After recent Pakistani military operations in Pakistan's own Swat Valley to push out Taliban insurgents who had taken control of the region, its operations are now more focused on the Taliban strongholds in the South Waziristan region. Pakistani troops and Taliban militants have been locked in intense clashes recently in the tribal area which has killed more than 150 people. Relief workers say that more than 120,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. Insurgent responses to the increased military pressure have included numerous bombings and suicide attacks, killing and injuring scores across Pakistan in recent weeks. Just today a car bomb in a busy marketplace in Peshawar killed more than 93 people, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an official visit - announcing the latest in a series of U.S. aid packages to Pakistan. (36 photos total)

Tomorrow, August 6th, marks 64 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan by the United States at the end of World War II. Targeted for military reasons and for its terrain (flat for easier assessment of the aftermath), Hiroshima was home to approximately 250,000 people at the time of the bombing. The U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island very early on the morning of August 6th, carrying a single 4,000 kg (8,900 lb) uranium bomb codenamed "Little Boy". At 8:15 am, Little Boy was dropped from 9,400 m (31,000 ft) above the city, freefalling for 57 seconds while a complicated series of fuse triggers looked for a target height of 600 m (2,000 ft) above the ground. At the moment of detonation, a small explosive initiated a super-critical mass in 64 kg (141 lbs) of uranium. Of that 64 kg, only .7 kg (1.5 lbs) underwent fission, and of that mass, only 600 milligrams was converted into energy - an explosive energy that seared everything within a few miles, flattened the city below with a massive shockwave, set off a raging firestorm and bathed every living thing in deadly radiation. Nearly 70,000 people are believed to have been killed immediately, with possibly another 70,000 survivors dying of injuries and radiation exposure by 1950. Today, Hiroshima houses a Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum near ground zero, promoting a hope to end the existence of all nuclear weapons. (34 photos total)

Six years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the government of Iraq set aside Tuesday as a national holiday, celebrating "Sovereignty Day" as U.S. troops, on schedule, pulled out of all major Iraqi cities - the first phase of a full withdrawal scheduled for the end of 2011. Many residents of these cities took their cues from Iraqi officials and security forces and celebrated the day in streets, parks and at home - despite the hot weather, remaining doubts about the capabilities of Iraqi forces, several deadly bombings, and the fact that no U.S. troops actually left the country. Nearly 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, providing continued support until 2011. As of today, the Department of Defense has identified 4,308 American service members who have died since the start of the war. (33 photos total)

According to Pakistani authorities and the UN, at least 3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have now been registered as a result from recent fighting and on-going military operations against the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat, Buner, and Lower Dir districts. Refugee families are often made up of only women and children, the older men staying behind to care for their homes and crops. UN humanitarian chief John Holmes issued a desperate appeal for hundreds of millions of dollars to help those who have fled the war, warning that the U.N. can only sustain its current aid efforts for one month. Photographers in the area have captured many powerful images of those affected, some of the most striking focused on children, from which I've collected 38 here for you. (38 photos total)

It has been just over a month since the last time the Sri Lankan conflict was featured here. In that time, government forces have put further pressure on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and hundreds of thousands of civilians in the north of the country have been trapped in a war zone. Press coverage is still very limited, and conflicting stories are the norm, with LTTE representatives claiming the ethnic Tamil civilians are staying willingly, fearful of government forces, and the Sri Lankan government claiming the civilians are being held against their will by the LTTE. According to the UN, over 6,500 civilians have been killed, thousands more injured, and a stream of over 100,000 refugees has recently left the LTTE stronghold, and the Sri Lankan government has halted the use of heavy-caliber weaponry. (31 photos total)

In 1991, President George H. W. Bush implemented a ban on media coverage of returning war dead and their dignified transfer process at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. Shortly after he assumed office, President Barack Obama asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to review this policy, and Gates later reversed it, giving family members of the fallen the right to allow or disallow media coverage. On April 5th, 2009, the repatriation of the remains of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Meyers became the first such event to be covered by the press in 18 years. This process has taken place, undocumented, over 5,000 times since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. Collected here are photographs documenting the transfers of nine soldiers that have taken place since April 5th, 2009. (25 photos total)

The Sri Lankan Civil War, waged between separatist Tamil rebels and the government of Sri Lanka - a conflict which has run hot and cold over 26 years, and has cost over 70,000 lives - may now be approaching its end. The ethnic Tamil rebel force called The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or LTTE, or just "Tamil Tigers") has been fighting for the creation of an independent Tamil state since 1983, using both conventional warfare techniques and terrorist methods. Since 1987, the LTTE has claimed responsibility for nearly 200 suicide attacks, more than any organization in the world. Now, since late 2008, aggressive Sri Lankan government forces have dealt many serious defeats to the LTTE, capturing towns and airfields, and recently trapping the remaining 1,000 (estimated) LTTE rebels in a 37 square km (15 sq m) area, surrounded by 50,000 government troops. Army shelling and retaliation by desperate rebels has led to many recent civilian casualties, and an estimated refugee population of over 200,000. The Sri Lankan government has exercised tight control on media over the years, limiting coverage of the conflict and allegedly inciting its supporters, and several journalists have paid with their lives. (37 photos total)

It has now been 12 days since Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. On January 3rd, the Israeli Defense Force ground troops began entering Gaza, soon cutting the territory in half. Israel's stated goals are to end rocket attacks originating from Gaza - which had increased sharply following the end of a cease-fire agreement in December. As Israeli troops began entering Gaza, foreign reporters and photographers were denied entry to the territory by Israel, halting any reports originating from Gaza except those coming from Palestinians. As of today, since the beginning of this campaign, there have reportedly been over 650 deaths in Gaza, and 10 Israelis killed, including 7 soldiers. Israel suspended operations for a few hours today, to allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza. Officials from France, Egypt and Turkey are working with Israel and the Palestinians to draw up a cease-fire plan, but many details still remain unresolved. See previous Big Picture entry on Israel and Gaza from a week ago. (34 photos total)

Back in June, 2008, Egypt helped broker a 6-month cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the ruling body in the Gaza Strip. Though the cease-fire was broken several times by both sides, it largely held. Toward the end of the cease-fire in December, Israel, while closing Gaza's borders since November, indicated that it might extend the agreement, if Hamas ceased all Qassam rocket attacks. Qassam rockets are the crude but deadly homemade missiles often launched towards Israeli territory (over 3,000 times in 2008 alone). Hamas leaders, angered by the blockade and seemingly little political headway made over the past 6 months, recently stepped up rocket attacks on Israel once again. Israel has now responded with five days (so far) of air attacks and Naval bombardment on Gaza, resulting in over 350 dead, nearly 1,500 wounded and countless buildings and smugglers' tunnnels destroyed. Hamas has threatened to increase the rocket attacks send suicide bombers into Israel in retaliation, and Israel is massing troops and tanks around Gaza for a possible ground assault. (37 photos total)

Eighteen days ago, I published an entry titled "Conflict in Congo, refugees on the move", which showed some of the initial chaos resulting from the war erupting once again in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). In the days since, the civilian population has endured more continued fighting amongst multiple factions, cholera outbreaks, separation from family members, hunger, and further losses (of life, property, safety and trust) as both rebel forces and government soldiers have committed many acts of theft, rape and murder while thinly-stretched UN forces have been unable to provide much help. The organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has recently launched their own multimedia initiative to "bring global attention to the humanitarian consequences of the intensifying war in eastern DR Congo", called Condition:Critical, please take the time to visit and hear the voices that reflect what is seen in the photos below. (39 photos total)

In the eastern mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), a rebel army led by Laurent Nkunda - a former General of the DR Congo armed forces - recently launched attacks and captured territory after a peace treaty had failed with the government. Nkunda's forces are Tutsi rebels, fighting against the DR Congo government forces and U.N. peacekeeeping forces. The U.N. has over 17,000 troops in the Congo right now, but they are widely dispersed, and have been unable to fully protect civilians or even defend their own bases. Nkunda's rebels forced government soldiers to retreat from intense battles up to the edges of the provincial capital of Goma. The biggest losers in this conflict are the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the middle - forced to relocate repeatedly, many victims of looting, rape and murder by both advancing rebels and some government soldiers - looking to thinly-spread U.N. forces for help. The humanitarian crisis and threat of further regional destabilization, has made this conflict a top U.N. priority recently. (31 photos total)

On Thursday, August 7th, Georgian armed forces entered into the breakaway region of South Ossetia to assert Georgian governance of the region - a de facto (yet largely unrecognized) independent republic that has support from neighboring Russia. Russia responded on August 8th by sending its own military into Georgia - not only into region of South Ossetia - but also into the nearby breakaway republic of Abkhazia and deeper into Georgia itself. Many Airstrikes and ground skirmishes have taken place since, with several parties calling for a cease-fire, but no agreement as yet. Those paying the highest price for the war are the South Ossetian civilians, which may have suffered (depending on who is reporting) between 100 and 2,000 deaths to date. (29 photos total)

North of downtown Baghdad, Iraq lies Sadr City and several other neighboring districts, predominantly shiite and impoverished. A recent lull in fighting between militias, and US and Iraqi armed forces has allowed security forces and aid supplies to return to the area. The truce remains tenuous, as a car bomb detonated yesterday in a crowded market, killing more than 50 Iraqis. Here are some images of daily life in and around Sadr City, Baghdad over the past several weeks. (16 photos total)

Snapshots of life in Afghanistan, as seen by press photographers over the past two months. (12 photos total)