The United States and South Korea have kicked off a large-scale joint military exercise in the Sea of Japan, officials say. The US and South Korea on Sunday launched the major naval exercise that would involve about 20 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, and some 200 fixed-wing aircraft. Some 8,000 service personnel from the two allies haven taken part in the show of force. "The USS George Washington left the southern port of Busan around 7:00am Sunday (2200 GMT Saturday). It's sailing towards the Sea of Japan (East Sea) for the exercise," AFP quoted a US military spokesman as saying. Officials at Seoul's defense ministry said other navy ships had also left from Busan and the nearby port of Jinhae for the drill, with some from the US 7th Fleet set to join them off the peninsula's east coast. South Korea's Defense Ministry announced that the drill has been relocated from the sensitive Yellow Sea in response to China's protests. ABC News: Bronze Kim Jong-il sparks rumours of despot's end.

The Taliban say they have captured two US servicemen in Afghanistan, and Nato confirmed they were missing and scrambled helicopters and planes to search for them. The US and Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the pair had gone missing after leaving their base in the capital in a vehicle on Friday. The only other ISAF service member believed held by the Taliban is Idaho National Guardsman Bowe Bergdahl, whose capture in June last year triggered a massive manhunt. His captors have repeatedly issued videos of him denouncing the war, in what the US military has called illegal propaganda. Last month was the deadliest of the nine-year war in Afghanistan for foreign troops, with more than 100 killed. Five ISAF service members were killed in across the country on Saturday, including four by one roadside bomb. "Two International Security Assistance Force service members departed their compound in Kabul City in a vehicle on Friday afternoon and did not return," ISAF said in a brief statement.

Anger has arisen in Palestinian areas over reports that millions of tax-exempt dollars from the U.S. are being funneled towards Israel's illegal settlement building in the Palestinian West Bank -- in flagrant violation of international law. This is happening under the nose of the U.S. administration despite its claims of support for a two-state solution and criticism of Israel's continued settlement building. The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in Ramallah has expressed outrage. "Adhering to international law is a big step towards holding Israel accountable for its actions," PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib told IPS from the Muqata (government) headquarters in Ramallah. "Settlements violate international law, and the United States is supposed to be sponsoring a two-state solution, yet it gives deductions for donation to the settlements," said Saeb Erekat the PA's chief negotiator. According to a recent report in The New York Times 40 U.S. groups have raised more than 200 million dollars in tax-deductable donations for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the last ten years. U.S. tax rules prohibit the use of charitable funds for political purposes at home or abroad.

An American war veteran in the US warfare in Iraq says the United States initiated the hostilities as a pretext to establish its dominion over the country. Speaking in a recent interview with Press TV, Michael Prysner, the US war veteran and peace activist said that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was "a complete sham" and not meant to liberate the Iraqis as pledged by US authorities. Prysner, a corporal in the US army at the time of invasion, said he intended to help the Iraqi people but later realized every action by the US military only added to the sufferings of the Iraqi people.

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Fathiya Suwais, 57, has been subjected to cruel interrogation rounds and severe torture at the hands of Israeli investigators in Jalama detention center ever since her incarceration five days ago, the Ahrar center for prisoners' studies and human rights reported. Fuad Al-Khafsh, the center's director, said in a press release on Saturday, that the Shabak investigators deprived the old woman from sleep and forced her to stand for long hours while blindfolded and handcuffed without any consideration for her age or health condition.

When a national police association accuses its government of what amounts to treason it is time to sit up and pay attention. Michael O'Boyce, President of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), said at its annual conference in Limerick, at the end of April, 2010, that the Irish Government had been 'corrupted' and had been 'bought' by developers and bankers. (A garda is an Irish policeman, gardaí in the plural.) Mr. O'Boyce, speaking on behalf of the country's 11,000 gardaí, charged government ministers with sacrificing the country to protect 'wealthy cronies' who had bankrolled the leading government party, Fianna Fáil. Such criticism of a serving government by its police force is unprecedented in Irish history and extremely rare in any western democracy.

The United States has rejected the claims of the Chinese government to territorial control of a number of tiny islands in the South China Sea, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisting the US had a strong “national interest” in ensuring the islands remain open.

Though long of little real value, the islands are said to have a significant oil and natural gas deposit, and the claims over the territorial waters around the islands could be valuable in expanding shipping in the region.

The US declaration comes as Admiral Michael Mullen warned today that China is taking a “more aggressive” stance on the high seas, and that he has gone from being “curious” about Chinese claims to the Spratly Islands to “concerned.”

The comments are a big victory for Vietnam, which has also claimed a number of the unpopulated islands. The Chinese and Vietnamese navies have previously clashed over the claims.

But they aren’t the only two nations claiming some or all of the 100+ islands. Taiwan also claims the entire region for itself, while Malaysia and the Philippines also claim portions of the island chain. Roughly 45 of the islands have tiny military presences of one nation or another, and as their value rises officials warn it could become a source of conflict.

NABI SALAH, Occupied West Bank, Jul 23, 2010 (IPS) - Palestinian activists are being jailed, Israeli activists are under surveillance, and the Israeli military is increasingly targeting journalists who cover West Bank protests. The Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel issued a statement recently condemning what it sees as a change in Israel Defence Forces (IDF) policy in their treatment of journalists covering the growing number of West Bank protests against Israel's separation barrier, illegal settlements and land expropriation.

"We would appreciate it were the authorities to remind the various forces involved, that open, unhindered coverage of news events is a widely acknowledged part of the essence of democracy. "Generally speaking this would not include smashing the face of a clearly marked photographer working for a known and accredited news organisation with a stick, or for that matter aiming a stun grenade at the head of a clearly marked news photographer or summarily arresting cameramen, photographers and/or journalists," said the FPA.

In its report, EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup, Democracy Now! states that "many lawmakers and advocacy groups say the Obama administration is not being candid about the lethal effects of dispersants," so Amy Goodman interviewed Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response and a leading critic of the decision to use Corexit" who disclosed how the officials are lying about many things related to the catastrophe poisoning "millions of people." The rushed transcript includes Kaufman saying, "And I think the media now has to follow the money, just as they did in Watergate, and tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning the millions of people in the Gulf. The Nation: BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle.

Following in the tradition of bigots everywhere, a Florida church is preparing to hold a book-burning. Not just any book; the Quran. Dove World Outreach Center is a non-denominational evangelical church in Gainesville, Florida. They have announced a special celebration of the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks . . . something that will show Christian love, reduce hatred between people of different religions, and lead toward greater understanding around the world. Or not. Dove will host “International Burn a Quran Day” on September 11, 2010. Pastor Terry Jones says the idea came, in part, from the recent success of “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”. He comments that “We feel, as Christians, one of our jobs is to warn,” and that burning the holy books of another religion will provide Muslims an opportunity to convert.

Five American soldiers died Saturday in bombings in southern Afghanistan. Four of the victims died in a single improvised explosive device (IED) blast and a fifth was killed in a separate attack, according to the AP. [CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS] IEDs are the number one cause of NATO solider deaths. The payload and sophistication of the crude home-made bombs is rising as the Taliban insurgents adapt to coalition defenses. The Taliban claim that even with all of its firepower and prowess, the Western military will always be vulnerable to IEDs, sniper fire and small-scale ambushes – the bread and butter of asymmetrical warfare. Military officials attribute the spike in casualties to a nearly completed "surge" that has brought U.S. troop levels to nearly 100,000.

What Really Happened: Climategate: A Reality Check on Climate Change

The Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in more than half the country due to cold weather. Most of the areas affected are in the south, where temperatures regularly drop below zero centigrade at this time of year. However, this time temperatures have dropped to as low as -24C. The state of emergency means regional authorities can dip into emergency funds to provide medicine, blankets and shelter to those most affected.

Reporting from Seoul — The way U.S. officials see it, there's little mystery behind the most notorious shipwreck in recent Korean history. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls the evidence "overwhelming" that the Cheonan, a South Korean warship that sank in March, was hit by a North Korean torpedo. Vice President Joe Biden has cited the South Korean-led panel investigating the sinking as a model of transparency. But challenges to the official version of events are coming from an unlikely place: within South Korea. AP/Raw Story: NKorea vows nuclear response to US-SKorea drills.

World Wide Military Expenditures

Quantifying happiness isn't an easy task. Researchers at the Gallup World Poll went about it by surveying thousands of respondents in 155 countries, between 2005 and 2009, in order to measure two types of well-being. First they asked subjects to reflect on their overall satisfaction with their lives, and ranked their answers using a "life evaluation" score from 1 to 10. Then they asked questions about how each subject had felt the previous day. Those answers allowed researchers to score their "daily experiences"--things like whether they felt well-rested, respected, free of pain and intellectually engaged. Subjects that reported high scores were considered "thriving." The percentage of thriving individuals in each country determined our rankings.

America's wars on Iraq and Afghanistan are taking a toll on US soldiers, as the latest statistics show one out of every nine American soldiers leaves the army on a medical discharge due to a mental disorder. "We have 100,000 troops and a third of them suffer some sort of mental health disease and half of those suffer multiple health disease," Paul Martin from Peace Action told Press TV's correspondent. The army alone saw a 64 percent increase in those forced out due to mental illness between 2005 and 2009, the numbers equal to one in nine of all medical discharges. According to army statistics, last year alone 1,224 soldiers suffering from mental illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, received a medical discharge. According to Mental health experts there is a growing emotional toll on the US military which has been fighting for seven years in Iraq and nine years in Afghanistan, and there is a clear relationship between multiple deployments and increased symptoms of anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.