A cartoon casualty

Stockholm

Laila Freivalds, Sweden’s foreign minister, resigned this week over a dust-up involving the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Freivalds was widely condemned for shutting down a Web site that had posted the Danish cartoons that have outraged Muslims in Europe and abroad. Foreign Ministry officials had ordered the Internet service provider to close the site, which is run by a far-right Swedish political party. Freivalds was already unpopular for her slow response last year to the Asian tsunami, which killed 550 vacationing Swedes.