The Antarctic Treaty: why nobody owns the South Pole
Seven states claim wedges of Antarctica, and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty neither accepts nor rejects any of them, freezing the dispute under…
Liam Chen
372 reading now
Liam Chen
World Affairs Reporter
Liam Chen covers geopolitics, diplomacy and global development, with a focus on making complex international stories accessible.
Live-service games: why your favourite title is never finished
The live-service model turned games from products into ongoing services funded by cosmetics and battle passes, with consequences for…
Liam Chen
433 reading now
Remittances: the quiet billions that keep whole economies afloat
Migrant workers send home roughly three times what rich countries give in foreign aid, and the fees skimmed from those transfers remain one…
Liam Chen
469 reading now
Electric cars without a driveway: the on-street charging problem
A third of UK households have no off-street parking, and closing the gap between home-charging economics and public-charging reality is the…
Liam Chen
384 reading now
The Nile dam dispute: why a reservoir in Ethiopia alarms Egypt
Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile can hold 74 billion cubic metres, and the row with Egypt turns on colonial-era water…
Liam Chen
412 reading now
Japan's shrinking population: what a country does when it runs out of workers
Japan's population has fallen by roughly five million since its 2008 peak, and its responses — automation, quietly expanded work visas and…
Liam Chen
475 reading now
Israel-Palestine Conflict Explained: History, Two-State Solution, and Why Peace Seems Impossible
The Israel-Palestine conflict has killed 30,000+ since 2000 — here's the history, what both sides want, and why a two-state solution…
Liam Chen
460 reading now
How economic sanctions work and why they so often leak
Modern sanctions bite through dollar clearing, correspondent banking and London's marine insurance market rather than trade bans, and…
Liam Chen
451 reading now
Norway's sovereign wealth fund: why Oslo owns a slice of everything
Norway's $1.7 trillion Government Pension Fund Global, built on two fiscal rules held for decades, owns about 1.5% of all listed shares…
Liam Chen
383 reading now