A suspected suicide blast in the middle of a Nairobi street June 11 has left at least one dead and dozens injured. The blast occurred during rush hour near the Ambassadeur Hotel in the city's packed central business district. It shattered shop windows and damaged a nearby bus. Kenyan anti-terrorism police are investigating the attack, with suspicions pointing to either Islamist Somali militants or the local Mungiki cult, which has been the subject of a crackdown in recent weeks. The blast took place blocks from where a bomb killed more than 200 at the US embassy in 1998. It appears to be Kenya's first terrorist attack since 15 were killed in a blast aat an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa in 2002. (Reuters, June 11)

The rights group Global Witness charges in a new report that cocoa profits fueled the brutal civil war in Ivory Coast just as diamonds did in Liberia, with both the government and rebels profiting from the trade. The study finds that 30% of the government's military costs during one six-month period were funded by cocoa proceeds, while rebels have reaped some $30 million per year from cocoa since 2004. Global Witness wants companies exporting cocoa to make public the origin of the beans. The industry is resistant. "Tracing or labelling individual beans is, as a practical matter, impossible," said Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, a trade group that includes Nestle and Hershey's.

Buddhist monks and other Thais rallied over the weekend to have Buddhism enshrined in the constitution as the national religion of Thailand. [Some 5,000 blocked traffic outside the parliament building in Bangkok.] With ongoing violence in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south, such a move is only likely to alienate the country's religious minorities further. [Reuters, June 10] Three school teachers, all Buddhist, were killed by gunmen in the south [Srisakorn and Rangae districts, Narathiwat province]. Teachers are becoming an increasingly common target in the region. [The Nation, Thailand, June 11]

A bomb blast outside a shop in Istanbul wounded at least 14 people [June 10]. Turkish security forces believe that Kurdish separatists are behind the attack. [Reuters, June 10] Ongoing fighting in the Turkish southeast between the army and Kurdish separatist fighters of the Kurdish Workers' Party [PKK] has left several dead. [Reuters, June 10]

Police in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar have found a propaganda CD by a group claiming to be "al-Qaida fil Hind" (al-Qaeda in India), with the aim of launching a jihad beyond the borders of Kashmir into all of India. The emergence of the organization is in keeping with a growing trend of militants in disparate places claiming to be part of an indigenous chapter of al-Qaeda. [India Times, June 9]

Afghan president Hamid Karzai survived the third assassination attempt on his life on [June 10] when Taliban militants fired rockets at a building in which he was giving a speech [outside Kabul]. [The president is known as the "mayor of Kabul" to his critics, who say his power does not extend much beyond his palace, which hides behind sandbag ramparts, concrete blocks, razor wire and machine-gun nests in the capital.] [Reuters, June 11]

In the west and central regions of Iraq, heart of the supposed "Sunni insurgency", US forces are equipping and training former Sunni insurgents to fight al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in a bid to turn local and tribal groups against the presence of "foreign" Islamists. [First pioneered in Anbar province, the "Anbar model" is now being replicated in other Sunni areas, including the Amiriya district of Baghdad.] [NYT, June 11]

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has accused UK Prime Minister Tony Blair of overriding the devolved powers of the Scottish parliament in negotiating a deal with Libya on prisoner transfer. In a statement to Scotland's parliament, Salmond said that it was "unacceptable" that Blair had not consultated with the body prior to signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Mommar Qadaffi during his tour of North Africa last week. "Any agreements which may flow from it are emphatically within the remit and authority of this parliament," Salmond said.