Many conservatives and Republicans are greeting the looming sequestration spending cuts with a collective yawn. "The much-ballyhooed 'sequester' is a cut of $85 billion in a nearly $4 trillion federal budget. Good, let's do it," writes one contributor to National Review Online's symposium on sequestration.

It's true that sequestration is a tiny cut to total federal spending. But it is also true that sequestration is a major cut to defense spending.

According to the House Armed Services Committee, the 2011 Budget Control Act (the law that imposed both spending caps and sequestration) will force the Marine Corps to shrink by 25 percent--from 202,000 Marines to 145,000. What's more, "by the end of calendar year 2013, less than half of our ground units will be trained to the minimum readiness level required for deployment," Marine Corps commandant James Amos testified to Congress this month.

The Army will lose 143,000 soldiers, dropping from an end strength of 569,000 troops to 426,000. According to Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno's congressional testimony, 78 percent of Army units will "significantly curtail training" because of sequestration. The Navy will delay the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. And 800,000 civilian employees working for the Department of Defense will face a 20 percent pay cut. These are just a few of the ways the military will cope with sequestration.

US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong.

Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent.

"I'm not embarrassed about the fact that I changed sides," said Robert Feitel, a Washington-based attorney who used to pursue traffickers and money launderers at the Department of Justice. "And I'm not shy about saying that no one knows better how a prosecutor thinks. That's what people get when they come to me. There are lots of hidden things to know about these cases."

Where is this rotten culture? Oh look, it's in Westminster, at the BBC and in the Catholic church

'Sexual intercourse began/ In nineteen sixty-three," wrote Philip Larkin. And to judge by recent coverage, sexual abuse began last year, in 2012. Well, it had been going before, apparently, but no one knew too much about it. Except those actually being abused, who were on the whole young, female, damaged, unreliable and not "credible" witnesses. This is what anyone who has watched the media coverage of the past few months might ascertain. From Savile to the Socialist Workers Party, from the resignation of Cardinals to the allegations about Lord Rennard. No one knew much at the time at all! Raping a child is not the same as putting your hand on the leg of an adult woman, but what is this but a spectrum of systematic abuse being uncovered?

And what is our response? Still, the victims are mute, dispensable, irrelevant. Speaking out has not empowered them as it should: they remain a lumpen mass of unfortunate people to whom unfortunate things were done. The focus remains on the powerful as they scurry between media outlets changing their stories.

Foreign policy observers have long known that Hollywood reflects and promotes U.S. policies (in turn, is determined by Israel and its supporters). This fact was made public when Michel Obama announced an Oscar win for "Argo" - a highly propagandist, anti-Iran film. Amidst the glitter and excitement, Hollywood and White House reveal their pact and send out their message in time for the upcoming talks surrounding Iran's nuclear program due to be held tomorrow - February 26th.

Hollywood has a long history of promoting US policies. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information (CPI) enlisted the aid of America's film industry to make training films and features supporting the 'cause'. George Creel, Chairman of the CPI believed that the movies had a role in "carrying the gospel of Americanism to every corner of the globe."

The pact grew stronger during World War II, when, as historian Thomas Doherty writes, "[T]he liaison between Hollywood and Washington was a distinctly American and democratic arrangement, a mesh of public policy and private initiative, state need and business enterprise." Hollywood's contribution was to provide propaganda. After the war, Washington reciprocated by using subsidies, special provisions in the Marshall Plan, and general clout to pry open resistant European film markets[i].

Hollywood has often borrowed its story ideas from the U.S. foreign policy agenda, at times reinforcing them. One of the film industry's blockbuster film loans in the last two decades has been modern international terrorism. Hollywood rarely touched the topic of terrorism in the late 1960s and 1970s when the phenomenon was not high on the U.S. foreign policy agenda, in news headlines or in the American public consciousness. In the 1980s, in the footsteps of the Reagan administration's policies, the commercial film industry brought 'terrorist' villains to the big screen (following the US Embassy takeover in Tehran - topic of "Argo") making terrorism a blockbuster film product in the 1990s.

The Government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds - with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone attacks.

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for The Independent has established that since 2010, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has revoked the passports of 16 individuals, many of whom are alleged to have had links to militant or terrorist groups.

Critics of the programme warn that it allows ministers to "wash their hands" of British nationals suspected of terrorism who could be subject to torture and illegal detention abroad.

They add that it also allows those stripped of their citizenship to be killed or "rendered" without any onus on the British Government to intervene.

At least five of those deprived of their UK nationality by the Coalition were born in Britain, and one man had lived in the country for almost 50 years. Those affected have their passports cancelled, and lose their right to enter the UK - making it very difficult to appeal against the Home Secretary's decision. Last night the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader Simon Hughes said he was writing to Ms May to call for an urgent review into how the law was being implemented.

Secretary of State John Kerry offered a defense of freedom of speech, religion and thought in the United States on Tuesday telling German students that in America "you have a right to be stupid if you want to be."

"As a country, as a society, we live and breathe the idea of religious freedom and religious tolerance, whatever the religion, and political freedom and political tolerance, whatever the point of view," Kerry told the students in Berlin, the second stop on his inaugural trip as secretary of state.

"People have sometimes wondered about why our Supreme Court allows one group or another to march in a parade even though it's the most provocative thing in the world and they carry signs that are an insult to one group or another," he added.

"The reason is, that's freedom, freedom of speech. In America you have a right to be stupid - if you want to be," he said, prompting laughter. "And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be.

"And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that. Now, I think that's a virtue. I think that's something worth fighting for," he added. "The important thing is to have the tolerance to say, you know, you can have a different point of view."

The Senate confirmed Chuck Hagel as defense secretary on Tuesday after he survived a bruising struggle with Republicans. At the same time, President Obama's nominee to be Treasury secretary moved closer to approval with bipartisan support, suggesting that the Republican blockade against the administration's second-term nominees was beginning to ease.

After escaping a filibuster from members of his own party, Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, prevailed in a 58-to-41 vote - the smallest margin for a defense secretary since the position was created in 1947, according to Senate records. Fifty-two Democrats, two independents and four Republicans backed Mr. Hagel, and 41 Republicans opposed him.

The narrow victory raised questions about whether Mr. Hagel would arrive at the Pentagon as a diminished leader as it faces deep budget cuts that are set to take effect on Friday.

Household's face losing up to $109 million from their family savings as the Federal government moves to seize cash from inactive bank accounts.

After legislation was rushed through parliament, the government will from May 31 be able to transfer all money from accounts that have not been used for three years into their own revenues.

This will mean that accounts with anything from $1 upwards that have not had any deposit or withdrawals in the past three years will be transferred to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

The law is forecast to raise $109 million this year as inactive accounts for three years or more are raided by Treasury.

The money can be reclaimed from ASIC but the process can take months.

Experts warn this will have a negative impact on people that may have put money away in a special account for their children's education or decided to put an inheritance in a separate account for a rainy day.

The previous legislation allowed for bank accounts to remain inactive for up to 7 years before the money was transferred to ASIC.

Iraq's jailers learned their abuses from the allied occupiers. And under today's sectarian regime, women are under assault

A decade on from the US-led invasion of Iraq, the destruction caused by foreign occupation and the subsequent regime has had a massive impact on Iraqis' daily life - the most disturbing example of which is violence against women. At the same time, the sectarian regime's policy on religious garb is forcing women to retire their hard-earned rights across the spectrum: employment, freedom of movement, civil marriage, welfare benefits, and the right to education and health services.

Instead, they are seeking survival and protection for themselves and their families. But for many, the violence they face comes from the very institution that should guarantee their safety: the government. Iraqi regime officials often echo the same denials of the US-UK occupation authorities, saying that there are few or no women detainees. An increasing number of international and Iraqi human rights organizations reports otherwise.

The plight of women detainees was the starting point for the mass protests that have spread through many Iraqi provinces since 25 December 2012. Their treatment by the security forces has been a bleeding wound - and one shrouded in secrecy, especially since 2003. Women have been routinely detained as hostages - a tactic to force their male loved ones to surrender to security forces, or confess to crimes ascribed to them. Banners and placards carried by hundreds of thousands of protesters portray images of women behind bars pleading for justice.

According to Mohamed al-Dainy, an Iraqi MP, there was 1,053 cases of documented rape (pdf) cases by the occupying troops and Iraqi forces between 2003 and 2007. Lawyers acting on behalf of former detainees say that UK detention practices between 2003 and 2008 included unlawful killings, beatings, hooding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and sexual humiliation, sometimes involving women and children. The abuses were endemic, allege the detainees' lawyers, arising from the "systems, management culture and training" of the British military.

President Barack Obama says the United States could launch an attack on Iran as early as this June, Israeli media reports.

According to a report on Israel's Channel 10 News that has since been picked up by the Times of Israel, Pres. Obama will use an upcoming meeting overseas to discuss a military strike on Iran. Pres. Obama is scheduled to visit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next month, and during the get-together the two leaders will reportedly work out the details for a possible assault.

Pres. Obama will tell Netanyahu that a "window of opportunity" for a military strike on Iran will open in June, Channel 10 claims.

Israel has long-urged the White House to use its military prowess to intervene in Iran's rumored nuclear weapon procurement plan, demands which have by-and-large been rejected by the Obama administration. According to the latest reports, though, the United States might finally be willing to use its might to make a stand against Iran's race for a nuke.

"I have conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu all the time. And I understand and share Prime Minister Netanyahu's insistence that Iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon, because it would threaten us, it would threaten Israel, and it would threaten the world and kick off a nuclear arms race," Pres. Obama said during an interview on the television program 60 Minutes last year, but not before adding that he'll continue to block "noise" from Netanyahu's camp. "Now I feel an obligation, not pressure but obligation, to make sure that we're in close consultation with the Israelis - on these issues. Because it affects them deeply. They're one of our closest allies in the region. And we've got an Iranian regime that has said horrible things that directly threaten Israel's existence," he said.