International

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18: The envoys of Organisation of Islamic Conference on Friday resolved to raise the issue of the publication of blasphemous cartoons in the United Nations General Assembly and establish a common position on the issue to reflect the sentiments and reactions of Muslims around the world. An extraordinary meeting of the OIC ambassadors was held to consider a proposal by Pakistan’s...

JEDDAH – The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) is planning an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the member states to discuss major issues including the repercussions of the blasphemous cartoons, it was learnt here on Saturday. Secretary-General Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu is in the process of contacting member states for the purpose. According to diplomatic sources, he has...

A newspaper in Saudi Arabia has stopped publishing after printing some of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Shams (Sun) has been suspended as part of an investigation into its decision to publish the cartoons that have caused anger across the Muslim world. It printed them next to articles urging Saudis to take action against Denmark where the cartoons first appeared. Three weeks ago, Shams...

COPENHAGEN - Denmark and Norway on Monday condemned as incitement to murder a Pakistani cleric’s offer of a reward to anyone who kills any of the 12 Danish cartoonists who lampooned the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). "It’s murder and murder is also forbidden by the Koran," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told a news conference with his colleague Jonas Gahr Stoere from Norway, which has been...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has warned al-Qaida will try to exploit Muslim anger over the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. He also called a $1 million offer by a Pakistani cleric to kill the cartoonists an incitement to murder and "un-Islamic," reports the BBC. The cartoons were first printed in Denmark. Muslim protests around the world have...

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, prime minister of Denmark, has warned that Europe's Muslims need better education and job opportunities if religious confrontations, such as the violent protests over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, are to be avoided. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Rasmussen said the crisis, which followed riots by immigrant youths in France late last year and suicide bombings...

COPENHAGEN - Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller claimed Monday that extremist elements were continuing to foment anger over the publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed and suggested Al-Qaeda was exploiting the uproar. "Extremist forces are seeking to keep the conflict alive because they are not attracted by the Western tilt that many of their governments have taken," he told...

The basic lie in the controversy over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by Danish and European newspapers is the claim that the conflict is between free speech and religious censorship, or between Western enlightenment and Islamic bigotry. The taz newspaper, which has close links to the German Greens, declared the conflict was about reducing the influence of all religions...

The spreading violence–including deaths–ignited by cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has created, as Danish foreign minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen says, "a growing global crisis that has the potential to escalate beyond the control of governments." In this country, there is an intense debate among newspapers and their readers about whether these cartoons...

-- Did you sigh, roll your eyes over and quietly mutter to yourself, 'here we go again'? Did you? Did you want to say something further? I mean did you have this niggling, this frustrating urge within you to speak your mind, just this once, and 'tell it as it is'. But you knew you couldn't, you knew that in the politically correct world that we are now forced to live in, one ought to be very...