regards to resuming talks on North Korea’s denuclearization, the US nuclear envoy for North Korea said Sunday during talks with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul.　 The 1950-53 conflict concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The Moon Jae-in administration backs signing the declaration to lay the groundwork for denuclearization and a treaty to come, while neither Washi