With just ten families controlling 60% of GDP in S. Korea

With just ten families controlling 60 percent of GDP, Korea’s family-owned “chaebol” conglomerates have enjoyed their privileges for decades—that may be about to end.

For decades, a small circle of powerful family-controlled conglomerates has stood at the center of South Korea’s economy. Commonly known as the chaebol, these business empires — including Samsung, Hyundai, and LG — were instrumental in transforming Korea into a major industrial power. Yet the very dominance that once fuelled national growth is now raising serious questions about fairness, accountability, and the future of corporate power in the country.

One of the clearest symbols of this tension is Lee Jae-yong, heir to Samsung. After being convicted on charges including bribery, fraud, and embezzlement connected to a major political scandal, Lee was sent to prison. Nevertheless, in August 2022, he received a special presidential pardon before completing his sentence. Authorities defended the move by arguing that Samsung, as one of Korea’s most important corporations, needed his leadership to remain globally competitive. Soon after his release, he returned to a senior leadership role.

Taiwan has become the world’s example of how an economy can boom while many people feel left behind

Silicon Island’s Boom: When the Economy Grows Faster Than Salaries
Taiwan has become the world’s clearest example of how an economy can boom while many people feel left behind. Under constant military pressure from China and amid trade tensions with the United States, the island has still been posting spectacular numbers. GDP has grown around 8% for two quarters in a row, and overall growth is expected to reach about 7.4% in 2025 – even faster than China.

The engine is obvious: high tech.
Taiwan’s factories build the chips and servers that power today’s artificial intelligence revolution. Its champion, TSMC, supplies giants like Nvidia and AMD and has lifted its own revenue forecast into the mid-30% range. Exports have exploded – up more than a third this year, with shipments to the US jumping over 60% as American tech companies race to build AI data centres. Taiwan’s stock market has surged into the world’s top ten on this wave of AI enthusiasm.
But this success story has a shadow. A rich economy, ordinary pay.

4 years of full-scale war: Can Ukraine Legally Reclaim Its Nuclear Status?

In debates about Ukraine’s future, one question keeps resurfacing, quietly at first and then ever louder: could Ukraine ever re-enter the nuclear club? After the collapse of the security assurances that once underpinned its denuclearisation, the issue is no longer confined to fringe commentary. 

 

It now sits at the intersection of law and survival, of the NPT’s rules and a state’s right to exist. This article asks the hardest version of the question: can Ukraine legally reclaim a nuclear status, and what would such a decision mean for the world that once persuaded it to disarm?

Ukraine’s nuclear knot: how the 1990–1994 package built an architecture that broke in 2014 and 2022

1) The inheritance moment: a vast arsenal without a sovereign nuclear status

After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine found itself hosting one of the largest nuclear arsenals in Europe. In practice, this was an unprecedented status: warheads were on Ukrainian territory, but command-and-control, permissive action links, and much of the operational chain remained embedded in Soviet, then Russian, systems.

That starting point matters. Ukraine’s decisions in 1990–1994 were not made in a moral vacuum. They were made under hard power realities and intense external pressure to preserve the global non-proliferation regime.

The Demilitarisation of Transnistria: International Law, Ukrainian Strategic Necessity, and Moldovan Sovereignty

A Frozen Conflict in a Hot War

The Transnistrian region, a narrow strip of land between the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border, has functioned as a "frozen conflict" zone since 1992. However, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has fundamentally altered the geopolitical calculus. What was once a local diplomatic dispute is now a critical security threat to Southern Ukraine and the stability of South-Eastern Europe.

From the perspective of international law and the sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova, the potential for Ukrainian involvement in the demilitarisation of this region is not merely a military hypothetical, but a legally grounded pathway to regional stability.

1. The Legal Foundation: Sovereignty as an Absolute

The primary pillar of any analysis regarding Transnistria is the status of the territory under international law. The so-called "Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic" (PMR) is a legal nullity.