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]

From Reuters, June 10:

TEHRAN - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who wants more aid from the United States, called on Sunday for a new world order to replace "capitalism and imperialism", at the start of a trip to arch U.S. foe Iran.

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]

For those who remember when Albania was a hermetically sealed communist dictatorship under Enver Hoxha, the spectacle of George Bush receiving a hero's welcome in Tirana was a surreal one. An easy appeal to ethnic nationalism on the issue of Kosova was a sure way to win applause. "The question is whether or not there is going to be endless dialogue on a subject that we have made up our mind about," Bush said while visting Prime Minister Sali Berisha June 10. "We believe Kosovo ought to be independent. There just cannot be continued drift, because I'm worried about expectations not being met in Kosovo." But in a none-too-subtle equivocation on actual independence (and a warning against too strident demands for it), he called on Berisha to use his "good contacts" among Kosovar Albanians to help "maintain calm during these final stages." (EU Observer, June 11)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the journal Science, has teamed up with Amnesty International for a project to monitor the Darfur conflict by satellite. From Medical News Today, June 10:

A pioneering AAAS program that provides technical expertise to human rights groups is helping Amnesty International USA with a new online effort to monitor threatened settlements in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan and provide evidence of destroyed villages.

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.