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.

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

French security sources said some of the rioters, believed to be mainly anarchists dedicated to bringing down the western system, had been carrying loaded guns when police arrested them.

Stras

Strasbourg, France  - NATO leaders meeting in Strasbourg on Saturday resolved a potentially embarrassing rift by picking Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new secretary general, outgoing NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

"Every state and government believed that Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the man to lead NATO and the 28 members through the 21st century," said de Hoop Scheffer, who is to step down on July 31.

Turkish opposition to Rasmussen had threatened to overshadow a summit celebrating the 60th anniversary of NATO's founding.