Cyber espionage and attacks from well-funded nations or terror groups are the biggest threats to the military's computer networks, a top US officer said.

Cyber hackers nearly two years ago breached a high-tech jet fighter program developed for the Pentagon by Lockheed Martin, but classified information was not compromised, a senior defence official said.

The Pentagon faced the anger of animal rights activists over the alleged mistreatment of swine after revelations that military researchers have been blowing up pigs to determine the efficacy of body armour worn by soldiers at risk from roadside bombs.

The US Defense Department charged today that five Chinese ships shadowed and manouvered dangerously close to a US Navy vessel in an apparent attempt to harass the American crew.

North Korean generals met the US-led UN military command in South Korea for the first time in nearly seven years today after Pyongyang warned at the weekend "arrogant" acts by US troops could spark a war.

The spat between Richard Desmond and the hedge fund firm Pentagon Capital continues, and very much not in favour of the media baron. Desmond fell out with Pentagon last year, after some of the company's funds were frozen and it was unable to return an investment of his. Desmond has now had to publish a humiliating apology to Pentagon in the Sunday Express. After the row began, the paper, which Desmond owns, published a series of accusations about the honesty of Pentagon and its senior staff. Now the paper has admitted the allegations were untrue and – embarrassingly – that the article was based on comments made by Desmond himself. Damages have also been paid.

The self-styled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and four co-defendants told a military judge at Guantanamo they wanted to confess and plead guilty.

Seven US soldiers were killed when a Chinook transport helicopter crashed in southern Iraq today, the US military said

Public diplomacy is, very simply, diplomacy aimed at publics, as opposed to officials. While some people associate it with marketing – with building a national brand – the truth is that public diplomacy, like official diplomacy and like military action, has as its mission the achievement of the national interest. Public diplomacy performs this mission by understanding, informing, engaging, and persuading foreign publics.

A computer expert who hacked into top secret US military networks lost his last-ditch legal appeal today and will be extradited to the US in the next two weeks.

Salim Hamdan today pleaded with a military jury to spare him from a life in prison, saying that he worked as Osama bin Laden's driver only because he needed a job.

A jury of six military officers yesterday delivered a split verdict in the trial at Guantanamo Bay of a former driver of Osama bin Laden, convicting him of providing material support for terrorism but finding him innocent of potentially more serious allegations.

It is only right that friendly nations should co-operate to send their nationals abroad for trial if they have committed a serious crime in a foreign country. But transferring one's citizens to a foreign jurisdiction should never be done casually. And the merit of the arguments put forward by the foreign state needs to be rigorously tested. The case of Gary McKinnon, who is due to be extradited to the US, accused of hacking into the Pentagon from his home in north London, raises serious doubts about whether those requirements have been satisfied in this instance.