The military contractor formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide agreed to pay a fine of $5 million to $7.5 million for trying to operate in Sudan in violation of trade sanctions and for other arms-trade breaches, according to documents unsealed on Tuesday.

The deal includes an acknowledgment of the conduct by the company, now under new ownership and known as Academi LLC.

Known for helping to protect U.S. government employees abroad, the company drew harsh international scrutiny for shootings and other conduct in Iraq. It said in a statement on Tuesday that it wants to resolve past issues and move on.

The U.S. Justice Department accused the company of 17 criminal counts in connection with selling arms and owning illegal weapons, according to the documents that were unsealed in U.S. District Court in New Bern, North Carolina.

But the Justice Department agreed to defer the prosecution so long as the company pays the fine to the U.S. government, meets audit requirements and complies with export controls.

Academi's violations were wide-ranging, prosecutors said. The company sold satellite phones in Sudan in 2005 and proposed to provide security services there in 2006 without approval from the U.S. State and Treasury departments, court filings said.

The company helped Denmark and Sweden construct armored personnel carriers, provided military training to Canada and exported ammunition to Iraq and Afghanistan, all without the required U.S. government permission, the filings said.

It also illegally kept automatic weapons, like the AK-47 machine gun, in its armory in Moyock, N.C., and its employees lied to federal agents about guns they said they owned but were really gifts to the king of Jordan, the filings said.

"This company clearly violated U.S. laws by exporting sensitive technical data and unauthorized defense services to a host of countries around the world," Brock Nicholson, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations in North Carolina and two other states, said in a written statement.

Academi spokesman John Procter released a statement for the company saying the problems occurred under the previous owners.

The agreement with the government "is yet another step in our commitment to fairly resolve past issues and become the industry leader in governance, compliance, and regulatory matters," the statement said.

Academi acknowledged "responsibility for the conduct" in its deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department.

Two years ago Blackwater, which also used the name Xe Services LLC, reached a $42 million settlement with the State Department for similar allegations.

NEW OWNER FOR COMPANY

The size of fines are negotiated in private between prosecutors and the company. Robin Zier, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in eastern North Carolina, said she would not comment on how the amount of $7.5 million was arrived at.

The fine could be reduced to $5 million to help defray Academi's compliance costs, according to the agreement.

Privately held Academi, now based in Arlington, Virginia, once had its headquarters in North Carolina and still has a large training facility there.

Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater in 1997 and had close ties to the administration of President George W. Bush, sold his interest in the company in December 2010, according to a declaration he signed that was also unsealed on Tuesday.

The company was a source of strained relations between the United States and Iraq. In 2007, five Blackwater security guards were accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in a shooting in Baghdad.

The shooting occurred as the guards escorted a heavily armed four-truck convoy of U.S. diplomats. The guards, who were U.S. military veterans, were responding to a car bombing when shooting erupted in a crowded intersection.

Charges against the five guards are pending in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Four other Blackwater security guards were ambushed and killed in 2004 in Falluja, and two of their bodies were hung from a bridge.

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For some of these big-name personalities, spying taught them the skills that made them famous; for others, being famous made them the perfect spies.

Roald Dahl

Long before he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot for the British Royal Air Force during World War II. But after sustaining several injuries in a horrific crash in 1940—including a fractured skull and temporary blindness—Dahl was rendered unable to fly. In 1942, he was transferred to a desk job at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. Dahl quickly charmed his way into high society and became so popular among D.C. ladies that British intelligence came up with a whole new role for him: seducing powerful women and using them to promote Britain’s interests in America.

It wasn’t all fun and games, though. Clare Booth Luce, a prominent U.S. Representative and isolationist who was married to Time magazine founder Henry Luce, was so frisky in the bedroom that Dahl begged to be let off the assignment. In the end, however, his work with the ladies paid off. Dahl managed to not only rally support for Britain at a time when many prominent Americans didn’t want the country to enter the war, but he also managed to pass valuable stolen documents to the British government. Dahl’s stint in D.C. also helped him realize his talent for writing; it was a skill he discovered while penning propaganda for American newspapers.

Ian Fleming

By trade, author Ian Fleming was a journalist with a sharp memory and a keen eye for detail. In fact, he created James Bond, his famed international man of mystery, by plundering his own experiences as a spy.

During World War II, Fleming put his writing talents to use as part of British Naval Intelligence. Although he looked the part of Bond—tall, blue-eyed, and dapper—Fleming worked a desk job. He managed communications between the British Admiralty and the branch of intelligence tasked with sabotage behind enemy lines. Fleming was good at what he did. Not surprisingly, he proved particularly adept at conceiving outlandish spy schemes familiar to Bond fans.

Fleming’s work eventually extended to the United States. He was responsible for helping to create an American organization focused on international intelligence gathering. In 1941, he drew up a detailed chart for the chief of the OSS, showing how the new organization should be run. For his efforts, he was awarded an engraved .38 Colt Police Positive revolver.

Despite being a desk jockey, Fleming did get to witness one active operation—a break-in at the Japanese Consul General’s office at Rockefeller Center. As Fleming watched, British operatives sneaked into the office, cracked a safe, and made copies of the Japanese codebooks. Fleming later used the incident for Bond’s assignment in his first 007 book, Casino Royale.

Lucky Luciano

As head of the Genovese crime family, Charles “Lucky” Luciano did more for organized crime than any other mobster of his generation. Luciano smoothed out the Mafia’s rough edges and turned families of thugs into well-oiled, organized-crime machines. Not only that, but Lucky also embodied the gangster image—palling around with Frank Sinatra and giving girls $100 bills just for smiling. With a track record like that, it’s no wonder he ended up working for U.S. intelligence.

The story goes like this: In 1936, Luciano was convicted on 62 counts of “compulsory prostitution” and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison. But while he was incarcerated, the government discovered that it needed his help. In 1942, a French ocean liner, the Normandie, was being converted into a troop transport ship when it suddenly caught fire and sank. American officials suspected sabotage. But the dockworkers, who were under the Mafia’s thumb, refused to spill any information. The government needed an in, and Luciano was the key.

In many ways, Luciano felt an intense loyalty to America; after all, it’s where he’d earned his fortune. So, he used his influence to urge the dockworkers to cooperate with authorities. In exchange, the mobster enjoyed unsupervised visits from friends and associates for the rest of his time in prison. It was a sweet deal for the U.S. government, too; in a matter of weeks, eight German spies were caught and arrested for the destruction of the Normandie.

Luciano continued to help American forces for the remainder of World War II, using his contacts on the docks to feed information to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Later, as the Allies were planning their invasion of Italy, Luciano, who also had strong ties to the Sicilian mob, offered invaluable information on where to counterattack.

As a reward for his help, Luciano was released in 1946 after serving only 10 years in prison. However, the terms of his release required that he be deported to his birthplace of Italy and never allowed back into the United States. Luciano died in exile in 1962. Before he passed away, he told two biographers that he’d had his own men set fire to the Normandie as part of a creative plot to pressure the government to release him. But as The New York Times noted, Luciano was “known to exaggerate his own cleverness.”

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The National Security Agency is claiming immunity from an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit that argues warrantless wiretapping violates the rights of U.S. citizens, Philip Janquart of Courthouse News reports.

Lead plaintiff Carolyn Jewel claims the U.S. government conducted "indiscriminate" surveillance of American citizens with the help of telecommunications companies following 9/11.

The NSA moved to dismiss last week in a 48-page memorandum, claiming that "disclosure of the privileged information reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security."

Consequently, revealing whether or not the plaintiffs were illegally spied on would "necessarily reveal NSA intelligence sources and methods, including whether certain intelligence collection activities existed and ... the scope of intelligence activities."

Ironically, the NSA said the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) surveillance program is now over and "was directed at international communications in which a participant is reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda or an affiliate terrorist organization" so claims of widespread domestic surveillance are false and they do not need to address them. 

However, three NSA whistleblowers who provided evidence for Jewel say the NSA does indeed collect domestic communications.

William Binney, who worked for the agency for 32 years, details how the program he built is actively used to spy on Americans under the code-name Stellar Wind.

SEE ALSO: There Was A Secret Ruling Against The NSA For Spying On Americans >

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It was an American instructor who took each small group of officers through their practical paces at the police academy, attended by a police officer now serving in Kabul, teaching them everything from first aid to shooting practice.

Afghan instructors stuck mostly to classes on the constitution, police paperwork or literacy, which is a big concern for a force where under a quarter of recruits can read and write, but not the only key skill for officers in a country at war.

"For the present generation we need foreigners, for the next generation we can train ourselves," said the officer, who asked for anonymity because he did not have security clearance to talk about the programme. "If the foreign soldiers all leave, our fate will be civil war," he said.

He is just one of tens of thousands of Afghans who have streamed through the gates of Afghanistan's police and army training academies in the last few years, as the country rushed to bulk up its security forces ahead of the departure of foreign troops.

But a tiny portion of those graduates have turned their guns on the foreigners who are mentoring them or fighting by their side. They have killed 51 this year alone, and on Tuesday news seeped out of Washington that the Nato-led coalition would suspend joint operations and limit partnering programmes in an attempt to curb the toll.

"Of course naturally among us there were some people who hated the Americans," the officer said. "Sometimes when they got some help they would be happy for a short while, but you could see there was hate in their hearts."

Intelligence officers were scattered through each intake, and did occasionally root out suspicious characters, he said, but there was no training for others on how to spot infiltrators, or system to report them."

"Sometimes I would discuss this with friends, there would be clear signs. We would say to each other 'that man used a fake ID to join up'. But what could we do about it, we were just ordinary policemen."

As dozens of Afghan police and soldiers have also died at the hands of comrades in arms, worries about Taliban sympathisers is not an abstract problem. Afghan army officers going out on operations are sometimes almost as concerned about threats from the men lined up behind them as they are worried about dangers ahead, a senior officer said earlier this year.

But infiltrators are not the only, or indeed the main problem; around three-quarters of the killings are prompted by personal grudges, the Nato-led mission to Afghanistan estimates.

A report on the problem which was retrospectively classified by the US military – entitled A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility – highlighted a range of irritants in the relationship that could fray ties and pave the way for shootings.

The issues that annoyed, angered or even repulsed Afghans ranged from the US troops' ignorance about Islam to their tendency to swear and urinate in public. US forces in their turn were disgusted by Afghan cruelty to animals, lack of discipline and hygiene, among other issues.

But for many soldiers who don't share those sentiments, or are more positive about the relationship overall, the attacks are depressing.

Some generals fear the US decision is already undermining military morale, the BBC reported.

"When I was at my academy and I heard about these attacks, it made me sad for my country. How did these people get through the checks?" said the Kabul officer.

Now: Check out why the U.S. stopped joint patrols with Afghans >

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top officer in the Air Force on Tuesday joined other Pentagon officials in raising questions about the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 program, saying the cost of building and operating the new single-engine fighter needed to come down.

General Mark Welsh said he was still learning about the F-35 program after taking over as Air Force Chief of Staff last month, but the new fighter clearly remained one of the Air Force's top acquisition priorities, along with a new Boeing Corefueling tanker and plans for a new long-range bomber.

"We need the airplane, but the program's got to perform," Welsh told reporters a day after Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and the Pentagon's F-35 program director, Air Force Major General Christopher Bogdan criticized Lockheed's performance on various aspects of the program.

Welsh, speaking to reporters at the Air Force Association annual meeting, said he was concerned about the impact of automatic across-the-board budget cuts on the Air Force's procurement budget, and said the service's fighter fleet would be the first to come under pressure.

"We have lots of things that we need to buy that we can't afford to right now, and some will get pushed off," Welsh said, noting that the service's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance budget could be squeezed as well.

He said he saw less threat to the Air Force's budget for mobility programs such as new tankers and transport planes, given strong support from lawmakers and Pentagon officials after repeated delays in beginning to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of KC-135 tankers.

Welsh cited some progress on the F-35, the new single-engine, stealthy airplane that is due to become the Air Force's main fighter plane in coming years. He said the plane was making strides in testing and test pilots were pleased with the plane's capabilities, but Lockheed needed to stabilize the production line and ensure predictable costs.

He said he also concerns about the operating cost of the airplane, and how that compared to the cost of flying the Air Force's current fighter jets.

"If you can buy it and can't afford to fly it, that's not going to do us much good," Welsh said.

He said he planned to raise the issue when he meets with top Lockheed executives in coming weeks, and said the two sides needed to reach some common ground about how the costs should be calculated.

New Pentagon data in April forecast the projected total cost to develop, buy and operate the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at $1.51 trillion over the next 50-plus years, up from about $1.38 trillion a year ago, including inflation.

Military officials and industry executives say the cost projections are not particularly useful because it is nearly impossible to predict inflation over the next half-century. They say it is difficult to compare the operating cost of the F-35 to other fighters because its missions are much broader.

Welsh said he had received an initial briefing on the cost comparisons, but wanted more data.

Lockheed officials told reporters the program was making progress in flight testing and software development. They said the Air Force model of the plane had flow 365 times this year, while the B-model being developed for the Marine Corps had flown 300 times, including 184 short takeoffs, 133 short landings, and 66 vertical landings.

Spokesman Michael Rein said the company understood the financial pressures facing the United States and was working hard to drive down the cost of the program.

He welcomed the "new eyes on the program" offered by Bogdan, who joined the program five weeks ago and is slated to take over as the program manager later this year when Vice Admiral David Venlet retires.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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A recent report out of the Marine Times diagrams how a company named HALO Corp. decided to include a Zombie Apocalypse portion in their yearly Counterterrorism Brief next month.

In attendance at the brief are 1,000 military personnel, police officials, medical experts and federal workers—who apparently find zombie preparedness pertinent to national security. Well, more accurately, they think that practice for a "zombie outbreak" type of viral scenario is important to national security.

Last year, the Center for Disease Control released a survival guide of sorts and now they even plan produce a graphic zombie "novella."

(All the talk from the CDC even prompted a certain Business Insider reporter's mom to call in the middle of the night, wondering if that reporter would come home and help in the event of a zombie outbreak.)

If the military and government are preparing for this unlikely scenario, then you should too. As a former Marine, survivalist, and zombie enthusiast, allow me to share some advice.

1. No one is coming to save you, so don't wait

The first thing the government is going to do is either: A, lie to you; or B, leave you hanging.

Don't expect them, or anyone for that matter to come and save you. No one is coming, so you better be going. Grab whatever food you can fit into a pack and a few handy weapons, and get out, especially if you're in a densely populated area.

2. Fight like an animal

There's no room for namby pamby paddy cake when it comes to zoms. If confronted, and you will be confronted, you have to fight like a cold blooded killer. Like an animal.

It's about survival, and there's no way to be "civil" when a zombie is involved. Attack like a cornered rat.

3. Crowbars and melee weapons are a sure thing

All you need to do to defend yourself is to attack the head. Bludgeoning tools are perfect for this type of attack. Of these, a decent sized crowbar, one bigger than is in this picture preferably, will last you the longest.

A baseball bat works, but the aluminum will wear out quick. The iron in the crowbar is tough as nails though.

You could also opt for a blade though, because ...

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Eleven years after it began, Nato's occupation of Afghanistan is crumbling. The US decision to suspend joint Afghan-Nato operations in response to a wave of attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on Nato troops cuts the ground from beneath the centrepiece of western strategy.

Nato is, after all, supposed to be training up Afghan troops to take control in time for the withdrawal of combat forces in 2014. Instead, those client regime troops are routinely turning their guns on a long-reviled foreign occupation force. No wonder support for a continued military presence is falling rapidly in the main British political parties – long after it has among the populations of all the occupying states.

The US-British invasion of Afghanistan was of course launched in response to the 9/11 attacks: the poison fruit of US-led support for the Afghan mujahideen war against the Soviet Union. Why do they hate us, many Americans asked at the time, oblivious to their country's role in decades of coups, tyranny, sanctions regimes and occupations across the Middle East.

In the aftermath of the killing of the US ambassador to Libya and assault on the consulate in Benghazi, as protests against a virulently Islamophobic US-made video spread across the Muslim world, Hillary Clinton echoed the same sentiments. "How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?" she asked, "in a city we helped save from destruction?"

She was referring to Nato's decisive role in winning power for the Libyan rebels who first took up arms in Benghazi last year. But just as the mujahideen the US backed in Afghanistan later turned their guns on their imperial sponsor in the form of the Taliban and al-Qaida, so many of the Islamists and jihadists who fought against Gaddafi with Nato air cover have their own ideas for the future of their country.

This is the start of the blowback from US and western attempts to commandeer the Arab uprisings. Something similar is likely to happen in Syria. The invasion of Afghanistan more than a decade ago not only didn't destroy al-Qaida, it spread it into Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and north Africa, and today the flags of its offshoots are flying across the Arab world.

In Libya, Nato's intervention sharply escalated the death toll, triggered large-scale ethnic cleansing, spread war to Mali, and left thousands in jail without trial and the country in the control of multiple armed militias. Western governments hailed July's elections, in which most seats were not open to political parties, as bucking the Islamist trend across the region.

But their man, a former Gaddafi minister, has now been defeated for the job of prime minister by an independent Islamist, while the British ambassador's convoy, the Red Cross and UN have been attacked and Sufi shrines destroyed. Meanwhile, the Nato-backed authorities are threatening military action against jihadists in Benghazi, as American warships and drones patrol Libya's coast and skies.

The fact that the attack on the US consulate, along with often violent protests that have spread across 20 countries, was apparently triggered by an obscure online video trailer concocted by US-based Christian fundamentalists and émigré Copts – even one portraying the prophet Muhammad as a fraud and paedophile – seems bafflingly disproportionate to outsiders.

But in the wake of the Rushdie affair and Danish cartoons controversy, it should be clear that insults to Muhammad are widely seen by Muslims as an attack on their collective identity and, as the Berkeley-based anthropologist Saba Mahmoud argues, a particular form of religiosity that elevates him as an ideal exemplar.

Those feelings can obviously be exploited, as they have been in recent days in a battle for political influence between fundamentalist Salafists, mainstream Islamists and the Shia Hezbollah. But it would be absurd not to recognise that the scale of the response isn't just about a repulsive video, or even reverence for the prophet. As is obvious from the slogans and targets, what set these protests alight is the fact that the injury to Muslims is seen once again to come from an arrogant hyperpower that has invaded, subjugated and humiliated the Arab and Muslim world for decades.

Since launching the war on terror, the US and its allies have attacked and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq; bombed Libya; killed thousands in drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; imposed devastating sanctions; backed Israel's occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians to the hilt; carried out large-scale torture, kidnapping and internment without trial; maintained multiple bases to protect client dictatorships throughout the region; and now threaten Iran with another act of illegal war.

The video is manifestly only the latest trigger for a deep popular anger in a region where opposition to imperial domination is now channelled mainly through the politics of Islam rather than nationalism. The idea that Arab and Muslim hostility to the US would have been assuaged because it intervened to commandeer Libya's uprising (an intervention most Arabs reject) is absurd.

About two-thirds of people in the Middle East and North Africa say they distrust the US, polling shows, rising to more than three-quarters in Pakistan. After 11 years of the war on terror, following decades of baleful intervention, the only surprise is that there aren't more violent anti-US and anti-western protests in the region.

Western war in the Muslim world has also fed a toxic tide of Islamophobia in Europe and the US. What is it about Muslims that makes them so easily offended, Europeans and Americans commonly demand to know – while Muslims point to cases such as the British 19-year-old who was convicted in Yorkshire last week of posting a "grossly offensive" Facebook message that British soldiers in Afghanistan "should die and go to hell", and ask why they're not afforded that protection.

The events of the last week are a reminder that an Arab world which has thrown off dictatorship will be more difficult for the western powers to hold in thrall. The Economist called the deadly assault on the US consulate in Libya an example of "Arab dysfunction" and urged the US not to retreat from the Middle East but go in deeper, including in Syria. As Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya have already shown, that would only bring disaster.

Twitter: @SeumasMilne

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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A crowd of around 50 Chinese protesters surrounded the official car of the United States ambassador in Beijing, who escaped unharmed, a State department spokesman said.

The melee occurred outside the gates of the US embassy on Tuesday and security guards had to intervene to protect Gary Locke, 62. The protesters caused minor damage to the vehicle, a statement from the embassy said.

"Embassy officials have registered their concern regarding today's incident with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and urged the Chinese Government to do everything possible to protect American facilities and personnel," the statement said.

The incident happened on Tuesday, while large crowds of protesters were massed outside the Japanese embassy nearby, to demand that Japan relinquish control of an island chain claimed by China in the waters between the two countries.

The statement gave no details about the demonstrators who blocked Mr Locke's car, or what angered them.

However the Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei tweeted a photograph of the protest on Tuesday afternoon, and said the crowd had chanted: "Down with US imperialism" and "Pay us back our money!" referring to the trillion dollars or so of US government debt that China holds.

Some Chinese observers have blamed the US for standing behind the Japanese on their claim, and suggested that the US is attempting to foment unrest in the region as a pretext for "pivoting" its naval forces back to the Pacific.

The incident came as the US Defence secretary, Leon Panetta, was meeting with senior Chinese leaders to reassure them that the US does not intend to "contain" China by building up a military presence in Asia.

On Wednesday, Mr Panetta met with Xi Jinping, the 59-year-old Chinese president-in-waiting who recently disappeared for two weeks without explanation, cancelling a scheduled engagement with Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, the protests against Japan have now evaporated. The road outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing has reopened and there was no sign of any discord.

"It seems the protests in front of our embassy have subsided," the Japanese embassy said in an email to Japanese citizens.

Beijing police sent out a mass text message telling the public not to stage any more protests, according to the Japanese embassy.

Mass protests across China over the weekend, and running into Tuesday, forced many Japanese businesses to shut their doors or close down factories. However, most, if not all of these businesses are now returning to normal.

Watch below for a primer on the Anti-Japanese protests in Beijing:

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Colombia has said that Daniel "El Loco" Barrera, alleged to be the country's last major drug lord, had been caught in neighboring Venezuela in an international sting led from Washington.

"The last of the great capos has fallen," President Juan Manuel Santos announced on national television, adding that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain's MI6 intelligence service had provided support.

Barrera, whose outfit is estimated to have sent more than 900 tons of cocaine to the United States and Europe, was caught in the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, said Santos, adding that the drug lord had criminal ties to FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels and paramilitaries.

"This is perhaps the most important capture of recent times," the president said, thanking the Venezuelan government for its help.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Tareck El Aissami confirmed the arrest on Twitter, calling it a "major coup" for his country and adding that "images" and "details of the operation" would be released Wednesday.

Venezuela's foreign ministry said Barrera was captured "after an intelligence operation carried out by Venezuelan authorities," without mentioning any foreign involvement.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has long had rocky relations with Washington and regularly accuses the United States of trying to undermine his leftist government.

Santos said the operation "was led from Washington," adding that the head of Colombia's national police, General Jose Leon Riano, had helped direct it from the US capital.

Speaking from Washington, Leon Riano told the Caracol television network that authorities had tracked Barrera for four months before arresting him at a phone booth in San Cristobal.

He added that the operation had been orchestrated from Washington because it required "special technical support." US authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.

In 2010 the US Treasury had named Barrera a "special designated narcotics trafficker," saying he faced criminal charges in New York and was allied with the FARC, Latin America's longest-running insurgency.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Colombian cartels dominated the American drug trade, but a US-supported government crackdown has left local gangs in increasing disarray.

In 2011, 252 of Bogota's 1,632 registered homicides - 15.4 percent - were linked to drugs, according to official figures.

The regional cocaine trade, however, is still alive and well: in 2011 Colombia was the world's largest cocaine producer, according to a United Nations report, though neighboring Peru is expected to soon overtake it.

Colombian criminal gangs as well as leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups sell the cocaine to Mexican criminal syndicates, who then smuggle it into the United States and Europe.

Colombia recently agreed to relaunch peace talks with the leftist FARC after a decade-long hiatus, raising hopes of resolving Latin America's last major armed conflict.

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Xi Jinping, the recently missing Chinese leader expected to become the country's next President, has issued some stern words of warning for Japan during a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chinese state media agency Xinhua reports.

Xi reportedly called Japan's purchase of the disputed Senkaku / Diaoyu islands a farce, before adding:

"Japan should rein in its behavior and stop any words and acts that undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity,"

The meeting with Panetta is Xi's first big public appearance since he returned from a mysterious two week absence.

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The Syrian regime plans to deploy chemical weapons against its own people "as a last resort", the former head of Syria's chemical arsenal has said in an interview with a British newspaper.

Major-General Adnan Sillu said he defected from the Syrian army three months ago after being party to top-levels talks about the use of chemical weapons on both rebel fighters and civilians.

"We were in a serious discussion about the use of chemical weapons, including how we would use them and in what areas," he told The Times, referring to a meeting held at Syria's chemical weapons centre south of Damascus.

"We discussed this as a last resort – such as if the regime lost control of an important area such as Aleppo."

Speaking from Turkey, General Sillu said he was certain President Bashar al-Assad's regime would eventually use chemical weapons against civilians, adding that the discussion had been "the last straw" which triggered his defection.

His comments come after German press reported on Tuesday that the Syrian army had tested a chemical weapons delivery system.

In his first interview since his defection, General Sillu said the Syrian regime had also considered supplying chemical weapons to the Lebanon-based militant group Hizbollah.

"They wanted to place warheads with the chemical weapons on missiles – to transfer them this way to Hizbollah. It was for use against Israel, of course," he said.

He suggested that the regime now had "nothing to lose" in sharing the weapons and added: "If a war starts between Hizbollah and Israel it will be only good for Syria."

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard also attended numerous meetings to discuss the use of chemical weapons, he said.

"They were always coming to visit and to advise. They were always sending us scientists and bringing our scientists to them. They were also involved on the political side of how to use the chemical weapons."

The German magazine Der Spiegel, citing "witnesses, reported Monday that the Syrian army has tested a chemical weapons delivery system, firing shells at a research centre in its northwestern desert region.

"Five or six empty shells devised for delivering chemical agents were fired by tanks and aircraft, at a site called Diraiham in the desert near the village of Khanasir," east of the city of Aleppo, Der Spiegel reported.

The Safira research centre in question is regarded as Syria's largest testing site for chemical weapons.

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The American Civil Liberties Union will be in court Thursday to argue the CIA has to hand over information about its "secret" drone program because senior officials have openly acknowledged its existence.

The ACLU filed a FOIA request in January 2010 that asked the government to disclose the legal basis for "its use of predator drones to conduct 'targeted killings' overseas," but the CIA had refused to confirm or deny whether any records regarding drones exist.

“The notion that the CIA’s targeted killing program is a secret is nothing short of absurd," ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer, who will argue the case before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Appeals Court, said in a press release. “For more than two years, senior officials have been making claims about the program both on the record and off."

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in June 2010, arguing that Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives that the U.S. operates a drone program that directly involves killing Americans.

In May the New York Times cited several senior cabinet officials who said that President Obama personally oversees the drone "kill list." Earlier this month President Obama himself opened up about the drone war, telling CNN that "drones are one tool that we use."

"[Officials] claimed that the program is effective, lawful and closely supervised," Jaffer said. "If they can make these claims, there is no reason why they should not be required to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.”

SEE ALSO: Shady US Drone Tactics Take Out Al Qaeda Number Two Abu Yahya Al Libi And Civilians This Weekend >

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The allied forces called them "The Devil's Children," and they were one of the most feared Nazi units on the battlefield.

That's one of the things I learned reading "Normandy: A Graphic History Of D-Day"—a comic book, with American-style animations, that, in astounding detail, walks readers through the assault on Normandy and then, with less detail, the following European campaign. Wayne Vansant, the author and illustrator, has had a long career of producing historically accurate texts. His graphic novels can even be found in the historical sections of some collections.

You might know them as the "Hitler Youth," but the program was more than just a summer camp: It was a Spartan Agoge like military training system that spit out men exceedingly proficient at combat.

From the book:

The training of the HitlerJugend (Hitler Youth) was different than any unit in the German Army. Marching and Drilling were dropped altogether. Everything was focused on preparing for battle using all the dirty tricks that the Liebstandarte (Hitler's bodyguards) had learned in Russia. Their motto was, "Trained not as soldiers, but as fighters."

The division stood at 22,000 strong, was feared on the battlefield, and had relaxed personal grooming standards and loose military customs and courtesies—much like today's US special forces.

From the book: "Their hair was longer than is usually allowed ... and they painted the names of their girlfriends on the sides of their tanks."

The book is quite thorough, and even touches on Canadian forces and Scottish Bagpipes. 

And they are quite "graphic," Vansant's cartoon entrails are no less disturbing.

Now: check out this giant World War II bomb found beneath an airport >

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Heading north on the aircraft carrier Eisenhower about 50 miles off the coast of Iran, it's very easy to forget the problems with Tehran and its nuclear program.

For several months Iran has been stalling international inspectors looking for access to its nuclear enrichment facilities. Israel has been growing more ardent in its calls for military action against Iran, and the U.S. has been doling out sanctions against Iran hoping the issue will resolve itself.

Out here under the light blue gauze of this sun-filled sky there is none of that. There are 44 F-18s on the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, along with sundry other aircraft, and regardless of what Iran or Israel do, the Ike's deck and flight crew focus on arming these jets, launching them, and bringing them home all day long.

All 44 may not be flying today, but it certainly feels like it out here in the Persian Gulf as 4,200 U.S. troops lean into an extended nine month deployment. Out here it is just business as usual.

Few of the crew I met have time to look up the news on the sluggish Internet connection, or concern themselves much outside of their daily duties.

The mission is the same, day in and day out, regardless of what else happens in the world and most crew are too busy to give it much thought.

That's not true for the ship's command; and when the admiral in charge of the Ike and the ships escorting her briefed us at the end of the day, he told us almost word for word what the ship's captain had said: "The Iranian Navy has been nothing but courteous and polite in all of our interactions with them."

Apparently those interactions are not altogether uncommon, which is understandable when much of the U.S. Fifth Fleet it steaming just off Iran's coast.

The admiral had just returned from the first stages of the IMCMEX 2012, the largest marine mine countermeasures exercise in the history of the region. It's why we're here, to check out the exercise later in the week.

Just before lights out last night, the admiral gets on the ship's public address system and tells the crew that he appreciates their hard work and he's signed them up to join the mine exercise — so they'll be working just a bit harder in the coming days.

On deck this morning at 8:00 a.m. there was no trace of the admiral's announcement of more work. The crew had already been at work for some time washing the planes, and drying the deck. It was so hot that withing 30 minutes of talking to sailors I could feel the sweat running down my legs and into my shoes.

I watched a sailor spray an F-18 with some sort of aerosol cleaning product and lean in to wipe it with a sponge.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

He stopped immediately and turned to face me with a smile. 

"Cleaning my jet, sir." He was maybe 5' 2" and all of 19 years old. The average age of the Ike's crew is 22.

"You don't mind that in this heat?" I ask wiping the worst of the sweat from my eyes.

"No, sir," he answered with surprising sincerity. "It's like a good thing to do so we can show our pilot we care about the jet — it reflects us. It let's him know how much care goes into this aircraft."

I'm headed back to Bahrain now. Waiting for a ride back from a helicopter after our plane broke down. Tomorrow is a day of briefings and information on what's to come during the mine exercise later in the week aboard the USS Ponce. 

The U.S. and its allies hope to show Iran and the world the short work they'll make of any efforts to mine the Strait of Hormuz. From what I've seen there's no doubt American sailors will do their part. 

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His name was Abdullah Ismail, and he was down for the cause when he partook in Anti-American protests while his compadres applied fire to flag.

Now he's down ... forever.

Pakistan's own The Express Tribune reports:

One of the participants of the rally, Abdullah Ismail, passed away after he was taken to Mayo Hospital. Witnesses said he had complained of feeling unwell from the smoke from US flags burnt at the rally.

Believe it or not, the article was not about Ismail, but about Pakistan's push for "America to criminalize blasphemy."

No need to criminalize stupidity, on the other hand, since it usually punishes itself.

Most flags are made of polyester or nylon, which, when engulfed in flame, become quite carcinogenic. (Just ask any firefighter.) Standing on a pile or near a pile of plastics turned gaseous probably isn't the best course of action.

As of the writing of this report, blasphemy and flag burning were still legal in the United States.

Now: Check out the tools the U.S. will use to defeat Iran in the Strait of Hormuz >

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It's a one billion dollar expansion of government.

That's certainly one way the unanimous Republican "no" voters will cast the "Veterans Jobs Corps Bill" in their subsequent appearances on Fox News.

The bill needed 60 votes to pass, but only got 58, with a whopping five Republicans voting with Senate Democrats. The bill would appropriate tax dollars over a period of five years to go toward expanded payroll and preferential employment of veterans to government positions. These government positions, such as firefighters, police officers, park rangers and EMTs, often already give military vets preferential treatment because of their training and experience.

The bill would also provide training programs and further infrastructure, such as access to computers and internet, for vets to get reaquainted with the fickle private job market.

Senator John McCain, of all people, opted to vote no on the bill. McCain's vote is especially odd since just a week ago he released letters from the CEOs of a dozen giant defense conglomerates appealing to Congress to avoid defense cuts. McCain's reasoning to circumvent sequestration cuts was under the oft-flexed auspicouses of "supporting our troops," maintaining a "strong military," and, of all things, not losing more American jobs.

How is one form of military job spending "supporting our troops" but another form is not?

Lawrence Downs of The New York Times astutely pointed out:

"It’s probably useful to remind Republicans like John McCain (a “nay” on the jobs bill) that wounded, jobless and homeless veterans aren’t a fact of nature. They’re a product of the wars that Congress members voted for [and] the war debt they piled on."

Currently, jobless numbers for vets aged 18 - 24 are approximately four times the national average at 30 percent.

Obviously vets already have a hard time reintegrating into the private sphere, carrying Post Traumatic Stress and combat injuries into a post-financial collapse job market. Yet so-called military supporting, conservative Senate Republicans can't seem to support anything Democratic.

Now: Check out why Obama doesn't need Congressional approval to deploy Marines to Yemen and Libya >

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The Justice Department "found no evidence" that Attorney General Eric Holder knew before January 2011 of the "inappropriate tactics" used in Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Inspector General.

We're still going through the 471-page report, but there's at least one reason within the report that raises doubt in its conclusion.

"Gun-walking" or "letting guns walk" was a tactic of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) whereby agents purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell U.S. weapons to illegal straw buyers in the hopes of tracking those weapons to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arresting them.

The Fast and Furious operation (2009-2011) was the largest of several gun-walking operations—including Operation Wide Receiver (2006-8)—that took place under a broader initiative known as Project Gunrunner (2006-2011), which was intended to reduce the flow of firearms into Mexico.

One reason to doubt the new report is that it ostensibly found no evidence that Michael Mukasey, Attorney General from November 2007 to January 2009, was "made aware of Operation Wide Receiver, or of the investigative tactics that were employed by ATF during that investigation."

However, a Justice Department memo to Mukasey from Nov. 16, 2007, outlines failed attempts by federal agents to track walked guns across the border into Mexico.

As AP reported last year, the memo "marks the first known instance of an attorney general being given information about the tactic known as 'gun-walking.'"

The memo goes on to state that while Wide Receiver was unsuccessful, the ATF "would like to expand the possibility of such joint investigations and controlled deliveries."

Wide Receiver monitored the sale of about 450 guns and lost almost all of them while Fast and Furious monitored the sale of more than 2,000 firearms, of which nearly 700 were recovered as of October 2011.

The obvious question: Why does the new Inspector General report contradict the earlier Justice Department memo?

A follow-up question: If the earlier Justice Department memo is to believed, wouldn't Holder, who followed Mukasey as Attorney General, also be informed of the "inappropriate tactics" used in gun-walking operations when he took office?

The operations of Project Gunrunner became controversial when weapons from Fast and Furious were recovered from the Arizona desert where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died in a shootout with cartel members on December 14, 2010.

The AP story noted that, according to ATF data, 94,000 weapons were recovered in Mexico from 2006 to 2011 with 64,000 of them traced to the United States.

SEE ALSO: High Ranking Cartel Member Says Operation Fast & Furious Was Meant To Supply Guns To The Sinaloa Cartel >

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Back in May 2011, a motion to raise the pay of veterans in combat, otherwise known as "combat pay," by $180 per month met with a resounding, majority "No!" from House Congressmen.

But that wasn't even what got Army mother Maria Meacham mad.

Meacham, who told her story to Adalia Woodbury of Politicus USA reports, was visiting the Capitol with her husband when the resolution was put onto the floor of The House of Representatives.

Rep. Kurt Schrader [D-Or] sought to repeal a 2003 amendment that reduced battle pay by $180 per month. What followed was an "anemic" Yea from House Dems and an enthusiastic "No!" from House Republicans.

Then came giddy high fives between Republicans Rep. Ben Quayle and Rep. David Schweikert, Meacham claims.

The military mom, who told Woodbury that the act felt insensitive and hurtful, decided she had to say something.

“Pay the soldiers or bring them home!” she shouted two times. Then “Why don’t you take a pay cut to help the soldiers?”

A security guard approached her and told her that she wasn't supposed to be shouting. Meacham sat down. Then, she said, the acting House Speaker wouldn't stop staring at her.

Suddenly, he issued the order, Meacham claims: "The Sergeant at Arms needs to take control of the gallery now."

Two security guards approached Meacham and asked her to leave with them. 

Once outside, the guards put Meacham in cuffs and took her to a detention center, where she says she was subjected to booking procedures as well as a battery of drugs tests and questioning, which oddly enough including asking if she was affiliated with any one political party or group.

The final charge for Meacham was disorderly conduct, and she was banned from visiting Congress for six months. The disorderly conduct charge was eventually dropped, but after weeks of continued drug tests, the sting is still there.

Meancham's reflection on the whole experience is powerful. Read it at Politicus USA >

Don't miss: 18 Things Navy SEALs Don't Leave Home Without >

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As the Middle East erupted in violent protests two weeks ago, US efforts in Afghanistan sunk to new depths. There hasn’t been much good news out of Afghanistan since March 2003, but last week was particularly bad– highlighted by an audacious attack on Camp Bastion and the announcement that all combined patrols with Isaf and Afghan troops would be temporarily halted. Overshadowed by those incidents were two more insider attacks that killed six Isaf service members the same weekend. Indeed, good news is hard to find.

Reminiscent of similar attacks on Pakistani military bases, a small group of well-trained militants carried out the spectacular attack on Camp Bastion, one of Isaf’s largest bases in country. Fifteen well-armed militants disguised in US army uniforms breached the perimeter fence and split into three roving teams. The result: two US marines killed, including the Harrier squadron commanding officer, nine wounded, and eight AV-8B Harrier “jump jets” destroyed or damaged beyond repair. It was the largest, single-day loss of US military aircraft since Vietnam. At roughly $30m per copy, the loss of eight irreplaceable Harriers rendered VMA-211, the squadron hit, combat ineffective for the first time sinceDecember 1941.

Three days later, Isaf announced that most combined patrols with Isaf and Afghan troops would cease “until further notice”. Ostensibly done to limit Nato troop exposure to Afghans while anger over a disgusting anti-Islam video remains palpable, it’s hard to see this order as anything but a response to the growing insider threat – so-called green-on-blue attacks, when an Afghan soldier turns his weapon on his Nato partner. Thirty-six such attacks have killed 51 members of coalition forces this year, roughly 20% of all Isaf casualties. Given that Nato’s withdrawal strategy rests entirely on the premise of ensuring Afghan forces are capable of providing security on their own, and that as of April 2012, only 7% (pdf) of Afghan army units were rated as fully capable, the suspension of combined operations calls the entire strategy into question.

Now read the rest right here >

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The military's Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP) has become a ubiquitous mainstay among those troops traveling bomb-laced roads in Afghanistan.

The MRAP is renowned for it's protective "v-shaped" hull, which redirects blasts a lot better than the flat bottomed humvees. On the downside though, troops have noted the suspension could use a little work—every bump feels like a boulder.

Watch what happens to the too-tight axle in this video posted just a couple days ago:

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