The Cartoon Row

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...

(CNSNews.com) - More than two dozen people have been killed in another weekend of Muslim rioting linked to cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, with the most serious violence occurring in Nigeria, where Christians bore the brunt of Muslim anger. At least 16 people were killed in the country's northern Borno state, and Muslim rioters also torched more than a dozen churches and businesses linked...

TALLINN, Estonia (UPI) -- Even as many Russian commentators continue to speculate about who is behind Muslim protests against the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, some Russian analysts are beginning to consider the broader issues of whether and how these events may shift the positions many countries have on other issues. Virtually all Moscow commentaries suggest that the dispute by putting...

Kano - The northern Nigerian state of Gombe on Monday banned a planned protest over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad after demonstrations in two other cities sparked riots claiming 16 lives. "We will not allow the processions against the Danish cartoons planned for today to go on," state police commissioner Atiku Yusuf told AFP over phone. "This is in the interest of peace," he said. "Of course...

ALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of Afghan students shouted support on Monday for Osama bin Laden and threatened to join al Qaeda during a protest against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Speaking after a weekend of deadly riots in Nigeria and Libya, Pope Benedict said the world's religions and their symbols had to be respected but warned such protests were wrong. However, Pakistan's...

THE Danish cartoonist whose depiction of the prophet Muhammad has sparked a worldwide furore says he has no regrets about the drawings. Kurt Westergaard told a Glasgow newspaper, The Herald, that his inspiration for the pictures was terrorism, which he said received "spiritual ammunition" from Islam. Westergaard defended the drawings on the grounds of freedom of expression and the press. He is now...