International

Following Denmark, Germany now has its own controversy over anti-Muslim caricatures. On February 10, the Berlin daily paper Tagesspiegel published a drawing that provoked disgust among Iranian football fans, drew an official protest from the Iranian government, and led to violent demonstrations in front of the German embassy in Tehran. The drawing, entitled "Why the German army has to be called up...

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan made a last-minute decision to address a meeting in Qatar this weekend in an effort to calm violence triggered by the publication of cartoons about the Prophet Mohammad, his spokesman said on Monday. Annan intends to speak at a session in Doha, the Qatar capital, of the U.N.-backed Alliance of Civilizations and address issues...

The Danish cartoons row refuses to go away, reverberating with sound and fury at different levels across the Islamic world. That primarily reflects the deep affront felt by many Muslims. But it is clear that the uproar has deeper causes which westerners, struggling to fathom the rage sparked by Jyllands-Posten's crude caricatures, and Muslims, fearing a growing clash of cultures, ignore at their...

Iran's foreign minister called yesterday for an end to the violent protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that have left dozens dead in several Muslim countries. "We should try to cool down the situation," Manouchehr Mottaki said in Brussels. "We do not support any violence." Mr Mottaki went on to urge European Union governments and media outlets "to take initiatives" to prevent such...

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan will meet Islamic and European leaders to try to end Muslim protests over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that have resulted in deaths in several countries. Annan will attend a Feb. 25 meeting in Qatar of the High- Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations, a panel he set up last year to bridge gaps...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed alarm at the closure of a second Russian newspaper that published religious cartoons related to the controversy over Danish drawings of the Prophet Mohammed. The weekly Nash Region in the city of Vologda ran a montage of the Danish cartoons on February 15, with some doctored or printed only partially, international and local media reported...

Feb. 20, 2006 issue - When Hamas called for the Muslim world to calm down last week, European officials hoped they'd turned a corner. They'd been looking frantically for a way out of the clash of civilizations sparked by the publication of cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. Danish Embassies were burned in Damascus and Beirut. Afghan riots led to at least 11 deaths. Another protester was...

ABUJA, 20 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - At least 17 people, including a Catholic priest, were killed and 30 churches burned in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri when Muslims protesting cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad turned on local Christians, police said. Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi said a crowd of protesters in the predominantly Muslim city targeted the Christian minority...

Vologda, February 20, Interfax - A newspaper in Vologda was shut down by its owners after it reprinted the Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad, Mikhail Smirnov, the owner of the Severinform information holding to which the newspaper belongs, told the press. "The decision to close down the newspaper was made in order to ward off attacks on anyone in the editorial team," Smirnov said....

BRUSSELS, Belgium (UPI) -- The European Union`s homeland security chief suggested Monday that the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten was wrong to have published 12 caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. Since the cartoons` republication last month, almost 50 protestors have died in violent demonstrations, Christian churches have been torched and European and American embassies have been attacked across...