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| Afghanistan |
| UN Flees Afghan Cartoon Violence |
| 2006-02-07 |
| The United Nations evacuated staff and NATO peacekeepers rushed reinforcements to a northwest Afghan town after deadly fighting erupted during a protest against the cartoons, The Associated Press reported. Denmark's prime minister on Tuesday described the protests as a global crisis and called for calm. "We are now facing a growing global crisis," Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a news conference. "Now it has become an international political matter," he said. "I urge calm and steadiness." Nordic countries are bearing the brunt of the protests in Afghanistan and the Middle East, after several European newspapers reprinted the cartoons in recent weeks. Tuesday's rioting in the remote town of Maymana was one of about a half-dozen flashpoints that erupted across Afghanistan. Reuters said four people were killed. The cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper and have been reprinted in several other papers in Europe, Asia, the United States and the Middle East. Islam forbids depictions of Mohammed. Four protesters were killed on Monday and 17 others injured in protests near Bagram Airbase, a U.S. base north of Kabul, and separately in the Afghan city of Mihtarlam, according to AP. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |