The campaign to halt Gary McKinnon's imminent extradition to the United States to face hacking charges was given a boost yesterday when the Home Secretary put his case on hold.

While President Barack Obama speaks overseas of his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, his military commanders at home are quietly accelerating a programme to develop and deploy a new class of conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles which will have the capacity to strike targets anywhere in the world within an hour.

A US defence department official is under investigation for allegedly hiring private contractors to gather intelligence on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A Californian man killed in a shootout with guards at the Pentagon had driven cross-country and arrived at the military headquarters' subway entrance armed with two semi-automatic weapons.

The top military commander in the United States told Congress yesterday that not only is it time to review the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays serving in the military instituted by former President Bill Clinton but that getting rid of it entirely would be the "right thing to do".

The massive military deployment by the United States to the devastated city of Port-au-Prince continued apace yesterday with as many as 10,000 personnel expected to be in place either on land or on US Navy ships just off the coast by tomorrow morning, according to the Pentagon.

Insurgents in Iraq have hacked into live video feeds from Predator drones, a major weapon in a Pentagon spy system that serves as the military's eyes in the sky for surveillance and intelligence collection.