Strasbourg, France - Efforts to appoint a new NATO chief appeared doomed Saturday after Turkey refused to soften its opposition to the frontrunner, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussens, Turkish diplomats said.

Turkish officials said "no agreement" had been reached during a meeting in Strasbourg and predicted that talks on the issue would only resume after the summit in France.

US President Barack Obama and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi were among those piling pressure on Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to change their minds.

Paris, April 4 : A meticulous analysis of data has allowed astronomers to investigate the initial phases of a giant stellar explosion, which led to the ejection of matter at velocities close to the speed of light.

On 19 December 2004, the blast from an exploding star arrived at Earth.

ESA's (European Space Agency's) Integral satellite, an orbiting gamma-ray observatory, recorded the entire event, providing information for what may prove to be one of the most important gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) seen in recent years.

Strasbourg, France  - Groups of anti-NATO protesters skirmished with police in central Strasbourg on Saturday as the leaders of the 28-member alliance prepared to meet for a summit celebrating its 60th anniversary.

Ironically singing "Happy Birthday, NATO" and waving rainbow-coloured banners, the young demonstrators were met by teargas canisters fired by groups of police officers in riot gear.

Some 10,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed in and around the city, whose downtown districts were otherwise as deserted as a ghost town.

Strasbourg, France/Baden-Baden, Germany  - Police used teargas to contain hundreds of demonstrators who tried early Saturday to reach central Strasbourg as the NATO summit was set to resume.

Leaders of the protesters said several thousand of them would be mobilised to try to disrupt the meeting, which is celebrating the alliance's 60th anniversary.

A major demonstration was planned for later Saturday in Strasbourg, where already Friday French police used teargas to drive back demonstrators who tried to push through a police cordon.

Strasbourg, France/Baden-Baden, Germany  - Turkey vetoed Friday the appointment of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the next NATO secretary general, souring the start of the alliance's 60th anniversary summit in France and Germany.

"We either have consensus or we don't ... and we have no consensus yet," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai when asked whether heads of state and government had reached a deal on the successor to the current chief, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Strasbourg, France  - French police used tear gas Friday to drive back demonstrators who tried to push through a police cordon in Strasbourg in a second day of protests against the NATO summit.

Police said the militants had dressed as clowns, kissed police officers' hands and tickled officer's faces with feather dusters in an effort to make the riot police look foolish.

The protesters are a loose alliance of communists, anarchists, pacifists and radical feminists who consider the alliance evil.