- Guess what? The blackwater trial has been thrown out of court, letting off US mercenaries who shot dead 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007. No surprises there, sadly. If you haven’t been following the story, War on Want’s report on corporate mercenaries is here.
- The 2010s show every sign of being China’s decade, but as Andrew Simms pointed out this week in his monthly column, that’s nothing new: “In 1700 China’s share of world GDP was estimated to be just under a quarter, on a par with Europe and India.” After 200 years of war and attempted colonialism, that had fallen to just 5%. In some ways China is really only reclaiming the place it once had.
