Obama lands in Madrid for abbreviated visit to Spain

Obama condemned the shooting of the black males, in Minnesota and Louisiana, then the police shootings, saying Friday from Poland: “There is no possible justification for these kinds of attacks or any violence against law enforcement”.

US President Barack Obama said on Saturday he expected Britain to go through with leaving the European Union after last month’s referendum and was concerned to limit the damage to the British, European and global economies from the move.

Costing about one billion euros ($1.2 billion), the new building will house all the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation administrative apparatus, plus offices for the 28 member nations and the alliance’s partner countries.

“So as tough, as hard, as depressing as the loss of life was this week, we’ve got a foundation to build on”, Obama said. “Americans to a large degree want to make sure that we have a police force that is supported, because they know our police officers do a really tough, unsafe job”.

America is “not as divided as some have suggested”, President Barack Obama said Saturday, after a “painful” week of police shootings of black men across the nation and an ambush on the Dallas Police Department.

Obama said USA history was not repeating itself, and rejected the notion that a 1960s-style mindset had returned. “You have not seen riots, and you have not seen police going after people who are protesting peacefully”.

Obama will head to Spain later Saturday, the last stop on an overseas trip he cut short after the deadly attack that killed five police officers and injured seven others Thursday night. He plans to visit Dallas early next week, and called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from Air Force One on his way to Spain to offer his condolences on behalf of the American people, the White House said. He said the “empathy and understanding” that Americans have shown in responding to the events of the past few days, including Dallas police officers as they came under attack, had given him hope.

Nonetheless, “the issue of guns” desperately needs to be addressed, Obama said in his hour-long comments, vowing to “keep on talking about guns” until Congress passes anti-gun laws. Authorities identified the shooter as 25-year-old Micah Johnson, an Army veteran who, before he was killed in a standoff, said he wanted to target white officers.

For Obama, it was yet another example of his struggle to balance his symbolic stature as the first African-American president and the realities of a country still struggling with issues of race. “To encourage people to listen to each other”. “And somebody else maybe sits under the shade of the tree that we planted”. Officials said he stressed the importance of finding a solution that could stabilize markets quickly.

“What will never change (is) the unwavering commitment of the United States to the security and defense of Europe, of our transatlantic relationship and the commitment to our common defense”, he said.

And none of these attacks indicate that the US has slipped backwards in progress toward racial unity, he continued.