Krakow, Poland - The Afghan army is leading an increasing number of counter-insurgency operations, but NATO needs to provide it with far more trainers if it is to meet its target of expanding to 134,000 by 2010, alliance officials said Thursday.

"We are frankly not where we had hoped to be by now," Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the NATO defence ministers meeting in Krakow, Poland.

Washington/Ottawa  - US President Barack Obama arrived Thursday in Ottawa on his first foreign visit, where he was greeted at the airport by Governor General Michaelle Jean.

The pair made a striking image, bringing home the message of racial change in North America, as both leaders are black.

Obama was to travel to Parliament Hill, where he is to be greeted in the rotunda by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Vienna - Iran has slowed down expanding its uranium enrichment programme, but the country still is not cooperating fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), a report by the organization said Thursday.

The report by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei showed that since last November, only 164 additional centrifuges have started producing low-enriched uranium. Currently,
3936 such machines were operating, the report said.

Miami  - The king and queen of Spain will visit Florida Thursday to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the first Spanish settlement in Pensacola, believed to be among the earliest European colonies in the United States.

King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, who will be in the US after a state visit to Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, haven't elicited much media interest.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was publicly non-committal Wednesday over Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's reported interest in becoming secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Rasmussen, who visited her in Berlin, has been described in the news media as a candidate to succeed Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as the highest official of the alliance from August this year.

New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit several African nations starting next week, including South Africa and Tanzania for the first time since he assumed the UN leadership in 2007, the UN said Wednesday.

Ban will also attend the March 2 international conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt organized to support the Palestinian people in and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

The conference will be co-chaired by Egypt and Norway.