South Korea's state power firm Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) said Monday it will freeze the country's electricity rates in the first quarter of 2022 amid rising inflation. KEPCO said it has decided to set the adjusted unit fuel cost at zero won per kilowatt-hour for the January-March period of next year, the same as that three months earlier. Late last year, KEPCO adopted a flexible electr...

Dividends by South Korea's four major financial holding firms are expected to hit an all-time high in 2021 as they have decided to return more of their bumper profits to shareholders, sources said Monday. The combined dividend payout of the four is likely to reach around 3.83 trillion won ($3.23 billion) this year, according to the sources and an estimate by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news ar...

Income and wealth inequality is unjust, and yet the world continues to tolerate rising injustices, the most recent being inequalities in vaccine distribution. French political economist Thomas Piketty and his colleagues at the World Inequality Lab have just published the World Inequality Report 2022, a real goldmine in data and insights on global inequalities. I found at least three nuggets insi...

When I was little, I frequently watched the movie “Home Alone” during the holiday season. The movie became a must-see for the holiday, just as “The Nutcracker” is an essential Christmastime performance. Although I watched “Home Alone” every year, it never got old. I cannot imagine spending Christmas without it. When I was a graduate student in Boston, I was approached by my friend who asked me a...

This year marks the 300-year anniversary of Peter the Great’s declaration of himself as emperor and Russia as an empire. But it also marks another important date: 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the first is a cause for celebration, the second for regret. During his two decades in power, Putin has spared no effort dismantling Russia...

The governor of an island province in the central Philippines said Sunday at least 72 people died in the devastation wrought by Typhoon Rai in more than half of the towns that managed to contact him, bringing the death toll in the strongest typhoon to batter the country this year to at least 146. Gov. Arthur Yap of Bohol province said 10 others were missing and 13 injured, and suggested the fata...

Germany is tightening travel restrictions for people coming from Britain in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant there. The country's national disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, added Britain to its list of “virus variant areas” late Saturday. This means anyone traveling from the U.K. to Germany must enter a mandatory quarantine for 14 days, regardless of vaccinati...

Indeed, as an artist pursuing her own dream, Lee can empathize with much of Park’s experience. “The hardships that Park experienced as a filmmaker will likely resonate with the experiences of many in this generation including me, which is why I hope this show gives both women and men both comfort and courage.” Lee said. This production, the brainchild of a 20-year collaboration between director...

Local investment house IMM Investment has acquired a 41 percent stake in GS Power, a subsidiary owned by GS Energy, an energy arm of GS Group, for 1.1 trillion won ($926 million), officials said Friday. GS Energy will maintain a 51 percent majority, after selling 3,136 shares totaling 1.1 trillion won. Last year, GS Energy bought back the 50 percent stake it sold to a local consortium of banks i...

In 2021, South Korea’s two biggest financial technology firms, Naver and Kakao, saw their market capitalization expand on-year, while drugmakers faced a dip in market value. As of last week, Naver, the country’s largest internet portal, had seen a 36 percent jump in its market cap at 63 trillion won ($53 billion), while the market value for Kakao, which runs the country’s largest messenger app f...

By Kim Arin ( arin@heraldcorp.com )

South Korea's military on Sunday reported 27 additional COVID-19 cases, with all of them being breakthrough infections, raising the total caseload among its personnel to 2,933. Of the new cases, 22 are from the Army, two from units under the direct control of the defense ministry, one from the Navy, one from the Marine Corps and one from the Air Force, officials said. Currently, 343 military pe...

The government on Sunday released the personal details of two non-custodial parents who have failed to pay child support for the first time since a related law revision came into effect in July. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it has disclosed the personal information of two separate obligors of child support who failed to provide the expenses ordered by the court, on its website...