Many national leaders condemned the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but few ventured any public advice to Pakistan's leaders on how to deal with potentially explosive passions unleashed by the terrorist strike.

IF only Muslim leaders had been as vociferous about the plight of the people of Darfur as they have been about the Pope’s recent speech, then the lives of many of their fellow Muslims could have been saved.

Turks have today demanded Pope Benedict XVI make amends over comments on Islam that enraged Muslims before visiting the predominantly Muslim country in November.

Pope Benedict XVI’s expression of regret following his remarks on Islam and violence is acceptable, but the pontiff should avoid making future comments that could offend Muslims, Malaysia’s prime minister has said.

Islamic countries today asked the UN Human Rights Council to examine the question of religious tolerance, saying that Pope Benedict’s remarks on Islam threaten to alienate Muslims from the West.

The Vatican has scrambled to defend the Pope after a top Turkish cleric asked him to apologise for his comments on Islamic holy war.

LAST week the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for the destruction of Israel.

Muslim leaders demanded an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah yesterday at an emergency meeting in Malaysia, where Iran’s hard-line president said the solution was the obliteration of the Jewish state.

The Islamic world’s biggest bloc today demanded that the United Nations implement an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and investigate what it called flagrant human rights violations by Israel.

The Islamic world’s biggest bloc today demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and a role for Muslims in a UN peacekeeping force, stressing that a slow end to Israel’s warfare could drown chances for lasting peace.

Hundreds of anti-US protesters today broke through a protective police cordon and marched to the entrance of a convention centre in Kuala Lumpur where US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was meeting with other foreign ministers.

Iran’s president today said his country would not surrender its “inalienable rights” to have a nuclear programme, which the West fears is geared toward making atomic bombs.

Iran’s foreign minister today called on Muslim countries to give money to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority after threats of funding cuts by the United States and Israel.

Malaysia’s leader today warned of a “huge chasm” between Muslims and the West, as thousands of people took to the streets in Asia for the largest demonstrations yet in the Prophet Mohammed cartoons row.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today accused a local newspaper and foreign publications of being insensitive for reprinting Danish caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.

THE European Union has demanded that all Islamic states offer adequate protection to European citizens and property in case of further violent demonstrations over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has again cast doubt on the Holocaust and called on Muslim nations to take a proactive stand on the Palestinian issue.

Leaders and ministers of more than 50 Muslim countries urged their nations to fight terrorism and called for moderation within Islam, as they opened a summit yesterday in a palace overlooking Islam’s holiest shrine.

Countries and other donors told the United Nations today they were pledging an additional £300m (€440m) for Pakistani earthquake victims, but UN officials said it was unclear how much was going to combined emergency relief efforts.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan warned that a second “massive wave of death” would hit Pakistani areas most affected by the mammoth earthquake unless the international community stepped up the relief effort immediately.

Fear and suspicion of Muslims have increased in the European Union since the September 11 attacks, and deserve as much attention as anti-Semitism, a British imam told an international conference on racial and religious intolerance.

Four people were shot to death today in clashes with police as protests over allegations that interrogators in Guantanamo Bay desecrated Islam’s holy book spread to more Afghan cities, officials and witnesses said.

World leaders meeting in Egypt today focused on Israel, the Palestinians and what is seen as a chance to jump start the peace process, before shifting focus to Iraq.

World leaders meeting in Egypt focused on Israel, the Palestinians and what is seen as a chance to jump start the stalled peace process today, with plans to shift the focus to another Mideast hotspot – Iraq – later in the day.

Malaysia’s largest Islamic opposition party denounced the Thai government today after 85 Muslims died during a military crackdown on protesters in the country’s south.

The world’s largest Islamic organisation pledged today to “actively help” Iraq in its transition to sovereignty and democracy – support that could help lift the Iraqi interim government’s stature and give a key boost to US policy in the war-torn country.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today urged the Britain and the US to take swift and stern measures to prevent any of their soldiers from abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Activists in three of Asia’s main Muslim countries today decried US and British forces’ alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners as a “despicable” show of Western hatred toward Muslims, and demanded that the coalition leave Iraq immediately.

The Palestinian leadership today tried to rally world opinion after President George Bush backed the Israeli premier’s move to hang on to territory seized in war.

THE biggest summit of Islamic leaders in three years opened yesterday with calls for the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims to unite against “a few million Jews” who allegedly rule the world and get others to fight and die for them.

The biggest summit of Islamic leaders in three years opened today with calls for the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims to unite against “a few million Jews” who allegedly rule the world and get others to fight and die for them.

Two more American soldiers were killed and three were wounded in two incidents in northern Iraq, the US military said.

A summit of Muslim leaders from around the world degenerated into chaos today as an Iraqi official hurled insults at his Kuwaiti counterpart.

ISLAMIC leaders will gather in Qatar tomorrow Wednesday for an emergency summit in yet another 11th-hour bid by a regional organisation to convince the US to forgo plans to invade and occupy Iraq.

IRAQ poured scorn on the United Arab Emirates yesterday for urging Saddam Hussein to go into exile, but the small Persian Gulf state pressed on seeking support for the proposal, calling it the only way to avert war.

The European Union has told the United Nations Human Rights Commission that its priority for the coming year is to promote the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.

Representatives of more than 50 Islamic countries have asked the UN to investigate the deaths of hundreds of foreign captives in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, today called for a UN peacekeeping mission made up of Muslim nations to deploy in Kabul and said Turkey and Pakistan could contribute.

A newspaper owned by a son of Saddam Hussein has sung the praises of Osama bin Laden - signalling a shift in the Iraqi Government’s attitude to the United States’ No 1 enemy.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrived in Athens today to attend a governing socialist party convention and meet with Greek political leaders.