KUALA LUMPUR, February 8, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - With fury over the cartoon controversy continuing to rage across the Muslim world, Malaysia said Wednesday, February 8, it was to host a conference on dialogue between the Muslim world and the West starting Friday, February 10.

Organized by the Malaysian Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in Kuala Lumpur, the two-day conference on "Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?" will feature prominent speakers including former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, according to Malaysia's News Agency Bernama.

The conference, to be opened by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, will bring together 60 leaders from the Muslim world, the United States, Europe and other Western countries.

Along with Khatami, senior government officials, religious and civil society leaders, scholars, policy experts, legislators, eminent journalists and leaders from non-governmental organizations will take part in the congress.

"We will discuss ways to dispel mutual misperceptions through the media, the impact of globalization on the Muslim world and the challenges posed by science and technology," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We need to promote greater understanding between Islam and the West," he said.

Delegates will also discuss how policymakers can develop policies to ensure that globalization benefits Muslims and diffuse Muslim grievances towards the West.

Syed Hamid said that the controversial caricatures depicting Prophet Muhammad was an example of "abuse of freedom because of a lack of understanding" of Islam.

"Freedom does not mean that you can touch on sensitivity of others," he said, pointing out that images of the Prophet were "abhorrent" and forbidden in Islam but that this might not be widely known outside the Muslim world.

Twelve cartoons of a man said to be the Prophet, first published last September by Denmark's mass-circulation Jyllands-Posten and then reprinted by several European dailies, have caused an uproar in the Muslim world.

The drawings included portrayals of a man said to be the Prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.

The cartoons caused massive protests and triggered boycotts of Danish products across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Muslims protesting against the cartoons set fire to the Danish consulate in Beirut on Sunday and Syrian protesters did the same with the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus a day earlier.

Pakistani Christians protest against the publication of cartoons in Lahore. (Reuters)

Protests in Pakistan continued over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) as thousands of protesters burned an effigy of US President George W. Bush in a remote Pakistani tribal area Wednesday.

Around 3,000 demonstrators in Dara Adamkhel, which is near the Afghan border, accused Bush of being behind the caricatures, reported AFP.

Pakistan's government should sever all diplomatic ties with Denmark and launch a social and economic boycott of the countries where the cartoons were reprinted, Said Wazir, the leader of a local Islamic group called Quami Tehreek, told the crowd.

Pakistani Christians also protested against the publication of cartoons during a rally in Lahore.

Separately in Pakistan's central city of Multan, traders went on strike in protest against the cartoons.