Berlin - Environmentalists plan to continue their resistance to a mega-bridge crossing the strait between Denmark and Germany despite the signing of a treaty to forge ahead with the project, a nature-protection group, NABU, said Wednesday.

They fear migrating birds will thud into the towers of the 19- kilometre suspension bridge while the piers will slow the flow of water through the Fehmarn Belt into the Baltic Sea.

Replacing car ferries that depart half-hourly round the clock will take about an hour off the 4.5-hour, straight-line motorway drive from the Danish capital Copenhagen to the German city of Hamburg.

Copenhagen/Berlin - "The Fehmarn Strait bridge is coming," proclaimed German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, referring to a 19-kilometre Baltic Sea link between Germany and Denmark.

To make sure it does, Tiefensee is scheduled to travel to Copenhagen on Wednesday to ink the final agreement together with his Danish counterpart, Carina Christensen.

Copenhagen - One of two Tunisian nationals held on suspicion of planning to murder a Danish newspaper cartoonist has voluntarily left Denmark, his lawyer said Friday.

The two Tunisians were arrested in February after the Danish security and intelligence service PET said it had uncovered a plot to murder cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

Westergaard's controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was one of 12 images published in September 2005 by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. They sparked worldwide violent protests in 2006 and Danish companies were boycotted in many Muslim countries.

The two suspects faced deportation to Tunisia as threats to state security.

Copenhagen - An Iraqi interpreter, who was recently granted asylum in Denmark, has opted to return to Iraq instead of divorcing one of his two wives, reports said Tuesday.

"It was a difficult decision for them, but now they have left to see how things are in Basra," lawyer Marianne Volund told the Nyhedsavisen newspaper.

The interpreter was among the 200 Iraqis including family members offered asylum when Denmark last year withdrew its troops from southern Iraq.

Iraqi interpreters and others who have served with foreign organizations or allied forces have often been targeted by militant groups.

Amman - The Danish cartoonist who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed three years ago which sparked worldwide protests by Muslims and a boycott of Danish products said he was ready to defend himself in an Amman court, Jordanian media reported Thursday.

"I would like to go to Amman to stand trial. However, what I fear is that I would be convicted in advance," Kurt Westergaard told the Jordan Times in an interview that was conducted in Copenhagen earlier this week.

On June 3, Amman Prosecutor Hassan Abdullat subpoenaed Westergaard and 20 other Danish journalists and editors involved in the republication of the 12 controversial images that were originally published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

Copenhagen  - A majority of Danish voters oppose abolishing the country's opt-out on justice and home affairs from the European Union, according to a poll published Tuesday.

Denmark joined the bloc in 1973, but obtained opt-outs that include security and defence policy, justice and home affairs and the euro after voters initially rejected the Maastricht Treaty in a 1992 referendum.

A majority of voters - 39.4 per cent - opposed scrapping the opt- out on justice and home affairs while 30.1 per cent were in favour of dropping it, the survey by polling institute Catinet Research suggested.

The remaining 30.5 per cent of the 1,070 people surveyed were undecided according to the poll commissioned by Danish news agency Ritzau.