On November 10, 1943, when Lt. Walter L. Chewning Jr., the catapult officer of the USS Enterprise, saw a 9,000-pound F6F Hellcat crash-land on the flight deck and erupt in a ball of flames as it barreled toward the gun gallery, he did not run away.

Instead, Chewning deliberately ran toward the wreck, stepped on the burning external fuel tank, which was hemorrhaging and fueling the flames, forced the plane's jammed canopy open, and saved the stunned young pilot's life.

The USS Enterprise would go down in history as an exemplary ship and crew in the Pacific theater of World War II, and the first carrier to respond after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Selfless acts of bravery, like the one captured in this image, typify the kind of spirit that helped the Allied powers win the war when things looked most bleak. Chewning would receive the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his actions on that day.

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Mohamed Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian citizen who was wanted in connection with November's terrorist attacks in Paris, has been arrested in Anderlecht, the Belgian broadcaster Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française reported on Friday.

Public prosecutors confirmed in a statement on Friday that the police had made several arrests related to last month's terrorist attacks at an airport and a metro station in Brussels, Reuters reports, but they did not confirm the identity of those arrested.

Belgian media reports that Abrini was "more than likely" the "man in the hat" suspect seen on security-camera footage at Brussels Airport alongside two suicide bombers. This information has not been officially confirmed.

On Thursday, Belgian police had released new images of the "man in the hat," and urged people to look for his discarded coat. 

According to the Belgian broadcaster, another arrest was made of a man who might be connected to the attack at the Maelbeek metro station.

Abrini has been on Europe's most wanted list since being identified on CCTV video in a car with Salah Abdeslam, the Paris attacks suspect who was arrested in Brussels two weeks ago. He was reportedly arrested in the borough of Anderlecht in Brussels, close to Molenbeek, which has been the epicentre of Belgium's troubles with Islamist militants.

Abrini's DNA had also been found in the flat in Schaerbeek used by the perpetrators of the Brussels attacks.

The Paris bombings and shootings in November left 130 people dead and hundreds more injured, while the Brussels bombings of the airport and metro on March 22 left 32 dead and more than 250 wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility for both attacks.

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Although the Justice Department withdrew its request for Apple to help it hack into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, a similar court case elsewhere is still ongoing. 

In a letter today, DoJ said that it still wants Apple's help to access data on an iPhone used by Jun Feng, a meth dealer. 

In February, a magistrate judge in Brooklyn ruled that the government couldn't force Apple to help break into Feng's iPhone, and questioned whether the government's legal rationale — an old law called the All Writs Act — was sufficient to compel Apple to break its own security. 

The government challenged that ruling. Today, the government indicated that it still believes it needs Apple's help to get into Feng's iPhone. 

"The government’s application is not moot and the government continues to require Apple’s assistance in accessing the data that it is authorized to search by warrant," U.S. attorneys wrote. 

While the Brooklyn case and the San Bernardino case are not exact parallels, they are very similar, and it is possible that information about the hack that the FBI used to get into the San Bernardino iPhone might come out as the government pursues Apple's assistance in the Feng case. 

A law enforcement official later said that the San Bernardino method won't work on Feng's iPhone. 

An Apple attorney speaking on condition of anonyminity said that Apple will challenge the government's appeal, and expects to file a response next Thursday. 

Here's the full letter: 

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Nigeria is currently dealing with one of its worst fuel shortages in years.

The crisis has been dragging on for over a month already, and, despite promises from the head of the state oil firm, the "situation has deteriorated in the past few years,"according to Reuters.

And it's starting to hamper economic activity.

Drivers have been lining up for days at petrol stations across the country, and the lines of traffic were so bad in the capital city of Lagos that they blocked traffic, according to a recent Reuters report. Some people couldn't make it to work.

"Such shortages are particularly disruptive in Nigeria because stagnating electricity output and frequent power cuts leave consumers and businesses dependent on diesel-powered private generators," wrote Capital Economics' Josh Ashbourne in a note to clients.

"The current energy shortage will strangle growth in the vital non-oil sector."

The government promised to increase imports in an attempt to ameliorate the situation. However, Ashbourne writes that this would only be a temporary solution and wouldn't actually address the two underlying problems.

The first, smaller issue is that Nigeria has a limited domestic refining capacity. Even if all four of Nigeria's oil refineries were running at full capacity, that would only provide about 25% of what the country needs.

Still, plenty of countries import all of their energy (meaning, they don't consume what they produce, or they don't produce energy at all) and they don't routinely suffer shortages.

And that brings us to the bigger issue: Nigeria's complicated, inefficient price control system.

Back in January, the Nigerian government ended official subsidies to fuel distributors. They argued that they were no longer needed, although the fuel distributors disagreed. However, the government continued to fix retail prices at 86.5 naira per liter of petrol.

At the same time, crude oil prices are up since early 2016. Currently, Brent oil is trading around $41.73 per barrel as of 3:18 p.m. ET, while back in January oil hovered around $30 per barrel.

Consequently, some distributors say they've been axed out of the market by the strict FX controls, and so they stopped selling. And, wherever fuel is available, the price is marked up significantly above the official price.

"The government’s 'price modulation' system has, in short, failed to assure either stable prices or consistent supply," wrote Ashbourne.

"The shortage will only ease when the authorities either allow the official retail price to rise or restart costly subsidy payments. We expect that the latter is more likely." 

Notably, Ashbourne writes that there are "already signs that the government is, despite several public denials, effectively reinstating a subsidy of 4.09 naira per liter through a system of 'under recovery.'"

However, he continues, "this subsidy (which could cost about US$1m per day) cannot bridge the gap between distributors’ actual costs and the official retail price. The new template still assumes, for instance, that retailers are able to buy US dollars at the official rate of 199 naira per dollar. A more substantial subsidy – perhaps described as a 'bailout' – is inevitable."

Plus, although fuel subsidies might end the shortage, they are also likely lead to other economic problems.

"A one-time bailout will buy time, but not end the cycle of recurrent fuel shortages," concludes Ashbourne. "The current crisis strengthens our view that the risks to our below-consensus growth forecast of 2.0% lie largely to the downside."

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The US military is unquestionably the dominant force on the planet. 

From the greatest advances in technology to a massive network of military alliances, the US military retains a substantial lead over the militaries of every other country on the planet. And the backbone of this military greatness comes in large part from the economic prosperity of the US and the incredible funding that the Pentagon receives. 

In 2015, the US will have a declared military and defense budget of $601 billion, which is more than the next 7 highest spending countries combined. The following graphics show how the US will make use of its billions. 

The vast majority of the $601 billion will be funneled towards the military's base budget, which includes funding for the procurement of military equipment and the daily operations costs of US bases. 

Of the $496 billion base budget, the vast majority of funding goes towards the cost of operating and maintaining the military and the cost of paying and caring for military personnel. A further $90.4 billion is set aside for the procurement of new weapons systems during the 2015 fiscal year.  

In terms of investments, the US has dedicated a substantial chunk of funding into aircraft and related systems. This is due to the procurement of the F-35 fifth-generation fighter, which is entering into service with the Marine Corps this year. The 2015 budget also has started to allocate funds for the next-generation long-range strike bomber for the Air Force.

In terms of major acquisitions, the F-35 has been the dominant cost with the procurement of 34 aircraft. The new Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine, which is intended to help modernize the US submarine fleet, is the second main acquisition cost for 2015. The $6.3 billion price tag is for two subs.  

By department, the US Navy will receive the most funding in 2015. However, the Department of the Navy's funding also includes the 2015 budget for the US Marine Corps. 

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Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini admitted to being the "man in the hat" seen accompanying two suicide bombers at Brussels airport on March 22, Belgium's federal prosecutor said on Saturday.

"We confronted him with the video evidence prepared by our special unit," a spokesman for the prosecutors' office said, according to Reuters. "He had to admit it was him."

It is still unclear whether Abrini, who was arrested by Belgian police on Friday, is telling the truth. Belgian authorities launched a public appeal for help the day before in the search for the "man in the hat" suspect captured in an image on Brussels Airport CCTV cameras moments before two other men in the image detonated themselves and killed 14 other people at Brussels airport last month.

Freelance journalist Faycal Cheffou was incorrectly identified as the man in the days after the attack. He was released days after being arrested because of a lack of evidence linking him to the bombings.

Thirty-five people were killed and hundreds more were wounded after explosions ripped through the airport and at the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels on March 22.

Ibrahim El Bakraoui and his brother, Khalid, were named as suicide bombers in the attacks by the Belgian police the day after the attacks. Ibrahim died at the airport, while his brother died at the metro station, according to the police.

The police believe 24-year-old Najim Laachraoui, who appears on the far left of the photo, with Ibrahim El Bakraoui between him and the "man in the hat" suspect, was the second airport bomber. Laachraoui, described by the police as an ISIS bomb maker who made suicide vests used both in the Brussels attacks and in the November Paris attacks, also died at the airport.

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Only one of Rabe Alkhdar's brothers came back alive from a Syrian prison.

"My mother was wailing by that time," Rabe, a Syrian refugee now living in the US, recalled in an interview with Business Insider late last month.

"She asked Hassan how he could be sure that his brother had died."

He was describing the moment he said his brother, Hassan, emerged from one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most infamous prisons, Tadmor, and told his mother that her other son, Hameed, had been killed inside.

"He told her that after he was beaten and hung, the guards returned the body and threw it on top of Yunus. They left both bodies there for two days. Hassan had to watch his brother lay there dead for two days. We only got Hassan back, and Hameed's death certificate. It's now been three years since we lost him."

Years later, Rabe finds himself 6,000 miles away. After months of harrowing experiences, he sought and found refuge. But in a story typical of the destruction and displacement of the Syrian civil war, Rabe is still waiting to be reunited with his family.

'His name was Yunus'

Two of Rabe's brothers, Hassan and Hameed, were arrested in 2012 for helping to treat protesters injured while demonstrating against the Assad regime, Rabe said. Both had gone to pharmacy school, and had their own shop in Aleppo where they sold medicine.

Rabe said they were detained for two months in the regime's notorious Tadmor prison in Palmyra, the city that was recently liberated from the Islamic State by Assad's Syrian Arab Army.

"One day my brothers were called to treat a victim at his home," Rabe explained. "They went to the given address and were trying to do it quietly. They knocked on the door but nobody answered, and they felt that something was wrong. Suddenly they were surrounded by Assad's intelligence forces and were captured."

He continued: "As detainees, they were beaten with batons and cables. The interrogators used braided electrical cords to beat them across their backs and neck, and batons to beat them on the bottom of their feet in Tadmor. The agents promised to released them if my family paid them a ransom, so we paid $9,000 to get both of them back. But Hassan was also forced to make a deal. He had to promise to collect information for the regime about doctors and pharmacists working in Syria's medical aid networks."

Hassan betrayed his captors and fled to Turkey after he was released, Rabe said. But his other brother, Hameed, was killed inside the prison.

"We gave them all the money and only one of my brothers walked out of Tadmor," Rabe said. "We waited and waited for my other brother. No one came. We looked at Hassan and he could not speak. My mom hurried to hug him and she begged him to tell her about her other son. Hassan just cried uncontrollably. She insisted for him to tell her right then."

He began to explain.

"He told us that while he was in prison, there was a young boy being detained in their cell along with six others. His name was Yunus. Yunus was sick all the time. One day, he suddenly fell to the ground. He got up and stumbled across the cell and fell to the floor again. He lay there on the ground curled in a ball.  Yunus seem epileptic."

After his release, Hassan explained that Yunus had been in the prison for a month because his family was poor and couldn't pay for his release. He was not allowed any medication for his condition, and, Hassan recalled, "on that day his health seemed to fail him all together."

"Hassan ran over to the boy. He found him huddled against a stone wall. His face was buried in his arms, which were resting on drawn-up knees. Hameed tried to hold Yunus' head up because he knew that he was about to have another seizure. At first he did not understand anything Yunus was saying. It was as if he were speaking some unknown language. Yunus continued to make his plea, but nothing but gibberish came out."

By Hassan's recollection, Hameed sat down on the cement floor with Yunus and held him while he had a seizure.

"Yunus shook so violently that my brother was barely able to protect his body from banging into the cement wall," he said. "His eyes rolled back into his head. Then the guards came."

The guards, Hassan explained, demanded that Hameed let Yunus go and leave him on the ground. But Hameed refused to leave him by himself. A few moments later Yunus completely collapsed and lost consciousness.

"The guards grabbed my brother and left this child to suffer alone from his seizure. Within a few long moments Yunus was dead."

Not long after, Hameed was dead, too. After trying to get out of the guards' grip to reach Yunus after he collapsed, Hameed was dragged out of the cell and hung.

'You will go behind the sun'

"There's a saying in Syria that if you do something wrong, if you defy the government, you will 'go behind the sun,'" Rabe said. "In other words, you will be arrested and then just disappear. No one goes to Assad's prisons without being tortured."

More than half of Syria's population has either fled or been killed since the war erupted in March 2011. The vast majority have died simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time: barrel bombs dropped by regime helicopters on civilian targets in rebel-held areas have killed over 20,000 people, mostly civilians, in five years.

Thousands more have been tortured and killed in the regime's prisons, a practice the United Nations deemed"extermination as a crime against humanity."

The Islamic State and Al Qaeda's affiliate group in Syria, known as Jabhat al-Nusra, have also ruled parts of Syria with an iron fist, but far fewer have been killed by the jihadist groups than by the government and its allies.

Members of Rabe's family, scattered across Syria, often found themselves in the crosshairs of the militant groups. His father and his brother, Mazen, were captured and detained by al-Nusra in November of 2013 and released unharmed shortly thereafter, he said. They now live in a village on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Rabe said his uncle, Ahmad, was killed by the Islamic State in March 2013, along with his cousin, Hasan. They were charged with treason "for helping infidels move from one area of Aleppo to another" in 2013, Rabe said.

The Free Syrian Army, an umbrella organization comprised of mostly moderate rebel groups backed by Western countries, kicked ISIS out of Aleppo later that year, Rabe explained. But before the jihadists fled, they killed all of their prisoners.

Still, when asked who his own family had suffered from more, Rabe was unequivocal.

"Both [ISIS and Assad] are hideous," Rabe said. "But my family suffered most from the regime side."

'I don't know what freedom is'

Rabe's entire family left Syria in the revolution's earlier days, before the refugee crisis began in earnest and it was easier to seek and be granted asylum in neighboring countries.

"By January 2014, my whole family had left Syria. Now they are scattered across Turkey, Jordan, Germany, and the UAE."

Months after the war erupted, Rabe, his wife, and their two young boys fled to Saudi Arabia where Rabe, a trained pharmacist, found work with a company that sent some of its employees to a conference hosted in a different country every year. 

"I've been to Spain, Austria, South Africa, and Australia for this conference. Last year it was supposed to be in the US, so I got a tourist visa,"Rabe said, after providing Business Insider with the relevant documents as proof of his legal status. 

The conference was canceled, but he kept his tourist visa — which proved useful when, in January 2015, he lost his job in Saudi Arabia and was unable to renew his pharmacy license. 

"My manager in Saudi Arabia was an Assad supporter from Latakia," Rabe said, referring to the hometown of the embattled Syrian president at the center of the war. "And he knew my history — I left Syria in 2011 after participating in a demonstration against the regime, and I continued to protest in front of the Syrian consulate in Jeddah" in Saudi Arabia.

With few options, then, Rabe said he left his family in Saudi Arabia and came to the US using his tourist visa.

"I didn't have any place else to go," Rabe said. "I came here in February [2015], and my only choice was to apply or asylum and try to get my wife and kids here."

In November, President Barack Obama committed to taking in 10,000 refugees from Syria over the course of 2016. It was five times more than the US has permitted in the five years since the war broke out, creating the biggest refugee crisis the world has seen since World War II.

Rabe moved to Washington, D.C. As of this article's publishing, he was still waiting for his and his family's asylum claims to be processed.

He keeps in touch with his family and friends via Whatsapp, and Skype, and Facebook. His Facebook page offers a glimpse into his life before the war — photos of him and his brothers at soccer games, his trips to Sydney and Cape Town, his boys playing with iPads.

Now he uses it to post videos of the war's atrocities and photos of his sons draped in the revolution's flag. 

He is under no illusion that his family will ever be reunited in Aleppo. The war will rage on, he believes, as long as Assad remains in power. 

"I can’t see an end to this war, and no one is helping to solve the root of the problem, which is Assad," Rabe said. "Assad is the head of the snake."

The embattled president recently said in an interview that he didn't think it would be difficult to form a coalition government with members of the opposition, and that he would call for new elections if that is what the Syrian people wanted. 

Rabe laughed at the notion, saying that he had never voted because there is no use in it.

"I don’t know what voting is. I don’t know what freedom is," he said.

Then, he began to cry.

"Since moving to the US, I've met many Americans who ask me what it was like growing up under that dictatorship. They then say they 'can't imagine' what it must have been like, that they were born free and will die free."

"I've never experienced that," he said, with a sad smile. "I will never experience that."

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Tucked in the hills overlooking the Hudson River in upstate New York is The United States Military Academy at West Point.

Founded in 1802, West Point is the oldest of the five service academies and has produced some of the Army's top-tier, such as General George S. Patton and 34th President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Cadets at West Point receive a full academic scholarship in exchange for a five-year commitment to serve as active duty soldiers in the Army.

Upon graduation cadets receive the gold bar of a Second Lieutenant.

From academics to athletics to extracurriculars, one day at West Point could look like an entire month on anyone else's calendar.

Cadets need to keep fit, and can be seen jogging around the campus at all hours of the day, even at 7 a.m.

Statues of historic U.S. leaders remind them of the standards they must live up to. A statue of George Washington sits in front of the hall, bearing his name.

There's also a statue of President Eisenhower, who attended West Point from 1911 to 1915.

US federal prosecutors announced on March 23 that authorities had uncovered a 400-yard tunnel between Mexicali, Mexico, and Calexico, California, and 1,350 pounds of marijuana traveling through it.

Just four days later, US border agents in Arizona discovered another tunnel, an incomplete one stretching only 80 feet, reaching into Nogales.

Finding two tunnels under the US-Mexico border in such a short period of time wasn’t just dumb luck.

“Drug traffickers love using tunnels,” journalist Ioan Grillo told Business Insider. “The Mexico-US border is like a block of cheese with holes in it, with tunnels across it.”

“US-Mexico border is literally riddled with tunnels,” Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration and author of "Deal," told Business Insider. “They have to move those drugs across the border and probably the most secure method is through the use of tunnels.”

Traffickers have dug tunnels all along the 2,000-mile frontier between the US and Mexico, and the hard-to-detect nature of those passages, and the highly lucrative cargos that pass through them, ensure that there will always be more to find.

SEE ALSO: Mexico's defense chief: 'We have committed errors' in the war on drugs

“Many, many years ago, they were very unsophisticated. They weren't very long. They were relatively short,” Vigil said. The first so-called narco tunnel was built in 1989, by the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

Source: The New Yorker

"You look at some tunnels which are very, very basic, and I've been to look at some of these from the US side," Grillo said. "And you see that they're quite basic, you know, shovel, get in there, and kind of dig through under the border quite basically."

Over the past 25 years, authorities have found 181 narco tunnels under the US-Mexican border, according to The New Yorker. Most of those have been short, narrow passages, or "gopher holes."

Source: The New Yorker

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace pushed President Barack Obama to address why some Americans feel he is unserious about confronting terrorist threats.

In a rare interview on "Fox News Sunday," Wallace pushed Obama over his comments that more Americans die in bathtub accidents every year than by terrorist threats.

"Bathtub manufacturers aren’t trying to kill us, and they’re not trying to up the body count. I think it’s fair to say that some of the sharpest criticism of you, from both sides during your presidency, has been the way that you’ve responded, personally, not necessarily in policy, to terror attacks," Wallace said.

"And some people wonder — I think the concern is, do you worry about terrorism and feel the threat of terrorism the way they do?"

Obama countered, saying that keeping Americans safe is his "number one priority," and pointing out that his administration has worked extensively to kill and capture terrorists. 

"There isn’t a president who’s taken more terrorists off the field than me, over the last seven-and-a-half years," Obama said.

Obama continued: "I’m the guy who calls the families, or meets with them, or hugs them, or tries to comfort a mom, or a dad, or a husband, or a kid, after a terrorist attack. So let’s be very clear about how much I prioritize this: This is my number one job. And we have been doing it effectively."

When Wallace rephrased the question, Obama said that in the wake of some terrorist attacks, he attempts to keep Americans calm.

"I think part of it is that, in the wake of terrorist attacks, it has been my view consistently — that the job of the terrorists, in their minds, is to induce panic, induce fear, get societies to change who they are," Obama said.

"And what I’ve tried to communicate is, 'You can’t change us. You can kill some of us, but we will hunt you down, and we will get you.'"

Though Obama's approval ratings recently reached their highest point in years, polls show many Americans feel the president has not effectively curbed terrorist threats. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey conducted at the end of last year found just 34% of Americans approved of how the president has handled ISIS and the conflict in Iraq and Syria.

SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton and her campaign are taking some of their biggest swings yet at Bernie Sanders

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Documents from global law firm Mossack Fonseca leaked to journalists have linked the firm to two alleged money launderers and drug traffickers tied to notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

The two people in question — Marllory Chacón Rossell and Jorge Milton Cifuentes— have been linked to illegal activities led by Guzmán, who escaped from a Mexican prison but was recaptured in January.

Business Insider has not seen the leaked documents at issue, which were part ofa massive trove of financial recordsrevealing the offshore holdings of public officials, businesspeople, and other celebrities.

Chacón, according to Univision, was accused of being the most active money launderer in Guatemala and of leading a cell of Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel.

The documents have revealed the involvement of Chacón in an offshore company set up by the law firm.

From late 2009 to 2010, Chacón was the president of a company called Broadway Commerce Inc., which was created by Mossack Fonseca. Over that same period, she laundered $4 million in drug proceeds in Central America, according to US authorities.

While allegations of her criminal activities were not public knowledge at the time, Univision notes that "a simple investigation" would have led the law firm to the questionable histories of two of her business partners. One of those partners confessed to drug trafficking and another was investigated for alleged financial misdeeds, according to Univision.

Chacón was later accused of illegal activities by US authorities. A grand jury in Florida filed an indictment accusing her of trafficking in August 2011, according to Univision. The following year the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) put her on its "black list" of suspected narcotraffickers.

She was "one of the most prolific narcotics traffickers in Central America,"according to a Treasury statement cited by the BBC.

Chacón turned herself in to US authorities in September 2014 and pleaded guilty to drug-trafficking charges in December that year, according to InSight Crime.

She was sentenced in May 2015, reportedly receiving leniency for cooperating with authorities, according to McClatchy.

In addition to Chacón, Jorge Milton Cifuentes, a Colombian trafficker with extensive ties to Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel, also had dealings with the law firm, according to Mexican news site Aristegui Noticias and Mexico City-based magazine Proceso, both of which saw the leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca.

In 2007, Mossack Fonseca created a company that it later dissolved after OFAC connected it with Cifuentes, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

Cifuentes, who was charged in the US, was the head of a Colombian family with deep ties to drug trafficking in that country. According to a US indictment, between 2003 and 2008 Guzmán and the Cifuentes family made agreements to produce, transport, and distribute cocaine.

Between 2008 and 2011, Cifuentes "most likely has obtained and imported over 31,000 kilograms [68,343 pounds] of cocaine to the United States, and is purportedly the primary source of ... cocaine for the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico,"according to the US State Department.

SEE ALSO: Mexican official says that one of Mexico's most powerful cartels is expanding into territory just across the US border

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A rise in global uncertainty and unabated conflicts around the world has caused global military spending to rise for the first time in years.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the total combined global military spending increased by 1% in 2015.

This is the first time that global spending has risen since 2011, and it is largely driven by a rise in conflicts and tensions in eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. 

Iraq, which is embroiled in a multi-year war against ISIS, has increased its military spending the most of any nation that SIPRI has reliable information for.

Between 2006 and 2015, Iraq increased its spending by 536%. This far outpaced Gambia, which was the country with the second highest recorded increase in military spending at 380% for the same time period.

Major global powers also increased their defense spending. China, which is the world's second largest military spender, is believed to have increased its spending by 132% from 2006 to 2015. And in 2015 alone Beijing increased spending by 7.4%, although SIPRI noted that overall defense spending in China is weakening as the country's economy begins to drag. 

This pattern was mirrored in oil dependent countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, too. Both nations increased their defense spending, with a 7.5% rise in Russia and an undetermined increase in Saudi Arabia, although both nations are likely to cut spending in 2016 due to the falling price of oil. 

And SIPRI notes that in many areas of the world where spending fell or remained stagnant, defense spending will likely rise in the coming years. Western and Central Europe, which have had falling defense budgets, are likely to increase their spending in the coming years to both meet NATO requirements and in order to maintain a stronger front against a revanchist Russia. 

Despite this, the US's defense budget is still falling. However, the US spending is still 36% of the entire global defense spending. The second highest spender is China, which only comprises 13% of global defense spending.

SEE ALSO: These are the world's largest arms importers

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NOW WATCH: China has been upgrading its military and is now stronger than ever

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has made some of the most contentious foreign-policy statements of this election cycle.

The Texas senator has advocated "carpet bombing" terrorists in the Middle East and has called for the rules of engagement to be loosened — the former is typically considered a potential war crime, and experts say the latter could lead to more civilian casualties.

Behind those policies and more is a recently released list of foreign-policy advisers working on his campaign.

One name near the top was that of an art historian who took an unconventional path to a career in politics.

Victoria Coates has a Ph.D. in art history and previously worked at the Cleveland Museum of Art as a consulting curator. She recently wrote a book, "David's Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art," about famous art that commemorates free societies.

But she always had an interest in politics — she studied the subject in college along with art history — and Coates started blogging for RedState after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Eventually, her work got noticed by the staff of former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Keith Urbahn, a former chief of staff for Rumsfeld, remembers that while Coates was blogging for RedState, she wrote a post about journalist Bob Woodward's book on some of George W. Bush's wartime strategy, "State of Denial."

"I thought it was a compelling piece and we sent it up" to Rumsfeld's speech writer, Urbahn told Business Insider.

Rumsfeld liked what he saw.

"It was immediately clear to me that she had a knack for smart analysis and sharp writing," Rumsfeld said in a statement to Business Insider.

Coates later met Rumsfeld at an event in Philadelphia, and after he left the Bush administration and decided to write a book, he called on her to work for him as a researcher.

It didn't matter that Coates wasn't traditionally trained.

"She is someone who can talk about art history, US Russia policy, and the latest record of the Phillies with ease, humor, and smarts," Rumsfeld said. "She is meticulous, persuasive and forthright, which is a potent combination for anyone trying to weave their way through Washington."

Urbahn echoed this sentiment.

"The foreign policy think tanks … are an echo chamber in Washington," Urbahn said. He explained that decades ago, "there used to be a certain kind of person who sort of went back and forth between business, academia, and Washington."

He suggested that Coates is reminiscent of a bygone era of Washington advisers.

"It's only in the last 50 years that you have this class of bureaucrats here permanently in Washington going back and forth between think tanks and public service," Urbahn said. "That's a new phenomenon."

He continued: "Traditionally we've always had people who had a broad understanding of literature and history and sort of brought that to bear when they were called to government service. That's kind of the staffer and public servant that she harkens back to."

Coates' role on Cruz's team has been met with criticism from some who argue that she lacks the requisite experience.

"We have a really superb team, retired military and foreign policy folks who we've built very carefully over the past few years," Coates told Business Insider of the Cruz campaign. "Folks who want to make me out to be some sort of rogue agent are really doing a disservice to a superb group who's really done wonderful work."

After working for Rumsfeld as a researcher on his book, Coates found positions as a foreign-policy adviser for two Texas Republican politicians who would go on to seek the presidency — former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Cruz. She was a foreign-policy adviser on Perry's failed bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Coates focused on bringing in other foreign-policy advisers for Perry's campaign.

"For the governor we didn't have an existing apparatus in the subject area … so a lot of my job was assembling outside experts to advise him on various topics," Coates said.

Coates started working for Cruz long before he launched his 2016 campaign. They met at a RedState conference in 2009, and she's been advising him on national security since he took office in the Senate in 2013.

Coates started working for Cruz's presidential campaign after he asked her to "come down to DC for a couple of weeks," implying it would be a short commitment.

"He just wanted some help getting set up, and here I am," Coates said.

Influences and philosophy

Coates cites Elliott Abrams, a current fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who worked in the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and John Bolton, a former UN ambassador and current fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, as influences on her foreign policy.

Bolton, whom Cruz has tapped as a potential secretary of state if he were to win the White House, said Coates been able to maneuver DC politics well.

"Being in a campaign environment is no easy task, that's for sure," he told Business Insider. "The proof is in her performance and I think those in the foreign policy world who have dealt with her have nothing but good things to say about her."

Abrams, who is a foreign policy adviser for the Cruz campaign, denounced the implication that Coates isn't experienced enough to advise candidates on foreign policy.

"I think it's mostly snobbery on the part of the DC foreign policy crowd," Abrams told Business Insider. "What's the complaint? That being an art historian doesn't train you in national security matters? So explain to me how going to law school trains you in foreign-policy or national-security matters."

Abrams argued that it would be better if people in government "actually knew something other than the narrowest possible definition of foreign policy."

"She follows foreign policy questions very closely, so if you want to talk to her about Argentina, or Morocco, or Ukraine, she's up to date," Abrams said. "I think it's really odd that people now think that, 'Uh oh, a person with culture? This can't be permitted.'"

Coates might also count Jeane Kirkpatrick among her influences. She's known for asking new Cruz staffers to read Kirkpatrick's 1979 essay, "Dictatorships And Double Standards," which argued that former President Jimmy Carter should have supported dictators who were aligned with US interests, despite the murky human-rights records of autocracies. The essay is known for helping shape Reagan's foreign policy.

"It seems clear that the architects of contemporary American foreign policy have little idea of how to go about encouraging the liberalization of an autocracy," Kirkpatrick wrote.

"In neither Nicaragua nor Iran did they realize that the only likely result of an effort to replace an incumbent autocrat with one of his moderate critics or a 'broad-based coalition' would be to sap the foundations of the existing regime without moving the nation any closer to democracy."

Abrams is known to have a similar philosophy. Journalist Michael Crowley wrote in Slate in 2005 that Democrats "revile" Abrams as "the lead apologist for brutal Central American dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala." Abrams also reportedly declared Carter "hopeless" about confronting Soviet expansion.

Some of the themes of Kirkpatrick's essay, which focused on Iran, Nicaragua, and the Soviets, are playing out today in the Middle East.

The US is now facing the same questions of whether the country should intervene in conflicts — like the civil war in Syria — to depose dictators, risking the rise of Islamist militant groups and further destabilization, or let the conflicts play out on their own.

In two blog posts for RedState, Coates acknowledged the dangers in backing Syria's rebel factions, some of which had been infiltrated by extremists, but worried that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Syria could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction if the chaos in the country continued.

"Recent reports of Al Qaeda infiltration of the Syrian resistance have strengthened our national reluctance to intervene in the slow-motion train wreck that is the Syrian civil war," Coates wrote in 2012, shortly after the Syrian civil war started.

"After all, we hardly want to be in the position of arming our enemies (that didn't go so well with the Mexican drug cartels), and should they be successful an Al Qaeda-backed regime is one of the few things that would be worse than the Assad thugocracy that has oppressed Syria for so long."

The Obama administration has called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have massacred thousands of civilians in the country, to step down. But the administration has stopped short of intervening to topple the regime.

Coates implied the US should take military action to oust Assad, comparing the crisis in Syria to the 2011 uprising in Libya. There, rebels won out over ruthless leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi after the US and other NATO countries intervened.

"In dealing with Libya and Syria, consistency need not be the hobgoblin of little minds but can rather be the hallmark of a consistent and coordinated foreign policy," Coates wrote in 2012. "There are equivalencies to be drawn between the two crises, and once these are recognized we should take equivalent action. It is not a decision to be taken lightly, but we would not be alone and the cause is just."

Coates doesn't consider herself a neoconservative or an isolationist, refusing both labels.

"There seems to be this binary choice that one is either an all-in hawk or an all-in dove, and the minute you say maybe you're not going to embrace a single doctrine but rather approach individual situations on their own merit, it's enormously confusing to people in the establishment," Coates said.

She continued: "As I look at it, you think about do I want another Obama term, do I want the third term of George W. Bush? I'm not sure I want either of those things right now."

Urbahn referred to Coates as a "Reagan conservative," explaining that "in some cases, that looks a little more like neoconservative, in some cases that looks more isolationist.

"It's a realism about when to use military force, to realize when you need to use it, but to be sparing most of the time when you do it," he said. "That is her world view, that was Reagan's, and it's a world view that the Republican party went away from for a period of about 25 years."

He added: "She's trying to bring back, to an extent, what Rumsfeld and [former Vice President Dick] Cheney exhibited in office."

Cruz's foreign policy

During this election cycle, Cruz has become known for his calls to "carpet bomb" ISIS positions in the Middle East as part of his strategy to defeat the terrorist group (which is also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh).

Military experts have called this strategy into question, saying it shows a fundamental lack of understanding about warfare and the nature of how ISIS operates.

Coates suggested that Cruz's statements about carpet bombing were more rhetoric than substance.

"I think he is just using a very strong turn of phrase to signal … the kind of approach that he would take, which would be dramatically different" from Obama, she said.

Coates said that Cruz is trying to convey that the US needs "a really serious, concerted bombing campaign to make a difference here."

Bolton echoed this message, saying the US needs to have a "strong presence" in the world and protect its interests.

"It's unquestionably the case that we have to have a very forward defense of America, and to me that means what the president himself says the objective is," Bolton said. "His buzzword is to 'degrade and ultimately destroy' ISIS. I would delete the word 'ultimately.' I think the sooner we do it the better because ISIS is metastasizing."

One criticism of Cruz's proposed policies has been that they could lead to more civilian casualties.

"Obviously it's something one wants to avoid whenever possible," Coates said of civilian casualties. "But the alternative to that, that that is going to be your ultimate directive, is to not making any progress against the enemy."

Coates said that Cruz would do "pretty much the opposite of everything Obama is doing" in terms of fighting ISIS. She also set Cruz apart from his main Republican rival, Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the party's presidential nomination.

"You can look at a situation like Israel," Coates said. "You had Trump coming out and saying he wanted to remain neutral. Sen. Cruz believes very strongly that the obvious national security interest of the US is on the side of the Israelis … and I don't think we do any good by trying to tone that relationship down."

SEE ALSO: 'Total catastrophe': Experts say Donald Trump's position on nuclear proliferation would be a disaster

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Tangshan (China) - Hundreds of laid-off steelworkers gathered outside their former employer's office this week to protest losing their jobs, victims of a global glut.

But the smokestacks nearby were not British. They are in China — the very place blamed by European politicians for the plunging prices and excess capacity threatening the industry worldwide.

As recriminations fly over the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks, the pain of redundancy is felt as keenly in the northern Chinese steel hub of Tangshan as it is in Wales.

And for China, turmoil in the steel and coal industries could have disastrous consequences for the social cohesion that has been needed to support and advance one of the world's largest economies.

"I have a daughter," said one man, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. "I’m the main breadwinner in the family. What can I do in the future?" 

He was among 4,000 people who workers say face unemployment after state-owned steel firm Guofeng halted work at one of its hulking production zones last week, citing "uncontrollable factors."

They are just the tip of the iceberg; major Chinese steel producers lost more than 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) last year, an industry association said Thursday, and Beijing has said it will shed 500,000 steel jobs in coming years.

The figure is more than the 328,000 people directly employed by steel companies in the entire EU.

Reuters has reported that the government intends to lay off 5 million to 6 million state workers over the next two to three years, "as part of efforts to curb industrial overcapacity and pollution."

Chinese leadership has promised that the 1.8 million workers who will be fired from government-run coal and steel firms (others will be laid off from private companies) will be retrained and rehired.

But that retraining may be for naught if the economies in China's industrial regions — the country's north and northeast in particular — don't improve.

China's economy grew 6.9% in 2015, the lowest rate in 25 years. Local economies in parts of Heilongjiang, in far northeast China, fell 10% in 2014. Coal prices in those areas have fallen by half since 2011, and the Chinese pullback from coal and heavy industry has left many workers without work and with few prospects.

"The opportunities for middle-aged or even elderly former coal miners and steel plant workers are more limited in a province where the economy really has slowed to virtually zero," Geoffrey Crothall of the nonprofit China Labor Bulletin, which has tracked a significant spike in labor strikes in China over the past six months, told the Associated Press.

Building boom

For European and American politicians, China is the bete noire of the global steel industry.

How can their higher-wage economies compete with low-paying plants that churn out vast quantities of the metal, they ask, accusing Beijing of dumping — selling a product in foreign markets at below-cost price.

China's steel industry is huge. National production grew sevenfold from 2000 to 2014 as domestic demand boomed from massive infrastructure investment in swelling cities, and as the government ploughed billions of dollars into heavy industry to counter the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis.

At the same time plants built by private investors expecting ever rising prices also went into operation.

By 2014, China was producing some 820 million metric tons a year — about half the world total and seven times more than the second biggest producer, Japan.

But domestic demand peaked the same year as China's building boom began to wane and growth slowed, analysts say, causing commodity prices to plummet.

World export prices for steel have fallen more than 70% from an all-time high of $1,113 a metric ton in July 2008 to just $321 last month, according to the website steelbenchmarker.com. 

China can now produce about 1.2 billion metric tons of steel each year, but local demand is around 700 million metric tons, and companies have looked to foreign markets to make up the deficit, primarily in Asia.

"In 2015 China exported about 100 million tonnes of steel products," Cai Rang, chairman of the China Iron and Steel Research Institute Group told state media last month — around twice as much as two years previously.

The exports were "a relief for domestic capacity but a shock to the international market," he acknowledged.

That shockwave played out when India's Tata Steel announced last month it was selling the loss-making Port Talbot steelworks, with the possible loss of 4,000 jobs and many more indirectly, triggering doom-laden warnings of worse to come for Europe's steel industry.

However, World Steel Association figures show that a tiny proportion — about six million metric tons in 2014 — of Chinese exports go to the EU, where some 100 million metric tons are traded between the bloc's countries.

But "because China's production is so large, even its small proportion of exports can influence countries abroad," said Kevin Bai, a market analyst at CRU Group.

'Love our country'

Many Chinese heavy-industry giants, including in steel, are lumbering state-owned firms, riddled with inefficiencies but protected by authorities fearful of unrest. 

Beijing this year vowed to eliminate 100 million to 150 million metric tons of capacity by 2020. It said the reforms would cost half a million jobs, but did not give a timeframe. 

Ratings agency Fitch said this week that the plan "faces immense social and financial challenges."

Protests have already hit China's coal sector, which faces similar issues of overcapacity, inefficiency, and an excess of supply over demand, and where the government says it will cut some 1.3 million jobs.

Industrial unrest is anathema to China's ruling Communist Party, and it clamped down on a protest in early March that brought the city of Shuangyashan to a standstill, where miners said dozens had been detained.

Thousands of miners had taken to Shuangyashan's streets in a "a direct challenge to Beijing's assertion that it is proceeding smoothly with a sweeping plan to cut capacity in industrial sectors and make the economy more efficient,"according to the Associated Press.

"I don't even have anywhere left to borrow money from," Li Jiuxian, a 51-year-old miner in Jundeshan, in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, told the AP outside a dingy mahjong parlor. "There isn't going to be change."

Steelworkers in Tangshan fear a similar crackdown.

"Some people have been arrested," a 41-year-old Guofeng worker surnamed Shao told AFP. "The police have warned me, and said I'll be detained if I make a fuss."

Previous bouts of unemployment in China have been cushioned by a large agricultural sector to which migrant workers can return, but breakneck urbanisation has swallowed swathes of farmland over the last decade, and Shao said local workers "have no chance of going back to farming."

Guofeng refused to comment when contacted by AFP.

"In the factory we are told to love our country," said Shao. "But to see my child eating one meal a day while still growing, because food prices are so high — that's not acceptable." 

 (Tom Hancock of AFP contributed to this story.)

SEE ALSO: The dirty reason China can't always tell North Korea what to do

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Some analysts regard Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate as a greater long-term threat to Western security than ISIS.

And the US might be missing out on a golden opportunity to move against the group.

Over the past month, residents of the Idlib province have taken to the streets to protest both the authoritarian regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Jabhat al-Nusra. The latter is also known as the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's branch in Syria.

A partial ceasefire that includes regime forces, Syria's allies, and rebel groups (not including ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra) led to a break in violence that allowed civilians more leeway than they previously enjoyed.

The protests could provide a crucial opening for the US to support the moderate Syrian opposition and push for a political solution that includes Assad leaving power, but experts doubt that the US will make use of it.

Ahmad al-Soud, the commander and founder of the US-backed Free Syrian Army group known as Division 13, told Business Insider that residents of Maaret al-Nouman in Idlib wanted to send a message with these protests that they're opposed to Assad as well as terrorist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh).

"Protesters wanted to show the world that they are against Al Qaeda's ideology, that they are … moderates and that as Syrians we reject Al Qaeda's ideology and support the FSA because they want a simple, secular state," al-Soud told Business Insider last month through a translator.

"[Protests were] all across Syria. It was all revolution flags," he said.

And since Jabhat al-Nusra is trying to lay deep roots in Syrian society by gaining popular support before cracking down on the population, it has been reluctant to treat protesters too harshly.

Jabhat al-Nusra has been gaining support in Syria partly by helping moderate opposition groups fight the Assad regime, which these groups consider their main enemy even as the US and other Western powers focus on beating back ISIS.

But there's a big problem with Jabhat al-Nusra's strategy: It's inherently dependent on continued fighting in Syria. Without a civil war, and without Assad in power, Jabhat al-Nusra would have a harder time gaining support and aligning with moderates.

"What's been fascinating from the cessation of hostilities is that it's revealed for the first time the biggest weakness in Al Qaeda's strategy in Syria. And that is that it is inherently dependent on a continued level of intense conflict in Syria," Charles Lister, a fellow at the Middle East Institute who has written a book on the insurgency in Syria, said at an event in Washington, DC, last Friday.

He continued:

That intense conflict over the last five years has provided Al Qaeda with an opportunity to demonstrate its worth on the battlefield to the Syrian opposition and to the civilian support base. Without an intense level of conflict, the people came back to the streets and started chanting things, which fundamentally object or fundamentally contradict Al Qaeda's stated objectives in Syria.

Al Qaeda opposes any flag other than its own, but in Maaret al-Nouman, protesters were carrying the flag of the revolution.

"Everywhere people were protesting, they had the revolution flag," al-Soud said of the early days of the protests. "The revolution flag is something Nusra is against. They say any flag but 'there is no God but God' and their Al Qaeda trademark below it, that's the only flag you're allowed to fly in Idlib, according to Nusra."

This brought tensions between Jabhat al-Nusra and the moderate opposition to a head — the group reportedly made some illicit arrests and attacked FSA headquarters — but their attempt at a crackdown ended up backfiring.

The crackdown "has now sparked 20 days in a row of protests by women, children, the elderly, and young men against Jabhat al-Nusra's control of Idlib," Lister said. "This is something we've never seen before and it's a huge opportunity to undermine Al Qaeda's long-term future in Syria. Unfortunately, as of now, there's very little that we as the West have done to take advantage of this."

'Our options down the road are going to be significantly less'

The West has a small window to act, according to experts.

"This is the first time this opportunity has arisen and it won't be there for very long," Lister said. "Al Qaeda has taken a step back and it has refused to subjugate these protests so far. If it does, and it will one day choose to do so, those protests will end like that and they'll probably never come back again."

Genevieve Casagrande, a Syria research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said that as the Syrian conflict drags on, extremist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra will eventually to weaken the moderate opposition.

"The US is at large risk of losing potential partners in Syria," Casagrande told Business Insider. "Jabhat al-Nusra is eating away at these moderate groups, and they will one day succeed. It's only going to fuel further radicalization and the spectrum is going to start inching farther and farther toward Salaafi-jihadi groups."

The best way to achieve a solution to Syria's civil war is through these moderate opposition groups, but if Jabhat al-Nusra moves to target these groups and remove them from the battlefield, "our options down the road are going to be significantly less," Casagrande explained.

And as long as Assad stays in power, moderate rebels will be spread too thin to make a significant dent in the extremist groups on the Syrian battlefield.

"Right now the opposition is most threatened by the Assad regime, and at the end of the day, the opposition seeks to bring about the overthrow of the Assad regime, and so it is very difficult for any opposition group to justify attacking any group like Jabhat al-Nusra," Casagrande said.

Jabhat al-Nusra and its Islamist allies, however, in many cases outgun moderate opposition groups and could attack both them and the Assad regime.

"Jabhat al-Nusra is a stronger opposition group than any of these FSA-affiliated factions currently," Casagrande said.

"And if the US isn't willing to put incentives on the table" for these groups to fight Jabhat al-Nusra, she continued, "It's almost impossible to ask a group to go ahead and turn on Jabhat al-Nusra, especially with Jabhat al-Nusra's large number of allies in Syria, which include Ahrar al-Sham, which is one of the largest and most influential groups on the battlefield."

Al-Soud confirmed this line of thinking. He said the Syrian people "reluctantly allowed Nusra into Syria because our main enemy is the regime."

"After the regime is gone, we will continue to fight anybody who tries to implement their will against the people," he said.

While civilians in Maaret al-Nouman continue to resist jihadist influence, it will "become increasingly difficult" for groups like Division 13 to keep Jabhat al-Nusra out of its territory, according to Casagrande.

Casagrande said that in order to turn the tide against the extremists, the US would have to take a firmer stance on overthrowing the Assad regime. It would also have to provide more support to the moderate rebels fighting the regime.

"If the US isn't willing to match what Jabhat al-Nusra is currently bringing to the opposition" in terms of fighting the Assad regime, "I don't see any other incentive that would be worth it or acceptable," Casagrande said.

There has been some discussion within the US government about how to support groups like Division 13 in undermining Jabhat al-Nusra, Lister said.

"Certainly this is an issue seen as urgent within administration circles," Lister told Business Insider. "My skepticism, though, lies in the fact that we’ve seen people talking about these things before and nothing very much ever happens."

He said that if the US doesn't take advantage of the opportunity that's come up with the protests and the ceasefire in the short-term, the government should start looking toward a long-term political solution to the civil war.

"I fear for the future unless we continue to take advantage of the fact that the moderate opposition still is there," Lister said. 

"If we don't take advantage of that, those people will become so disillusioned with Syria and the future, but also ... with the international community," he continued. "We'll see more displacement, more refugees. They'll choose to leave the country because they've given up hope, and who will fill that vacuum? Groups like Nusra."

SEE ALSO: Al Qaeda is revealing its long game in Syria

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Donald Trump called the CIA director's stance against waterboarding "ridiculous" on Monday, arguing that the US should allow it because terrorists in the Middle East are chopping off heads.

CIA Director John Brennan said in a Sunday interview with NBC News that his agency would ignore waterboarding orders from any future president.

"I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan said.

Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, told "Fox & Friends" on Monday that Brennan's comments were "ridiculous."

The real-estate mogul has repeatedly advocated for using waterboarding, an interrogation technique that the US used until President Barack Obama banned the practice in 2009, and is widely regarded as torture. But Trump argues that the US won't be able to beat terrorist groups like ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh) without using "strong tactics."

"They chop off heads and they drown people in cages with 50 in a cage and big, steel, heavy cages. Drop them right into the water, drown people, and we can't waterboard and we can't do anything and we're playing on different fields," Trump said Monday.

He continued:

We have a huge problem with ISIS, which we can't beat, and the reason we can't beat them is we won't use strong tactics, whether it's this or other things. So I think his comments are ridiculous.

Trump then imagined what ISIS terrorists would think about the US refusing to use waterboarding against them.

"Can you imagine these ISIS people sitting around eating and talking about this country won't allow waterboarding and they just chopped off 50 heads?" he said.

Watch Trump's waterboarding comments below:

SEE ALSO: Donald Trump taunts Ted Cruz in Instagram post invoking 9/11

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NOW WATCH: CIA DIRECTOR: I would refuse to enact Trump and Cruz’s proposal to bring back waterboarding

President Obama sat down with Fox News for his first interview with them in two years. Chris Wallace grilled him about his responses to terrorism and his worst mistake under his administration.

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CIA director John O. Brennan responded to calls from Cruz and Trump to bring back waterboarding.

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Nearly 100 million cats are kept as pets in the US.

My temperamental calico cat, Harlem, is one of them.

And while she's the only one I have, she embodies many of the most common, and most perplexing, cat stereotypes.

So why does she — and the tens of millions of cats like her — act that way?

In honor of National Pet Day, here are some explanations, backed by cat researchers, for why our feline friends behave the way they do.

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1. Why do cats sometimes suddenly bite or scratch the person who is petting them?

According to cat expert Arden Moore," your cat is trying to say, "kindly stop petting me or I will bite harder."

Dr. John Bradshaw says your cue to stop petting a cat may include tail-lashing, flattened ears, dilated pupils, and tense muscles.

Bradshaw also notes, that most cats like to be stroked on their heads and fewer than one in 10 cats like to be stroked on their belly or around their tail.

Source: Cat Sense, The Cat Behavior Answer Book, Scientific American Special Editions, September 2015

2. Why do cats intentionally knock objects off tables?

While some cats are clumsy, most cats intentionally knock items off of surfaces as a ploy to get their owner's attention.

"Sometimes they seem to do it for their own entertainment or because they have learned that this is a game that their owner seems to enjoy," Bradshaw explained.

Source: Scientific American Special Editions, September 2015

3. Why do cats look you straight in the eye and then slow blink?

Even though cats are considered masters at concealing their thoughts and emotions, they do try to show affection by slow blinking. Researchers call these slow blinks "kitty kisses."

Next time you notice that a cat is giving you this feline eyewink, try and slow blink back. More often than not, a cat will continue to slow blink with you.

 Source: Cat Sense, The Cat Behavior Answer Book, Petful