Some photos from the rehearsals of the parade in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan

Photos from the Chinese forum FYJS, social network Weibo, etc.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense System is working on plans to develop a high-altitude, long-endurance drone armed with a compact, electrically powered laser capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.

The original Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) was a Boeing 747 with a crew and tanks of toxic chemicals to generate power. That Pentagon mothballed the aircraft in 2012, after more than 15 years of development.

Now the Pentagon is taking the ALTB off the shelf with the plan of implementing the technology in an unmanned drone.

Despite the updated plans, the technical and tactical challenge remains the same: building a laser-armed aircraft that can shoot down ballistic missiles at their most vulnerable – boost phase, just after launch – without having to fly so close it would get shot down itself, Breaking Defense reported.

When the ALTB was first proposed, many unanswered questions existed. Regardless, the Missile Defense Agency went ahead with development, according to Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's procurement chief.

This time around, the Missile Defense Agency will take an "incremental, step-wise, knowledge-based," said MDA director, Vice Admiral James Syring.

"It is a very different approach than we did in the past of just leaping to something and investing everything we had," he said.

MDA will conduct experiments and review alternatives until 2018-2019, when Syring said it will pick "which technologies we think have the most promise." Then a "low-power laser demonstrator" will fly circa 2021, Breaking Defense reported.

"If it had been easy we would done it by now," Syring said. "But given the rapid progress in laser technology, it's not a huge reach."

"There's a lot of work that has go on," he continued. In the traditional "crawl, walk, run" scheme, "we're in crawl mode at this point, but that doesn't mean we should stop.

Mark Gunzinger, a laser expert and advocate at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the technology for a laser-armed unmanned drone is within five years of being developed.

"I think the most important point may be that MDA's concept is not the 'return of the ABL,'" Gunzinger said in an interview with Breaking Defense.

"MDA's concept would take two maturing military technologies – unmanned systems and directed energy – and combine them to create a new weapon system that takes advantage of the attributes of both."

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150818/1025855855/pentagon-laser-drone-missile-defense.html#ixzz3jAREaXDn

The hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) and joint high speed vessel USNS Millinocket (JHSV 3) arrived in Tien Sa port in the central city of Da Nang on August 17th for their last mission stops of Pacific Partnership 2015.

While in Da Nang, US and partner nation service members worked together to conduct subject matter expert exchanges on various medical and disaster relief topics, dental engagements, and engineering civil action programs. Personnel aboard both ships also have the opportunity to volunteer for community outreach events.

“A significant portion of what we’re going to be doing in Vietnam is subject matter expert exchange. It will be relating to disaster medicine, disaster preparedness, and all the other associated items which will provide the Vietnamese community with the wherewithal to sustain themselves in events of a catastrophe,” said Royal Australian Navy Commander Ken Walters

The mission in Vietnam will culminate in a disaster medicine drill where both US and Vietnam medical personnel will participate both on and off Mercy. The drill will have about fifty casualties. Part of that will be an element that will happen aboard Mercy, where casualties will come from ashore and be brought here. Vietnamese health providers will be practiced who they run a mass casualty and evacuation drill....