Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on May 31 dismissed calls from Amnesty International to publish the official death toll during the finals weeks of the armed conflict that ended last month. Bogollagama said that only Sri Lankan courts will be permitted to investigate both alleged human rights violations and the number of civilian deaths that occurred during the final weeks of the conflict. AI has called for an independent investigation into the matter, while the UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes has said that it will be very difficult to accurately assess such a number. Media sources have continued to question the numbers circulated by Sri Lankan authorities and the UN as potentially up to three times below the actual number of deaths.

The UN Human Rights Council May 27 dropped a Swiss-EU draft resolution calling for an investigation into possible war crimes during Sri Lanka's recently-concluded war on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and adopted Sri Lanka's counter-resolution. Of the 47-member Council, 29 voted for Sri Lanka's resolution, 12 against and six abstained. UN human rights chief Navi Pillay told the Council there is credible evidence both the armed forces and LTTE grossly violated international law.

Two people were killed, including a schoolgirl, and at least 12 injured in an explosion May 23 at a Roman Catholic church in Lalitpur, Nepal. No group claimed responsibility, but police said they suspect the Nepal Defense Army, a Hindu extremist group that seeks to restore Nepal's monarchy. The attack came just as parliament prepared to elect a new prime minister following the resignation of the Maoist leader Prachanda, who stepped down after his attempt to dismiss the army chief was blocked by the president May 3. Maoist lawmakers—many of them former guerillas— stormed Nepal's parliament May 18 to block a vote for a new prime minister. (BBC, May 23; CSM, May 18)

Pakistan's government has blamed Taliban militants for a bomb attack in Lahore that killed 23 people and left hundreds more injured. A group of gunmen shot at police officers before detonating a powerful car bomb, damaging buildings in the ISI spy agency complex. At least one ISI agent, 12 police officers and one child were reported killed in the attack. Rescuers are searching the rubble and warn that the death toll could still rise.

Aid officials, human rights workers and community leaders in Sri Lanka say Tamils are being driven out of areas in the northeast of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias. They charge the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages.

Thousands of Sikh protesters brandishing swords flooded the streets of several of major towns in India's Punjab region, burning trains, blocking roads and attacking public buildings following the slaying of dissident Sikh guru Sant Ramanand, who was attacked by six men with knifes and a pistol at a gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Vienna May 24. Ramanand, from the Dera Sach Khand sect—made up largely of dalits ("Untouchables")—was targeted by Jat Sikhs—a higher caste, landowning sect—who accused him of disrespecting the religion. At least two have been killed in the Punjab violence.

US satellite photos released this week show Pakistan has expanded two sites crucial to its atomic program—apparently in an effort to bolster its nuclear arsenal. A report from the Institute for Science and International Security said the images reveal a major expansion of a complex near Dera Ghazi Khan. Photos of a second site near the garrison town of Rawalpindi suggested that Pakistan had added a second plutonium separation plant adjacent to the old one. (Radio Australia, AFP, April 21)

As celebrations break out in Colombo over the Sri Lankan armed forces' taking of the last small strip of coastline controlled by the Tamil Tiger rebels, there are ominous signs that the coming "peace" will be a grim one at the very best. AP reports May 18 that three Sri Lankan doctors who treated hundreds of badly wounded civilians in understaffed, makeshift hospitals in the besieged zone were detained on accusations they gave false information about the casualties to the media.