SEOUL, July 10, 2008 (AFP) - North Korea Thursday denounced a planned US-South Korean military exercise as a 'criminal act' which would raise tensions on the divided peninsula.

The comments were made at colonel-level talks between the two sides in the border truce village of Panmunjom, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

MANAMA, April 23, 2008 (AFP) - US and coalition forces conducted an exercise with the Bahraini navy in the North Arabian Sea last week, the Bahrain-based US Navy's Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday.

The April 15-17 exercise, codenamed 'Arabian Shark,' focused on building coalition interoperability and improving anti-submarine warfare capabilities, a statement said.

PARIS, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - French doctors on Tuesday said that an overview of the latest research into sport and good health proved that moderate, frequent exercise combatted the risk of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, respiratory disease and depression.

PARIS, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - The dance-like exercise tai chi, practiced by tens of millions of people in China and around the world, can help curb symptoms of type 2 diabetes, say a pair of studies released Tuesday.

BRUSSELS, Jan 14, 2008 (AFP) - NATO and Russia have agreed to go ahead this week with a computer-aided defence exercise in Germany which was postponed last year amid a row over a US missile shield, NATO announced Monday.

'This is another important step in the practical cooperation between NATO and the Russian Federation,' the military alliance said in a statement.

PARIS, Nov 23, 2007 (AFP) - Active parents can, by their example, encourage their children to be physically active, but the effect is less than widely thought, according to a study of more than 5,000 10- and 11-year-olds published Friday.

PARIS, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Women who exercise intensively during the first phase of pregnancy are 3.7 times more likely to miscarry than pregnant women who don't break a sweat, according to a recent study carried out in Denmark.

Women who practiced high impact sports -- such as jogging and racketball -- or exercised strenuously for at least seven hours a week during the first trimester of pregnancy ran the highest risk, according to the study, published in The International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

WASHINGTON, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - The United States said Friday that a military exercise scheduled this month with South Korea would proceed despite a warning by North Korea that they could disrupt a nuclear disarmament deal.

'I'm pretty sure that if there are exercises planned between the United States and South Korea that they will in fact move forward,' said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

SEOUL, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - North Korea said Friday it would take strong countermeasures against a US-South Korean military exercise scheduled for this month, warning that the drill could disrupt a nuclear disarmament deal.

But Seoul's Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon said the exercise would go ahead as scheduled.

'The KPA (North Korea's army) will actively put into practice its earlier statement that it will do all it can to round off the powerful striking means to cope with the large-scale war manoeuvres,' the North Korean army said in a statement.

SEOUL, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - North Korea said Friday it would take strong countermeasures against a major US-South Korean military exercise later this month, warning that the drill could disrupt a nuclear disarmament deal.

'The KPA (North Korea's army) will actively put into practice its earlier statement that it will do all it can to round off the powerful striking means to cope with the large-scale war manoeuvres,' the North Korean army said in a statement.