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World in brief
More European papers print cartoons offensive to Muslims
By wire services
Published February 2, 2006
PARIS - Newspapers across Europe reprinted cartoons Wednesday ridiculing the prophet Mohammed, saying they wanted to show support for the right of Danish and Norwegian papers to publish caricatures that have ignited fury among Muslims.
Germany's Die Welt daily newspaper published one of the drawings on its front page and said the "right to blasphemy" is one of the freedoms of democracy.
A headline on the front page of the French afternoon newspaper, France Soir, declared: "Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God," accompanied by a cartoon depicting religious figures from the Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Christian faiths on a cloud. The Christian is shown saying, "Don't complain, Mohammed, we've all been caricatured here."
France Soir paired its story and caricatures with a column by French theologian Sohaib Bencheikh, who admonished: "One must find the borders between freedom of expression and freedom to protect the sacred." He added, "Unfortunately, the West has lost its sense of the sacred."
Visa bottleneck latest blow to U.S.-French ties
PARIS - The delicate relationship between the United States and France has withstood freedom fries and frosty friendship, but now it may be facing a more serious test: disappearing French tourists.
An American law passed as an antiterrorism measure in 2002 requires 27 mostly Western European countries to issue electronic passports for tourists and business travelers seeking to enter the United States. France, mired in a labor dispute over who will print the passports, failed to meet the Oct. 26 deadline. So the law requires its citizens who have passports issued on Oct. 26 or later to obtain visas.
On Monday, the consulate at the U.S. Embassy in Paris was the destination for a snaking line of almost 200 people in a grim, wintry mood despite dreams of family holidays in Dallas or conga lines and cocktails in Miami Beach.
Kenyans reject awkward offer to help stem hunger
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Kenyan government officials on Wednesday issued a testy "thanks, but no thanks" to a New Zealand entrepreneur's offer to help stem hunger with a powdered formula similar to one for dogs.
The controversy has raised accusations of colonial-era racism and tragic misunderstanding in a nation facing the possibility of famine for 2.5-million of its citizens.
Christine Drummond, the dog-food company owner who made the offer, insisted that the freeze-dried meat powder she wants to send is not dog food, but a new, separately manufactured nutritional supplement that can be mixed with water and tastes "yummy."
On the streets of Nairobi, the offer has been condemned as "insulting" and "racist." Some Kenyans said they would sooner starve than eat a product derived from Drummond's Mighty Mix dog biscuits.
If the powder is so delicious, they suggest, it should be fed to New Zealand children.
"Our children aren't puppies, madam," blared a headline in Kenya's Nation newspaper, where furious readers sent letters of protest.
[Last modified February 2, 2006, 02:15:36]
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