Strasbourg, France  - Rioters set fire to a five-storey hotel and other buildings in Strasbourg Saturday as left-wing protests against a NATO summit in the French city turned violent.

Fire also gutted a pharmacy, a nearby tourist information office and a disused French customs post in the city near the German border.

Police said 10,000 people had demonstrated against NATO on the French side, most of them peacefully. But because of the mayhem, police scotched plans for another 6,000 activists from the German side to march over the border bridge and join the main rally.

Strasbourg, France  - Many demonstrators came to march for peace, but instead there was violence as masked rioters unleashed an orgy of destruction in Strasbourg on Saturday, burning a hotel, a tourist bureau and a pharmacy.

The scene, the approaches to the Pont de l'Europe road bridge, was just a couple of hundred metres away from a footbridge over the Rhine River where President Nicolas Sarkozy had welcomed the other 27 leaders of NATO to a summit Saturday.

Smiles in the morning. Grim skirmishing in the afternoon.

Strasbourg, France  - Hours of wrangling, and the crucial mediation of US President Barack Obama, allowed NATO to pick a new secretary general and prevent the alliance from suffering an embarassing blow to its image on its 60th birthday.

In the end, the summit's 28 heads of state and government agreed that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the right man to replace Jaap de Hoop Scheffer when he steps down at the end of July.

Strasbourg, France - At its 60th birthday celebration in France and Germany, which ended Saturday, NATO welcomed US President Barack Obama, seated two new members and took strides toward sharing the load in its war against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The alliance also narrowly avoided a major embarrassment when Turkey agreed, at the last moment, to the appointment of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as its new secretary general.

Strasbourg, France  - US President Barack Obama travelled to Europe for a NATO summit with a rather long wish list of contributions he would like to see Washington's allies make in their faltering war against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

He left the two-day meeting celebrating the alliance's 60th birthday trying to convince others - and perhaps himself - that he got what he wished for.

"This was not a pledging conference," he told journalists in Strasbourg on Saturday after the summit ended, "and yet we received the kind of commitments that you usually don't get at meetings like this."

Strasbourg, France  - United States President Barack Obama on Saturday brokered a deal with Turkey, which assured the appointment of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's next secretary general.

"Rasmussen is an outstanding public servant, somebody with an extraordinary reputation," Obama said at the end of a two-day summit of alliance leaders in France and Germany.