BBC News with Iain Purdon.
The Defence Department in Washington has announced a
review
of how to lift a ban on openly homosexual people serving in the US military. The Obama administration says the current policy is harming military effectiveness by driving key personnel out of the armed services. From Washington, Kevin Connolly.
The policy known as "don't ask, don't tell"
emerge
d as a compromise in the early 1990s, permitting gay men and women to serve in the American military but preventing them from doing so openly. As attitudes towards gay rights in America have steadily
evolve
d, the compromise has begun to look a little dated. President Obama promised in his State of the Union address to move towards repealing the measure. And while there is still resistance among some senior military officers, the Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that he wanted to see change.
A big air attack in Pakistan by American pilotless planes has killed at least ten militants near the Afghan border. The United States has
stepped up
drone attacks since a suicide bomber killed seven CIA personnel in eastern Afghanistan at the end of December. Jonny Hogg reports.
Pakistani security sources say that at least ten al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were killed in the American drone attack, the latest and largest in a series of such operations in recent weeks. They say the unmanned aircraft fired 18 missiles at various targets in North Waziristan, on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This strike comes amid continued confusion