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

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

Tim Bell's family will get together to mark his second birthday since the Mobile man disappeared in Iraq on April 9, 2004 following an attack on a truck convoy for a Halliburton subsidiary. Bell's mother and children joined a lawsuit against Halliburton in Texas state court charging that Halliburton concealed the dangers of working in Iraq.

Former Supply U.S. Army Sgt. Matt Novak and some of his buddies immediately went looking for their own windfall, and they found one: $200 million packed in 50 boxes of $100 bills. Before they knew it, soldiers were grabbing bundles of bills. The Army offered amnesty to any soldier who returned cash, but Novak says not all of the money found in Iraq was returned.

"You start to think 'it's not so bad here.'" A joke e-mail being circulated among contractors in Iraq.

German industry has come under the scrutiny of UN investigators. As far back as October, UN staffers with the investigation contacted Germany's Foreign Ministry in Berlin and submitted a list containing 50 German companies. According to government sources, that list "also included some very well-known companies."

Setting aside its home base in the Upper Midwest, Detroit has a blue state problem -- and it is about to get worse. Washington and Oregon plan to become the 9th and 10th states to adopt California's tough car emissions rules, forming an increasingly potent market for more fuel-efficient vehicles on the West Coast and in the Northeast.

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

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

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