The Whole Delivery

Photo from EPA Another day, another insane drone strike in Pakistan by the US : Three strikes by US drones have killed at least 28 people in the tribal region in South Waziristan. Reporting for Al Jazeera from Islamabad, Kamal Hyder said that the first attack took place near Angor Adda along the Pakistan Afghan border. "We have reports that at least seven people, who were killed in that strike, were moved to another location in the Azam Warsak region, where a funeral was arranged and that funeral also came under attack," said Hyder. It's UN "Peace Day" apparently. But this Peace Day won't make Israel sign onto the Non-Proliferation Treaty that Arab states want them to do at the International Atomic Energy Agency Annual Agency Conference in Vienna. Not thinking about peace however are extremist groups, who have seen their website traffic receive a sharp growth . Over the last two years, Cuba has been trying to grow its own food after rallying ...

Photo from AfricanNews.com The tensions are arising in Somalian again, as the government looks set to take on the Islamic forces in the South with the aid of Kenya and Ethiopia (through Germany's money) training them : The second front against Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam rebels in south and central Somalia will take place before the end of the year. Foreign-trained Somali forces will try to take over towns including the port of Kismayo which is the "key to handicap all the financial resources of the war they conducted," Sharmarke told reporters. Now the news is breaking on a suicide bomber striking the Presidential compound in the capital of Mogadishu. The Atlas will certainly keep its eye on that story. The right leaning government in power in almost half-impoverished Columbia and its rival leftist militants continue to add in their boiling tension . Conflict is also going down between Japan and China, as the Japanese continue to hold a Chinese trawler capta...

What a surprise, a corrupt election seems to be a foot in Afghanistan yet again . The sale of thousands of fake voter registration cards threatens the credibility of Afghanistan's forthcoming parliamentary elections. Al Jazeera correspondent Sue Turton, reporting from Afghanistan, said sources told her the fake cards were printed in Pakistan and were being sold in Afghanistan for just over three US dollars apiece. One of the agents selling the professionally made cards told Al Jazeera that his network has sold 1.5 million cards over the past three month, and his is just one network of many selling the fraudulent cards. About five million people are expected to vote in Saturday's elections. Stage 2 of France raising their retirement age pension plan is complete , and it really is not a happy sight at all for the proletariat. Somalia's top government officials are bickering over ratifying a new Constitution . About time UN : UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-Genera...

( TWD Note: "The Atlas" is the new replacement name for "The Read International", the international news and opinion blog post from The Whole Delivery. This is day one of that. ) This was a refreshing look at those in Kabul thinking more about work than war : It always strikes me when reading newspapers and watching the news, that what we hear about Afghanistan always comes from the politicians, the military, analysts and experts - everyone seems to have an opinion without ever knowing the answer. But very rarely do we hear the voices of ordinary Afghans. There is no voiceover used in this documentary. Each of the four characters did a master interview and was filmed doing what they do. It is pure and simple. The idea was to create a snapshot of life in Kabul - a human portrait of a city at work. The film is loosely structured around the course of a day, starting with the General as she gets up and goes to work, and finishing with the 95-year-old bonesetter ...

Photo from EPA It's been more than a long year of epic misery for Sarah Shourd. Thankfully, it seems to be on the verge of ending : Iran has announced it will free Sarah Shourd, one of the three Americans it has held in prison for more than a year on accusations of spying. An Iranian government official said on Thursday that Shourd will be released as an act of clemency to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Shourd, along with Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, were arrested in July 2009 after straying into Iranian territory from Iraq. The three said that they became lost on a hike in Iraqi Kurdistan. US authorities insist that they are innocent and say they should be released immediately. But what about the fate of this two men who were also captured with her? Ghanbar Naderi, a journalist for the Iran Daily newspaper, said that the other prisoners would be released shortly. "The female prisoner is going to be released," he said. "I can assure you tha...

As rich and well off overlords like Peter Orztag continue their absurd assault on Social Security here, over across the Atlantic in Paris-land, the people are not really taken to kindly to their President trying to screw them over once more : Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of France to register their anger over the government's austerity measures. The rallies came as a 24-hour national strike disrupted flight and rail services, and closed schools. Officials said 1.1 million people had joined protests, but unions claimed the figure was 2.5 million. The activists are angry at government plans to overhaul pensions and raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. France's retirement age is lower than many countries in Europe, but analysts say the issue is polarising politics in the country. Just like over here with the supposed fears of that evil budget deficit yelled by our elites to the workers, the proletariat in "Les Blues" have ...

Spanish Journalists are freed from Al Qaeda's captivity. (Photo from AFP) His weird media tour continues : The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan says the momentum built up by the Taliban has been reversed in the south of the country and capital Kabul. General David Petraeus said it was important to destroy the safe havens of Taliban. He also said he would offer President Obama his best professional advice on the wisdom of handing control to Afghan forces next July. $815.58 million given to Pakistan is still not enough for its epic disaster. But with NATO forces focusing on silly wars, I guess that isn't a surprise indeed. Julian Assange seems to be in the midst of fighting a smear campaign against him, especially after the charges of him raping someone was dropped in Sweden . Sudan, an ally of Iran, is looking to start its own nuclear programme : The Sudanese government is planning to build a nuclear reactor which is first of its kind purposely for peaceful e...

The United States sure didn't like President Karzai's stance on contractors having four months to get the hell out of Afghanistan. What a way to celebrate Independence Day in Afghanistan ! A ban on private security companies in Afghanistan could affect development and aid work as many of the firms guard Western projects in the country, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree on Tuesday ordering private security companies to disband within four months -- part of an ambitious plan for the government to take responsibility for all security in the country from 2014. The firms, who compete for billions of dollars in contracts, employ around 40,000 heavily armed guards -- mostly Afghans but including many foreigners. They are also used to guard convoys, embassies and other mainly Western interests. Karzai has long been critical of the firms, saying they have caused horrific accidents, but the speed with which the decree was issued took s...

Photo from DPA It really isn't in already bad times, at all : The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back. The feast of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15 is the high point of summer in the Greek Orthodox world. Here in one of the country's many churches, believers pray to the Virgin for mercy, with many of them falling to their knees. As Atrios summed it up...." It really is depressing. " But making it more of an embarrassment is that the US seems very comfortable heading right in that direction . Priorities!

Photo from Gallo and Getty Images Fat chance that this will happen in such a short time , but it sure is worth a major headline and attention. It may even lead to US media giving it some.....hahaha, oh who am I kidding: Afghanistan's president is setting a four-month deadline for private security companies to cease operations in the country, a spokesman said Monday. A presidential decree expected to be issued later Monday will detail the process through which the companies should cease operations, spokesman Waheed Omar told reporters in Kabul. President Hamid Karzai has said repeatedly in recent months that these companies undermine government security forces, creating a parallel security structure. Contractors perform duties ranging from guarding supply convoys to personal security details for diplomats and businessmen. With at least 26,000 contractors over there, and how beholden to their reckless behavior in the past and present that the Obama Administration is, I reall...

Photo from AFP 4 million people will need food assistance in the next 3 months. 4 million : The United Nations has launched an appeal for $459m to help the victims of devastating floods that have affected more than 14 million people across Pakistan. The call from the UN's humanitarian agency on Wednesday came as food prices skyrocketed after huge areas of crops were destroyed by the waters. "We have a huge task in front of us to deliver all that is required as soon as possible," John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, said at a meeting at UN headquarters. Speaking of ridiculously under reported major events in America, the violent landslide in Gansu province in China has produced a death troll of over 1,000 . But unlike in Pakistan, the government has responded very quickly in the Far East : China's government appears to have responded quickly after landslides and flooding devastated the isolated county of Zhouqu. Rescuers were immediately despatched to th...

Image from BBC.com Pakistan isn't the only nation enduring a natural disaster of violent flooding. China has been ravaged in its northwest region by a tidal wave of flooding, leading to the perishing of thousands : More than 700 people are now known to have died in a massive landslide in north-west China - making it one of the deadliest incidents so far in the country's worst flooding in a decade. A frantic search is continuing for the more than 1,000 people still missing. Buildings were hit by a wall of mud so mighty that buildings seven storeys high crumpled like paper, says the BBC's Chris Hogg, in Gansu province. China has had shaky infrastructure with its buildings, and this is yet another painful reminder of how that drastically needs to change: The landslides came as China was struggling with its worst flooding in a decade, with more than 2,100 people reported dead or missing and millions more displaced nationwide. President Hu Jintao led a meeting of senior...

Photo from Al Jazeera The situation in Pakistan after the tragic floods has the eerily feeling of being their Katrina, where awful aid efforts lead by an out of the country President exacerbate an already dire predicament . But fears are growing of a food crisis as crops and farmland are washed away by the floodwaters, which have already claimed at least 1,500 lives and affected some three million others. The Pakistani government has been criticised for its response to the flooding. "The government is not able to move itself to a position where it can help people," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder said, reporting from Muzaffargarh in southern Punjab. From the Nation in Africa Switching to good news, a massive bill in Kenya, reshaping their Consitution , has passed with an overwhelming majority vote. It is indeed not only a historic for the country, but also the continent, and here's why: However, the document was loaded with too many attractive clauses to lose. Its ...

Photo from AFP "The best humanitarian law in the last decades" is just too good, peaceful, and rational for our war mongering United States leaders to sign it : A global treaty banning cluster munitions has gone into force. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which became binding international law on Sunday, prohibits the use, production and stockpiling of the weapon, which is blamed for killing and maiming tens of thousands of civilians. Thomas Nash, from the Cluster Munition Coalition, a network of 200 civil society organisations, hailed the ban. "This is the most significant piece of international humanitarian law to enter into force since the land mine ban 10 years ago. From this moment on, countries have a legal obligation to assist the victims," the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. The treaty requires signatories to destroy stockpiled cluster munitions within eight years, clear contaminated areas within 10 years and help affected communities...

In the midst of Wikileaks massive latest revelations yesterday , most have declared what they brought to The Guardian, del Spigel, and the New York Times as " not much" or "things we kind of know already." To be frank, that is just more driven by a disgust and negative viewpoint towards the whistleblowing organization. The fact that information was damaging to not only the United States, but also all of NATO should not be discounted and dismissed as run of the mill. Moreover, further evidence (or correctly to be safe, the possible of further evidence) of how Pakistan and their intelligence are basically undermining all the money and aid we give them still is always essential for the tax playing public to be cognizant of. Unless of course you are the folks in the Obama Administration and the Pentagon, incensed once again by Wikileaks messing up any positive PR mojo from insane wars. It's no wonder why Julian Assange continues to be the most wanted man by...

Photo from AFP The underreported tension between the United States and Pakistan was helped today by this helping giving of aid : The US government has announced a major new aid package for Pakistan, with hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on projects in Pakistan's energy and water sectors. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, announced the $500m package at the start of a day-long "strategic dialogue" in Islamabad between American and Pakistani officials. The money - part of a five-year, $7.5bn aid package approved by the US congress last year - will support a total of 26 projects. Though the electricity money is certainly welcome for the electrical need Pakistan wants at any time, there is a still a major problem between the US and their tenuous allies. And that is in regards to the Haqquani, who many consider the main threat to the US and NATO in, guess where..........Afghanistan! Pakistan still has close ties with them, so despite the aid we gi...

King Abdullah of Jordan is none to please about the United States threats to cut off financial to his country (Photo from AFP) When we act like this, it makes it really hard for anyone who knows the entire story for us to continue screaming at the nutcase Ahmadinejad and more sanctions on his Supreme Leader's final say government . The United States has threatened to cut financial aid to Jordan, if the Hashemite Kingdom continues to develop its nuclear program without coordinating with Israel, the Arab media reported on Monday. The American threat comes after Amman rejected Israeli demands to participate in extraction and enrichment of uranium, and Jordan's failure to obtain US approval for its nuclear plan, despite talks between the two parties, which lasted six months. According to reports, the ultimatum was probably given to Amman days after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judah. This action by our State Department giv...

Photo from The Red Cross It is one of those things that's just a wee bit embarrassing for all Americans to know about. The terrific Carol Rosenburg with the Very embarrassing story of how the United States continuing to prefer dubious actions instead of admit its wrong doing. Alleged ex-teen terrorist Omar Khadr on Monday denounced his coming war-crimes trial as a sham, saying he'd been offered a secret plea deal for release after five years. Instead, he said, he would act as his own attorney at trial and offer no defense. ``I'm representing myself and I'm boycotting,'' said Khadr, 23, who has grown from an adolescent captured nearly dead in Afghanistan into manhood in U.S. military custody. He was wearing the white prison camp uniform of a compliant captive and spoke clearly and articulately throughout a one-hour morning session. Captured at 15 in Afghanistan, faces a maximum of life in prison for alleging throwing the bomb that killed Sergeant Christopher ...

Photo from EPA Please yet it be the end : There are increasing reports that Russia and the United States are preparing a Cold War-style prisoner exchange involving 10 suspected Russian spies arrested in the US and a nuclear reasearcher jailed by the Russians. The lawyer and brother of Igor Sutyagin, who is serving a 14-year sentence for spying for the US, said he was transferred to Moscow's Lefortovo prison earlier this week to facilitate the swap. Please. It seems our President loves himself some tax breaks both domestically and internationally ! The Palestinian Authority has called on President Barack Obama to end tax breaks on American donations to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The move would be more in line with stated US policy that settlements were an obstacle to peace, the PA argued. The New York Times recently identified 40 US groups that have collected $200m (£130m) in tax-deductible donations over the last decade. The gifts went to Jewish settlements i...

Photo from AFP On the day where the nutcase Netanyahu comes to DC and meets with President Obama, could Israel be sending one of their soldiers to jail for 30 years for killing innocent Palestinians ? An Israeli soldier who fought in the country's war on Gaza last year is to be prosecuted for the manslaughter of two Palestinian women, the military has said. The move, which is the first prosecution of an Israeli soldier over the deaths of civilians during the 22-day war, was one of several disciplinary steps announced by the army following an internal investigation. If this does happen, than that soldier really did mess up for those under the Netanyahu Administration, of all Administrations who loathe Palestinians, to send him behind bars for 30 years. But then again, it wouldn't surprise me if he gets off the hook.