Cartoons pose new threat to trade

Politicians in Jordan are calling for trade with New Zealand to be cancelled and trade with other Islamic countries may be in jeopardy as the fallout from the Muhammad cartoons intensifies.

Jordanian news agencies are reporting that most of the country's 110-member Parliament have demanded their Government cancel trade agreements and ban imports from New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and other nations where the drawings have been published.

If the Jordanian Cabinet fails to meet the demands, lawmakers say they will call for a vote of confidence in the 24-member Cabinet of Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit.

Iran is also reviewing its trade relationship with New Zealand and other countries where the cartoons have been published and has cut all trade links with Denmark, where the cartoons first ran.

Danish products have either been withdrawn or boycotted across much of the Middle East.

Today Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials will meet the Iranian ambassador, Kambiz Sheikh-Hassani, to try to salvage New Zealand's trade arrangements with Iran, which were worth $76 million over the past 12 months.

New Zealand exports to Jordan were worth $70 million.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said New Zealand was watching its diplomatic posts "very, very carefully".

"There are signs of it being reported fairly prominently, but at this stage we haven't had any official reaction."

Tensions over the cartoons - one of which shows Muhammad with a turban resembling a bomb - continue to intensify in Asia and the Middle East, where embassies have been torched and protests have erupted.

Helen Clark again criticised the decision of some New Zealand media - the Dominion Post in Wellington, the Press in Christchurch, TVNZ and TV3 - to publish the cartoons, saying it was "particularly ill-judged".

"It is not an issue of right of free speech, we enjoy that here. It is an issue of what will this do to our country? If I were an exporter of primary produce that faces the loss of contracts, I would be feeling very, very angry."

Helen Clark said the ramifications - including a risk to New Zealand troops in Afghanistan - had been pointed out to the Dominion Post before it published the cartoons on Saturday.

"But the Dominion said there were higher principles involved. I am struggling to search for them."

Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst declined to comment.

At yesterday's meeting with Mr Sheikh-Hassani, Trade Minister Phil Goff said New Zealand officials would explain that although there is freedom to publish the cartoons in New Zealand, the Government did not condone the action.

"Any offence that is taken we obviously regret. We hope at this stage that it will have no significant impact in terms of consequences for trade, but we can't rule out that."

Fonterra has become the first New Zealand company to bear the brunt of Muslim ire overseas.

It had initially distanced itself from boycotted Danish products, publishing advertisements in Middle East newspapers emphasising the New Zealand origins of its line of Anchor milk powders.

But it had apparently already been burned - even before the cartoons appeared in New Zealand - by emailed lists which suggested it sold products made of Danish milk, or that some of its Saudi-owned customers had Danish connections.

Fonterra would not comment on any impact the publication of the cartoons in New Zealand might have on it.

Danish dairy company Arla Foods - Fonterra's partner in its British butter market - has had to close its factory in Riyadh after numerous Middle Eastern supermarkets asked for its products to be taken away.

Before that, Arla was the leading Danish exporter to Saudi Arabia, where it had been selling an estimated $474 million worth of products annually.

The Auckland-based Pakistan Association, meanwhile, is drafting letters to the Governments of 52 Muslim countries urging them not to boycott New Zealand goods.

After the violent protests at Danish embassies in the Middle East, police in Auckland were not taking any chances when two "unexpected" packages bearing Iranian postal marks were dropped off at the Danish trade commission office in downtown Auckland.

About 200 people were evacuated from the 15-storey building and police cordoned off half of Quay St for about three hours, causing traffic disruption.

The packages turned out to contain trade samples of chewing gum from Europe that had come through Iran.

Bomb experts x-rayed the packages before opening them.

Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres has organised a meeting in Wellington today between media decision-makers - including the editors of the Dominion Post and the Press and representatives from TVNZ and TV3 - and religious leaders from Muslim, Catholic and Jewish faiths.

It would focus on how freedom of speech is exercised.