Muhammed Cartoon Insanity Continues

* KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO peacekeepers exchanged fire with protesters who attacked their base Tuesday in the second straight day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Afghan officials said. One demonstrator was killed and dozens wounded. In neighboring Pakistan, 5,000 people chanting "Hang the man who insulted the prophet" burned effigies of one cartoonist and Denmark's prime minister. And a prominent Iranian newspaper said it was going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust in reaction to European newspapers publishing the prophet drawings. The NATO troops, most of them Norwegian, fired on hundreds of protesters outside the base in Maymana after the demonstrators shot at them and threw grenades, said provincial Gov. Mohammed Latif. The protesters also burned an armored vehicle, a U.N. car and guard posts, prompting NATO peacekeepers to rush British reinforcements to the city.Maymana Hospital said one protester was shot dead and six were wounded, while some 50 others were hurt by tear gas the peacekeepers used to disperse the demonstrators. One Norwegian soldier was injured by a splinter from a grenade, while another was hurt by a flying rock. Two Finnish soldiers were also hurt, Sverre Diesen, the Norwegian military commander, told reporters in Oslo.

* Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the West's publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons was an Israeli conspiracy motivated by anger over the victory of the militant Hamas group in the Palestinian elections last month. "The West condemns any denial of the Jewish holocaust, but it permits the insult of Islamic sanctities," Khamenei said.
On a lighter note - Iran'slargest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed."It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper - which is published by Teheran's conservative municipality. He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression. "The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons," he said.