The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) launches its first human rights commission, but establishing credibility for the new watchdog group will be a challenge in a region that includes member states such as Burma, ruled by a military junta, and Laos, ruled by a reclusive communist regime.

Fifteen people are killed when a bus carrying passengers to a wedding hits an anti-tank mine in Pakistan’s tribal belt, seven die in a suicide bombing near an air force complex in the country’s northwest, and over a dozen are wounded in a blast outside a popular restaurant in Peshawar, in the latest of a wave of militant attacks that has left nearly 200 dead this month.

Meeting in the Slovakian capital Bratislava, NATO defense ministers agree to the broad counter-insurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by U.S. General Stanley McChrystal.

Fear of the swine flu closes 2,500 schools in Iraq.