Denmark`s supreme court Wednesday ruled illegal the detention without trial of one of two Tunisians held for allegedly plotting to kill a cartoonist who satirised the Prophet Mohammed.

Denmark`s supreme court Wednesday ruled illegal the detention without trial of one of two Tunisians held for allegedly plotting to kill a cartoonist who satirised the Prophet Mohammed.

MALE, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - The Maldives has begun a crackdown on Islamic militant groups in an effort to prevent international terror networks from setting up cells here, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom told AFP.

The president said a small minority of the Indian Ocean archipelago's 330,000 Sunni Muslims had begun preaching an extremist form of Islam that could affect the peaceful image of the popular tourist destination.

LONDON, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of British Muslims gathered Sunday evening for a charity peace concert dubbed 'Muslim Live 8' to raise money for victims of Sudan's long-running Darfur conflict.

The concert, starring top Islamic singer Sami Yusuf, was backed by the British government which is spearheading efforts to press the Sudanese government to stop violence in the western province.

The event at London's Wembley Arena, called A Concert for Peace in Darfur, also aims to promote efforts to unite the community amid widespread suspicion of Islam in Britain.

LONDON, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Sami Yusuf, star of a Muslim charity concert for Darfur Sunday, sings to the glory of Allah, but insists he is not a religious artist.

Largely unknown here in the country where he grew up, the 27-year-old has become a huge star in the Muslim world, selling millions of records, and dubbed 'Islam's biggest rock star' by Time magazine.

On Sunday evening he was topping the bill at A Concert for Peace in Darfur at London's Wembley Arena, dubbed a 'Muslim Live 8' by some commentators after the anti-poverty global charity concerts in July 2005.

LONDON, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown voiced support Sunday as British Muslims gathered for a peace concert in London focused notably on the bloody conflict in Darfur.

Tens of thousands were expected at the concert, dubbed a 'Muslim Live 8' by some, which also aims to promote efforts to unite the community amid widespread suspicion of Islam in Britain.

MALE, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - A rise in Islamic militancy poses an unprecedented threat to the Maldives' status as South Asia's most upmarket holiday destination, but the government is determined to beat the extremists.

The first concrete sign of trouble in the archipelago traditionally seen as the holiday-maker's paradise came last month, when 12 foreign tourists including a honeymooning British couple were wounded in a bomb attack.

BERLIN, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Members of a German neo-Nazi party demonstrated Saturday in Frankfurt against the construction of a mosque in an area which already has two Islamic shrines.

About 200 people marched shouting 'Stop the Islamisation of Germany,' said Joerg Krebs, a spokesman for the local branch of the NPD, a neo-Nazi party.

'We don't want a big mosque in Hausen,' a Frankfurt quarter, 'as there are already two mosques.'

LONDON, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - A peace concert in London Sunday aims to focus British Muslims on the bloody conflict in Darfur but also symbolises efforts to unite the community amid widespread suspicion of Islam here, organisers say.

'This is really something monumental, it has never been done before,' said Sami Yusuf, a 27-year-old British star who often sings about Islam and is due to top the bill at Wembley Arena in north-west London.

COPENHAGEN, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch deputy who became a target of Islamic extremists, on Friday hit out at the government of The Netherlands for refusing to pay for her protection in the United States.

It was not a question of money, but of principle, said Hirst Ali in Friday's edition of the Danish daily in Jyllands-Posten.

'It costs less to pay an American company to protect me than to assure my safety in the Netherlands, because the threat there (the Netherlands) is a lot more real,' she told the paper.