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Families of the two security officers from Fiji killed in a helicopter crash in northern Baghdad last week will each receive insurance payouts of around $100,000 after the men's funerals this week.

The United States is troubled by the Philippine government's attempts to persuade Filipino workers to leave Iraq. Their withdrawal from Iraq is expected to have an adverse impact on the operation of the camps since Filipinos make up the largest number of foreign workers in the camps.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said U.S. Embassy officials have expressed concern several times over Manila's move to bring home an estimated 6,000 Filipino workers from Iraq amid increasing insurgency there. Filipinos represent the biggest number of foreigners working for US-run military installations in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba says John B. Israel was trying to do the right thing for his adopted homeland when he signed on as a translator for U.S. Army intelligence at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2003. But he received incomplete training when he got there, fell in with an interrogator who didn't adhere to strict Army policy, and gave inconsistent answers when questioned about the abuses he may have witnessed.

Testimony by John Israel, still considered classified, paints a picture of a contract intelligence translator receiving little training in military procedures before being pushed into service and who and minded his own business to the extent that he was oblivious to the abuses that were going on around him.

Insurgents firing missiles brought down a Russian-made helicopter north of the capital Thursday, killing 11 civilians including six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats. The chartered flight was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago.

Aware of it or not, the B.C. provincial government is actively involved in underwriting the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq. Pension fund investments are include stock holdings in 39 of the top 100 Pentagon contractors, including the seven largest: Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, United Technologies and General Electric.

As more and more revelations about contract abuse in Iraq by Halliburton come out regularly, activists in Houston are working with national groups, including Democracy Rising, to highlight corporate contract abuse by Halliburton when they hold their shareholders meeting this May 18.

Sudan on Tuesday said its ABCO corporation -- in which Swiss company Cliveden owns 37 percent -- had begun drilling for oil in Darfur, where preliminary studies showed there were "abundant" quantities of oil. "The Sudanese people have never benefited from these (oil) discoveries," said Ahmed Hussein, the London-based spokesman for the Justice and Equality Movement. "The oil must wait until a final peace deal is signed."

An Australian man shot dead in Baghdad was well aware of the risks of working as a private security guard in Iraq, all of whom carry a $50,000 bounty on their heads, his stepmother said yesterday.

The victims of apparent insurgent ground fire include six American security guards, and another is killed in a bomb attack.

Six US citizens, employed by the Blackwater Security Consulting firm, and two Filippino guards were among 11 killed when a Bulgarian commercial helicopter was shot down north of Baghdad. The deaths of at least 13 foreign security contractors in two days is the latest blow to Iraq's private security sector, which the interior ministry estimates employs 50,000 foreigners and Iraqis.

Six Blackwater Security Consulting guards responsible for protecting U.S. diplomats were killed Thursday when their helicopter was shot down as it headed from Baghdad to Tikrit for a security detail, said company spokesman Chris Bertelli.

Longtime U.S. involvement in Colombia may be transforming and expanding from a "war on drugs" into a Washington-led, oil-company fueled destabilization campaign against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

With more hired guns in Iraq than in any other U.S. conflict since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, armed contractors admit their role is cloudy and controversial. They're driven by money and a lust for life on the edge, but also by a self-styled altruism. They do shoot to kill, but they aren't legally considered combatants.

A controversial British firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd., responsible for a sweeping $293 million contract in Iraq could not prove that employees received proper weapons training or that it had vetted Iraqi employees to ensure they did not pose a threat, according to a government audit.

Demand for private security services are expected to skyrocket in the wake of the mounting unrest in Thailand's three southernmost provinces and the recent bombings in Hat Yai.

Appearing in federal court, David B. Chalmers Jr., head of Houston-based BayOil (USA), and his business associate Ludmil Dionissiev pleaded innocent to charges they fixed oil prices and paid illegal surcharges as part of a scheme to ingratiate themselves with Saddam Hussein's regime and thereby profit from Iraqi oil sales.