Madrid - 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.

Madrid  - Nobel Literature laureate Portuguese author Jose Saramago on Wednesday urged

Madrid - 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.

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

Madrid  - 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.

Madrid  - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday hailed the victory of US president-elect Barack Obama as opening the way for "more positive" bilateral relations.

Madrid would be a "friend and faithful ally" of Washington, said the Socialist premier, whose decision to recall Spanish troops from Iraq led to a cooling of relations with the administration of outgoing President George W Bush in 2004.