The defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, recently announced that America hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013 as it did in Iraq last year.  Yet at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere, the United States continues to hold enemy detainees "for the duration of hostilities."  

Indeed, the "ending" of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq appears to have no consequences for the ending of detention. Because the end of a war is traditionally thought to be the moment when a president's war powers begin to ebb, bringing combat to a close in Afghanistan and Iraq should lead to a reduction in executive power - including the legitimate basis for detaining the enemy.

Hosting thousands of US marines near Darwin could see a rise in sexual assaults and drug use as well as a boost to the black economy, a Greens senator has claimed during a fiery parliamentary hearing.

The information was heard during a Senate estimates hearing, which also revealed that more than $12 million has been spent on a suite of reviews and probes into Defence culture, following last year's ''Skype'' scandal at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

That includes $7 million for the review of historical allegations of abuse within Defence being undertaken by law firm DLA Piper, and a further $500,000 for the Kirkham inquiry into Defence's handling of the Skype incident.

The Hyperbole is a Canberra institution. Not because it's the biggest place to shop in Tuggeranong but because it's the lifeblood of the political day.

The movers, shakers and candlestick makers would be totally and utterly lost if they couldn't overstate their case, like all the time. No one would pay them any attention otherwise.

The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks.

In fiction, James Bond drew quite judiciously upon his licence to kill, bumping off just 38 adversaries in a dozen Ian Fleming novels. In each case, the individual received his or her just deserts.

The manner in which parts of the media condemn the various investigations into their conduct highlights how they got into trouble in the first place. In the past, some journalists behaved as if they were above the law. Some appear to expect now a higher threshold of leniency or tolerance compared with everyone else. At the very least, they demand a generous sense of proportion that they do not apply when reporting on politicians or others.

Gillard's government seems to be running out of oil, and petrol, and slowing down much the same way as Rudd's 20 months ago, writes Jack Waterford. Chat with Jack from 12.30pm.

She's trying, with difficulty, to persuade people she can win the next election. But she's still bogged down establishing that she won the last one. And in proving that she was entitled, then or now, to have been in the race at all. A legitimacy problem. An authority problem. And, increasingly, a dignity problem.

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia allegedly used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport "following a request made to us by Interpol" the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

An expert science review panel recommended CSIRO boost support for oceanographer Trevor McDougall's globally significant climate research, just months before Australia's peak science agency dumped the award-winning scientist, documents reveal.

Two internal reports, obtained by The Canberra Times, show CSIRO also rejected the panel's recommendation the agency appoint a science advisory committee to clear up confusion over ''science vision at a higher level'' among executives responsible for running its marine and atmospheric research division.

Occasionally I spend a day wandering from trial to trial in the Downing Centre, Sydney's giant justice factory. It's one way of keeping in touch with certain aspects of the city. A while ago I began to notice small dark men in the dock, always with an interpreter.

These are the crew from the Indonesian boats that carry asylum seekers to our shores, charged with people smuggling and farmed out by the Commonwealth to the states for justice. There are lots of them: as of last September, almost 200 had been convicted and another 251 were due before the courts.

When dozens of private hospital staff gathered outside Rob Oakeshott's Port Macquarie electorate office on Saturday to urge him to reject means testing of health insurance, they risked provoking the wrong response.

He was tipped off on Friday about the protest and heard it was being pushed by the health insurance billionaire Paul Ramsay.

Oakeshott has had a gutful of big money trying to influence politics and, if anything, Saturday hardened his resolve.

A set-up by a foreign intelligence agency and a cover-up by senior federal government officials led to the conviction and jailing of six Australians in Sydney for terrorism, a Herald investigation reveals.

Peter Slipper, the Liberal Party defector, has opted to wear a robe for his role as Speaker. No matter how much pomp and ceremony he surrounds himself with, however, it will not automatically produce respect from his fellow parliamentarians.