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AFP - Thursday, February 14

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - - Several Danish newspapers reprinted on Wednesday a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that caused bloody riots in the Islamic world two years ago, a move that prompted Iran to angrily summon Denmark's ambassador.

Three of Denmark's biggest dailies were among 17 that published the cartoon, vowing to defend freedom of expression a day after police foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist.

The caricature, which featured the prophet's head with a turban that looked like a bomb with a lit fuse, was one of 12 cartoons published in September 2005 by the Jyllands-Posten daily.

The controversy sparked violent protests in a number of Muslim countries in January and February 2006 that culminated with the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in Damascus and Beirut and the death of dozens of people in Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan.

Iran showed its anger at the reprinting of the cartoon by summoning the Danish ambassador and voicing an official protest, the state run IRNA news agency said.

It carried a government statement saying the foreign ministry, "strongly condemned this (printing of the cartoon) and urged a serious confrontation against such insults and a prevention of any repetition."

On Tuesday, Danish police arrested three people, a Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisian nationals, suspected of plotting to kill the creator of the turban cartoon, Kurt Westergaard.

The Dane was due to be released after questioning but the two Tunisians -- who have lived in Denmark for more than seven years -- were to be expelled after being declared a threat to state security by Danish intelligence.

That decision prompted anger from the Danish Institute of Human Rights, and the mens' lawyers.

"It is profoundly troubling that the reasons for these expulsions will not be judged by an independent court," said Christoffer Badse, a lawyer at the state-funded institute.

"It is incomprehensible that we can release one of the three suspects in this affair, a Danish citizen, for lack of evidence, yet expel two foreigners without knowing the reason why or giving them the chance to defend themselves before a judge," Franz Wenzel, lawyer for one of the Tunisians, told Danish TV.

The newspapers that printed the cartoon on Wednesday said they did so to take a stand against self-censorship.

"Freedom of expression gives you the right to think, to speak and to draw what you like... no matter how many terrorist plots there are," conservative broadsheet Berlingske Tidende wrote in an editorial.

The newspaper -- which had not previously printed the caricature despite the massive controversy that engulfed Denmark for months in 2006 -- urged "the Danish media to stand united against fanaticism".

Tabloid Ekstra Bladet meanwhile published all 12 of the original cartoons.

The Danish press has unanimously condemned the alleged murder plot against Westergaard, who has lived in hiding for the past three months.

Even the centre-left newspaper of reference, Politiken, which was most critical of Jyllands-Posten's decision in 2005 to publish the cartoons, joined in the cries of condemnation.

The alleged murder plot was "deeply shocking and worrying" and "shows that there are fanatic Islamists who are ready to make good on their threats and there are people in this country who neither respect freedom of expression nor the law," an editorial read.

It said the media should stand behind Jyllands-Posten "when it is threatened with terrorism."

Members of Denmark's Muslim community have distanced themselves from the alleged murder plot, but opposed the publication of the cartoon on Wednesday.

Imam Walid Abdul Pedersen, a Protestant who converted to Islam, said: "It's not a good idea to reproduce it and the newspapers could have defended the cartoonist differently, without resorting to provocation."

"It's good to have a dialogue on freedom of expression, but you shouldn't seek out a confrontation from the start," he said.

He said it was possible the reprinting could prompt "negative reactions abroad."

Westergaard told tabloid BT on Wednesday that he never expected to end up the target of a death threat.

"With this drawing I wanted to show how fanatical Islamists or terrorists use religion as a kind of spiritual weapon. But naturally I never imagined these kinds of reactions," he said.

He said he considered himself an atheist, adding: "I feel that I am fighting a righteous fight to defend freedom of expression, which is under threat."

[OMEN]

UNDER FIRE: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has gone on the defensive after a report found she made 56 false statements on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vehemently defended her integrity when asked about an independent report that found she made 56 false statements on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

At a congressional hearing, Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat, questioned Rice about a report from the non-partisan Centre for Public Integrity that accuses Bush administration officials of making 935 false statements about Iraq, which the United States invaded in March 2003.

"This study has found that you, Madame Secretary, made 56 false statements to the American people where you repeatedly pump up the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and exaggerate the so-called relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," he said at the start of a testy exchange with Rice.

"Congressman, I take my integrity very seriously and I did not at any time make a statement that I knew to be false, or that I thought to be false, in order to pump up anything," Rice replied. "Nobody wants to go to war."

Bush's statements about suspected Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were the cornerstone of his case for going to war in Iraq to topple Saddam.

No such weapons were found following the invasion. The United States now has 157,000 troops in Iraq seeking to restore stability to the country, where a vicious insurgency and sectarian violence erupted after the US-led invasion.

Rice, who was national security adviser at the time of the invasion, squarely blamed the US intelligence community for its erroneous conclusions that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons and was seeking to rebuild a nuclear weapons programme.

When Wexler sought to cut her off, Rice spoke over him and said: "I am sorry congressman – because you questioned my integrity, I ask you to let me respond.

"Now, we have learned that many of the intelligence assessments were wrong," she added. "I will be the first to say that it was not right."

"At no time did I intend to, or do I believe that I did put forward false information to the American people," she said.

The reputations of many Bush aides – including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who made the case for the war before the UN Security Council – have been tarnished by the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A 54-year-old English tourist has died while walking in extreme heat in gorges near Kalbarri in Western Australia.

Police received a call at 1pm (WDT) yesterday, saying a woman had died on the loop walk trail in the Kalbarri National Park, almost 600 kilometres north of Perth.

The body of the woman and her partner were found a little way off the track, Kalbarri police Sergeant Michael Tite said.

The partner was unhurt.

"We're not sure if they were disoriented or not," Sergeant Tite said.

Police said heat exhaustion might have been a factor in the death.

The temperature in Kalbarri was about 42 degrees yesterday with intense humidity caused by Cyclone Nicholas off the state's northern coast.

AAP

[OMEN]

Chinese police have arrested three people suspected of forging more than 50,000 train tickets worth 4 million yuan ($NZ718,000) during the Lunar New Year holiday, when millions were stranded by freak winter weather.

The gang is accused of making the tickets by computer and selling them at highly-inflated prices along lines between Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province and worst affected by the winter jam, and Hengyang, in the central province of Hunan, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

The gang made a profit of 160,000 yuan in half a month, it added.

Train tickets were a hot commodity in China before the holiday as hundreds of millions of people tried to return home for family gatherings.

For days, hundreds of thousands of people massed in front of Guangzhou's station, awaiting news of departures with the line blocked by ice and snow.

"The confiscated fake tickets looked almost identical to the real ones in paper quality, printing, and even had anti-counterfeiting labels," Xinhua said.

Reuters

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US President George W Bush has defended his decision not to send troops to the Sudanese region of Darfur, despite what he calls a genocide taking place there.

He called it a "seminal decision" not to intervene with force, taken partly out of the desire not to send US troops into another Muslim country.

Mr Bush was speaking to BBC World News America before flying to Africa.

He also discussed controversy over China's Olympics - saying he would attend the event as scheduled.

After Hollywood director Steven Spielberg withdrew his assistance to the Olympics in protest at China's policy towards Darfur, Mr Bush said he would not be taking a similar stance.

"I view the Olympics as a sporting event," he told the BBC's Matt Frei.


George W Bush meets people in Botswana during his visit in 2003
I've got a firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa

President George W Bush


Full interview transcript
Bush interview: Your reaction

But he added that he would meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and "remind him that he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur".

Mr Bush is scheduled to leave on Friday for his second tour of Africa - though he said on Thursday he might be delayed if a crucial wiretapping bill was held up in Congress.

He is due to visit Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia.

The president will be travelling with his wife, Laura.

They will visit hospitals, schools and businesses, hoping to show how US investment in health and development programmes has made a real difference to Africans.

Aid promises

Mr Bush said he had a "firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa".

But he said it was also in the interest of US and global security to tackle poverty there.


WATCH FULL BUSH INTERVIEW - ON TV
Newsnight, BBC Two, 2230 GMT, Thursday
BBC World News America, via BBC News 24, Friday, 0030 GMT
BBC World News America, via BBC World (outside UK only), Friday, 0000 GMT / 1900 ET / 1600 PT

"We have people who are suffering from disease and hunger and hopelessness. The only way a radical can recruit is to find somebody who's hopeless," he said.

US aid to Africa has grown rapidly since Mr Bush entered the White House in 2001. He said on Thursday it had doubled over his first term and was set to double again by 2010.

Asked by Matt Frei if he felt he had got the credit he deserved for such investment, Mr Bush replied: "I'm not one of these guys that really gives a darn about opinion. What I really care about is are we saving lives?"

Interrogation bill veto

Mr Bush will not visit Kenya, where inter-ethnic violence erupted after recent disputed elections, or Sudan.

But his aides say he will discuss both crises with African leaders during his trip.


PRESIDENT BUSH'S ITINERARY
Benin - Cotonou: arrival ceremony, meets president
Tanzania - Dar-es-Salaam: meets president, tours hospital; Arusha: tours hospital, textile mill and girls' school
Rwanda - Kigali: meets president, visits genocide memorial
Ghana - Accra: meets president, state dinner
Liberia - Monrovia: meets president, visits university

Rice to visit Kenya

Mr Bush condemned the government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and said he would put more pressure on neighbouring South Africa to find a diplomatic solution.

"I just happen to believe their government could do more to enhance a free society in their region," he said.

Talking about events at home, he defended his threat to veto a bill passed by the US Senate outlawing the interrogation technique of water-boarding, dismissing fears that that might send a negative message around the world.

Asked whether America still occupied the moral high ground after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Mr Bush gave a crisply blunt answer, our interviewer says.

"Absolutely," he replied. "We believe in human rights and human dignity. We believe in the human condition. We believe in freedom."

Mr Bush was similarly robust in his defence of his actions in Iraq, saying: "The decision to move Saddam Hussein was right. And this democracy is now taking root. And I'm confident that if America does not become isolationist - you know, and allow the terrorists to take back over, Iraq will succeed."

BBC NEWS

[OMEN]

The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled US spy satellite before it enters the atmosphere to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas from the vehicle's fuel tank, officials said.
President George W Bush opted for a plan to have the Navy shoot the 2,270 kg minivan-sized satellite with a modified tactical missile, after security advisers suggested its re-entry could lead to a loss of life.

Military officials hope to strike the satellite just before it reaches the atmosphere and drive it into ocean waters.

Thousands of space objects fall to Earth each year, but they generally scatter over a huge area and there have never been any reported injuries.

"What makes this case a little bit different ... was the likelihood that the satellite upon descent to the Earth's surface could release much of its 454 kg of hydrazine fuel as a toxic gas," said James Jeffries, deputy national security adviser.

He told a Pentagon briefing the satellite was unlikely to hit a populated area and described the danger from toxic gas as limited. But Jeffries added: "There was enough of a risk for the president to be quite concerned about human life."

The satellite is a classified National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 2006, according to four senior US officials, who asked not to be named.

The satellite, known as L-21, has been out of touch since shortly after reaching its low-Earth orbit. Since the satellite never became operational, it has toxic rocket fuel on board that would have been used to manoeuvre the satellite in space.

Officials said about half the satellite, including the fuel tank, would survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and estimated a crash could spread toxic material across an area equal to two football fields.

"The tank will survive. It will be breached. The hydrazine will reach the ground and that's not an outcome we want to see," NASA administrator Michael Griffin said at the briefing.

"It's hard to find areas that have any significant populations to them where you could put a toxic substance down across a couple of football fields and not have somebody at risk."

Built by Lockheed Martin Corp, the satellite cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Reuters

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[OMEN]

Beirut - Israel ordered its embassies on high alert and the FBI put the United States terror squads on guard to protect Jewish institutions after Hezbollah's leader vowed to retaliate anywhere in the world for the assassination of one of its top commanders.

"Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open," Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday to a throng of fist-waving mourners who attended the funeral of Imad Mughniyeh, the mastermind of terror spectaculars that claimed hundreds of American lives.

Thousands of black-clad mourners raised their fists in the air, chanting, "At your orders, Nasrallah" in response to Nasrallah, who appeared via video. He had been in hiding since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

Nasrallah's fiery speech signalled the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group was ending a yearslong policy of battling Israel only on Israeli or Lebanese territory, raising the spectre of attacks in Western or other countries.

Israel denies involvement

Hezbollah and its Iranian backers blamed Israel for Mughniyeh's death in a car bombing on Tuesday in Damascus, the Syrian capital. Israel denied involvement.

Nasrallah accused Israel of taking the fight outside the "natural battlefield" of Israel and Lebanon. He said: "You have crossed the borders."

Unlike Middle Eastern leaders who had indulged in exaggerated rhetoric, Nasrallah was known for acting on his threats.

In 2006, he vowed to take action to free Lebanese prisoners in Israel, and in July that year, Hezbollah guerrillas staged a daring cross-border raid that snatched two Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.

The incident triggered a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah that devastated southern Lebanon, with the guerrillas lobbing several thousand rockets into northern Israel. It ended with the Israeli soldiers still captive and no deal for a prisoner swap had yet been reached.

Terror squads on alert

Fearing revenge attacks after Mughniyeh's assassination, Israel ordered its military and embassies overseas on high alert on Thursday and recommended Jewish institutions worldwide do the same.

And in Washington, the FBI put its domestic terror squads on alert for any threats against synagogues or Jewish centres in the United States.

Thursday's events in Beirut raised fears that Lebanon's internal turmoil could worsen. Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of Hezbollah's pro-Western political opponents filled a downtown Beirut square to mark the anniversary of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's 2005 assassination.

Fearing clashes, authorities deployed thousands of troops. The two mass gatherings ended with a few fights involving fists, sticks and knives between government supporters and opponents that left at least four injured.

Officially, the Israeli government denied involvement, but speaking privately, Israeli military officials were more vague, refusing to confirm or deny involvement

.

AP

[OMEN]

Canberra - Representatives for Australian Aborigines confirmed plans Friday to launch the first compensation lawsuits since a landmark government apology earlier this week for past abuses.

The cases, details of which were not released because they had not yet been filed, would be the first since Parliament made a formal apology on Wednesday to tens of thousands of Aborigines who were taken from their families as children under now discredited assimilation policies.

An activist and a lawyer representing some members of the so-called "Stolen Generations" of Aborigines said on Friday as many as 40 claims for compensation were being prepared in Victoria state.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ruled out setting up a compensation fund for victims of the policies, which lasted from 1910 until the 1970s, and legal experts say the apology does not strengthen chances of compensation being won through the courts.

Several cases have been filed in the past but most have failed. Lawyers say proving the harm inflicted by the policies in a legal sense is extremely difficult.

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard, standing in for Rudd who is overseas, reiterated on Friday the government would not offer compensation to head off court action.

Dozens of lawsuits pending

Lawyer Jack Rush said he was representing Aborigine Neville Austin, but declined to discuss specifics of the case. Austin also declined to comment.

A newspaper reported on Friday that Austin intends to sue the state of Victoria for unspecified damages, alleging he was taken by authorities in 1964 from a hospital where he had been admitted as a five-month-old baby with a chest infection.

He then lived in foster homes and orphanages until he turned 18, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

His cousin, Lyn Austin, head of the state advocacy group Stolen Generations Victoria, said dozens of lawsuits were pending.

"I cannot make comment on that case at all," she told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio, referring to her cousin's case.

"I do know that there are another 30 or 40 that are going to be doing a civil action claim."

Rudd won wide acclaim on Wednesday by leading the Parliament in apologising for the racist assimilation policies.

He received a letter of congratulations from the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, dated the day of the apology, Rudd's office said on Friday,

But Rudd has been widely criticised for refusing to pay compensation for their suffering.

Compensation fund

About 100 000 children were forcibly taken from their parents in an effort to make them grow up like white Australians.

Aborigine Bruce Trevorrow was awarded A$775 000 in damages and interest this month from the South Australia state government. He was taken from a hospital without his parents' knowledge 50 years ago.

Australia's smallest state, Tasmania, is the only government to establish a compensation fund for Aborigines.

AP