2005-2014

AMSTERDAM, Feb 6 : Newspapers in the Netherlands, where racial tensions have deepened in recent years, have mostly refrained from publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, an apparent move to avoid protests, observers say. Unlike their European neighbours, Dutch newspapers have held back from reprinting the controversial cartoons, a decision that reflects increased Dutch sensititives...

The ongoing riots throughout the Middle East and the burnings this past weekend of Danish government offices in Damascus and Beirut in protest of newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad bear the fingerprints of "Iranian and Syrian plotting," Lebanese leader Walid Jumblatt charged during an exclusive interview. He warned Syria and Iran might use the cartoon riots as a pretense to attack...

OSLO, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The head of Norway's press association, whose life has been threatened by Muslims angered by satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, said on Tuesday the right to offend others was crucial to freedom of expression. Amid spiralling unrest over the images, Per Edgar Kokkvold, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Press Association, told Reuters in an interview he was unafraid...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The Muslim cleric blamed for instigating protests over a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad said Tuesday that he never intended for rioters to attack Danish embassies and businesses in the Middle East and that he was crying for Denmark. But Ahmed Abu-Laban, who leads a mosque in Copenhagen's Muslim neighborhood, also said Danish officials brought the crisis on...

MUMBAI: An editor of a local newspaper has lodged a complaint against a ward-level president of the Samajwadi Party, another journalist and an owner of a newspaper for allegedly molesting her. The complainant, a 30-year-old woman, alleged Mehbub Faruqui (35), Surendra Dube (40) and Seeraj Shaikh, who is local ward president of Samajwadi Party, had molested her on the afternoon of February 1 at the...

COPENHAGEN: With its embassies under attack and its products facing boycotts, Denmark has had its hands full this week. On top of that, some Danes feel they have been let down by their Western allies as they stand under attack for a Danish newspaper's satirical cartoons about Islam. That mood lifted some Tuesday when President George W. Bush called Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said...

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – The owner of Nuevo Laredo's El Manana newspaper said he will almost completely stop covering drug gangs after the company officers were attacked by assailants who sprayed the reception with bullets and lobbed a grenade at the building. "Zero investigations into the narco," Ramon Cantu said Tuesday, while more than 50 state and federal police guarded his offices. Under the...

MOSCOW, February 7 (RIA Novosti) - An official on Russia's Mufti Council said the organization would make every effort to prevent the violence that could erupt to protest the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in the European media. "Now, the Mufti Council is restraining the situation in Russia to prevent the kinds of developments that took place in certain countries in the past days. The...

MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Heavily armed gunmen blasted their way into the offices of a newspaper on Mexico's drug-plagued border with the United States on Monday, tossing a grenade at journalists and gravely wounding a reporter. A handful of men firing assault rifles burst into the newsroom of El Manana newspaper in the city of Nuevo Laredo, director Daniel Rosas told Reuters by telephone...

TO publish or not to publish the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed? That's the question weighing on the minds of newspaper editors around the country. The cartoons have caused global outrage but you will probably never see them. And it's a good thing, too. The 12 drawings by a Danish cartoonist which depict the Prophet Mohammed in a negative light were initially published in a Danish...