Looming budget cuts that will hit the US Defense Department from Friday will endanger the military's ability to conduct its missions, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel warned. "Let me make it clear that this uncertainty puts at risk our ability to effectively fulfill all of our missions," said Hagel, whose agency's budget is set to be slashed by roughly $46 billion. In contrast with his predecessor Leon Panetta, who branded the cuts a "doomsday mechanism" and "fiscal castration," Hagel was more measured two days after taking office as defense secretary.

Washington, Feb 22 (EFE).- Bravo, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's faithful golden retriever, knows every nook and cranny of the Pentagon and has accompanied his master at countless high-level meetings. Though not as well known as the first family's Portuguese water dog, Bo, Bravo has been privy to the country's most sensitive military secrets.

TOP STORIES ----------- AMRITSAR, India - David Cameron on Wednesday became the first serving British prime minister to voice regret about one of the bloodiest episodes in colonial India, a massacre of unarmed civilians in the city of Amritsar in 1919. - - - - TUNIS - Tunisian leaders began the search for a new prime minister on Wednesday to try to lead the North African nation out of its gravest political crisis since an uprising that inspired a wave of Arab revolts two years ago.

Looking back at a long political career, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday lamented an increasingly bitter atmosphere in Washington, saying there was "too much meanness" on display. His comments come amid a mounting budget crisis in a deeply divided Congress and after Republican lawmakers renewed threats to block the appointment of the man nominated to succeed Panetta at the Pentagon, former senator Chuck Hagel.