International

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon apologized Monday to Denmark after thousands of rampaging Muslim demonstrators set fire to the building housing the Danish mission in Beirut _ the most violent in a growing string of worldwide protests over caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. In Afghanistan hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police and soldiers, leaving one dead and four injured. The prime...

Syria is behind the attacks on EU member state embassies in Damascus and Beirut, US and European diplomats are claiming. Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and French embassies across the Middle East were attacked over the weekend as anger continues to rage about the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. "That does not happen by accident there has to be some kind of acceptance by the state...

Lebanon has apologised to Denmark after thousands of rampaging Muslim demonstrators set fire to its diplomatic mission in Beirut in the most violent of worldwide Muslim rage over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Ghazi Aridi, the information minister, said early on Monday, after a late Sunday emergency cabinet meeting, that the government had unanimously "rejected and condemned the acts of...

When a newspaper cartoon in Denmark can provoke riots from Jakarta to Gaza, and causes Europeans, regardless of their passport, to fear for their security, it is time to sit up and take notice. Unfortunately, few people seem to realise how symbolically important this case is. Firstly, we should re-think our understanding of the word "globalisation". The word is employed differently according to...

Where did those three "extra" cartoons come from, that did so much to fuel the Danish cartoon row? Perhaps it is an academic point, but I, for one, am not sure I know the answer yet. As I've written in earlier postings, the row took off after a delegation of Danish Muslim clerics and activists took themselves off to the Middle East to drum up support for their campaign against the 12 cartoons...

THE mood was tense yesterday in Noerrebro, the multi-cultural district of Copenhagen where the Cartoon War began. As TV pictures showed Danes fleeing the Middle East, Jan Smolarczyk complained about how his once-gentle adopted country had been turned upside down. "Suddenly everyone is asking themselves: are we bad people?", the 60-year-old Polish-born academic said. For years, Danes thought...

Fresh protests against newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad erupted across Afghanistan on Monday, with one demonstrator killed and up to four wounded in clashes, officials said. Protesters also threw stones at the Danish, British and French embassies in the capital Kabul as well as the main base for the United States-led coalition in Afghanistan and the head United Nations office. Police...

At least one person was killed and seven others wounded in the Puntland region of Somalia on Monday as security forces clashed with hundreds of Muslims protesting the publication in Europe of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, witnesses and police said. Police in the semi-autonomous region's town of Bossaso shot at demonstrators who were hurling stones at the offices of foreign aid agencies and the...

Police should come down "heavily" on anti-cartoon protesters who broke the law, a Cabinet Minister demanded today as an extremist cleric called for the artist to face execution. The Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the actions of some Muslims in London at the weekend had been "completely unacceptable and intolerable". Placards threatened a repeat of the 11 September and 7 July atrocities...

Protests that started after the publication of satirical cartoons of Prophet Mohammed by a Danish newspaper continue to spread day by day. Re-prints of the cartoons in the European press fueled the reactions that began with an economic boycott on Danish goods. After the Danish and Norwegian embassies were set on fire in the Syrian capital Damascus, the Danish consulate building in Lebanese capital...