Spain

ETA threatens with new attacks to force Spain to negotiate

Bilbao, Spain - Several political parties in Spain's northern Basque region on Thursday criticized the militant Basque separatist group ETA, which threatened with new attacks to force the government to negotiate with it.

ETA would not stay with its "arms crossed" but maintain a "resistance against repression," the group said in a communique made public by the Basque newspaper Gara on Wednesday.

ETA said it was convinced that Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government would resume the attempt at negotiations it abandoned in December 2006 after ETA violated its ceasefire with a car bombing, killing two people at Madrid airport.

Spain rejects bin Laden son's asylum request

Omar bin LadenMadrid - The Spanish Interior Ministry has rejected a request for political asylum by Omar bin Laden, one of the 19 children of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, media reported Thursday.

The 27-year-old son of Osama bin Laden had argued that he did not feel safe in any Arab country.

Spain based its rejection partly on a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Interior Ministry sources were quoted as saying.

Nobel winner Saramago urges Obama to close Guantanamo

Barack ObamaMadrid  - Nobel Literature laureate Portuguese author Jose Saramago on Wednesday urged

Spain expected to reject bin Laden son's asylum request

Omar bin LadenMadrid - Spain is likely to reject an application for political asylum lodged by Omar bin Laden, one of the 19 children of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the daily El Pais reported Wednesday.

Omar bin Laden, 27, requested asylum at Madrid airport on Monday.

His plane made a stopover in Madrid while flying from Cairo to Casablanca in Morocco.

Bin Laden argued that he did not feel safe in Saudi Arabia, which he is a citizen of, or in Egypt, where he lives, or in any other Arab country.

Spain investigates killing of captain on Italian freighter

Santiago de Compostela, Spain  - Spanish police were Wednesday investigating the killing of the captain of an Italian freighter off north-western Spain, police said.

Spain's blacks hail Obama's "symbolic" victory

barack obamaMadrid  - Representatives of Spain's black community Wednesday hailed US president-elect Barack Obama's victory as changing the perception the world had of black people.

"This totally changes the vision" that people have of "the capacity of the black community," said Luis Alberto Alarcon, an Afro-Colombian activist who lives in Madrid.

Obama's election as US president proved that blacks could reach the highest levels whenever "the political context allows them to move forward," Alarcon, who heads the Spanish section of the ecologist Life Foundation, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

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