Denmark to launch PR campaign after cartoon controversy

From the AP:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Denmark will launch a "massive" campaign to improve its global image, which was tattered after a Danish newspaper published caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the prime minister said Friday.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the campaign was not initiated because of the cartoon crisis but that the uproar had given it additional impetus.

"We would have done so anyway. But the cartoon crisis has, of course, underlined the necessity of a reinforced marketing campaign," he said.

The Danish government said it wants to attract more foreign investors, students and tourists to the country. It would market Denmark as a "creative and open nation, as a nation of education," Fogh Rasmussen said, without giving details.

He noted a report published Wednesday by the Economist Intelligence Unit forecasting that the Danish business climate will remain the best in the world for the next five years.

The Danish government has been criticized by Muslim countries for not apologizing for the cartoons published in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on Sept. 30. The government says it cannot be held responsible for the actions of Denmark's independent media.

The cartoons were reprinted in newspapers worldwide in January and February, sparking a wave of protests primarily in Islamic countries. Muslims consider any physical representation of Islam's prophet to be blasphemous.