EL ALBERTO, Mexico, Oct 9, 2008 (AFP) - Sirens wailed through the chill night air as a group of Mexicans stumbled down a country road, crouching in the grass among rats and snakes to escape the flashlights of border patrol agents.

'Quick, run, don't stop,' people traffickers whispered, pushing their charges down a rocky bank to huddle together in the dark.

WASHINGTON, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Slovakia and the United States signed a bilateral agreement in Washington on Wednesday that paves the way for Slovaks to visit the United States without first procuring a visa.

VATICAN CITY, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday urged Catholics to work in wide-ranging ways to help immigrants and refugees, in a message prepared for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

OTTAWA, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Another US war resister was ordered to leave Canada on Wednesday or face deportation by the end of the month, a support group said on its website.

SYDNEY, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - The Australian Navy has detained 17 suspected asylum seekers at sea just a week after a boatload of Afghans, Iranians and Indonesians was intercepted off the country's coast, officials said Tuesday.

ATHENS, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Greek police arrested 10,659 clandestine would-be immigrants trying to enter the country in the first nine months of this year, the country's merchant marine ministry said Tuesday.

Border guards were involved in 648 cases of illegal arrivals and arrested 173 people-traffickers and seized 137 ships and 11 vehicles, a ministry statement said.

ISTANBUL, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Turkish authorities said they found the bodies of 10 suspected illegal immigrants washed up in the north-west of the country, Anatolia news agency reported Tuesday.

The bodies of eight men, a woman and a child were discovered on the coast along the Gulf of Saros, according to local official Adnan Cakiroglu.

ROME, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Italy's anti-immigration Northern League, a main ally of conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on Tuesday proposed a point system for immigrants' residency permits.

'This permit would work on the same principle as a driver's licence with points,' Northern League Senator Lorenzo Bodega told AFP.

The European Union's first African immigration information centre, set
up to warn of the risks of illegal immigration, was officially opened
in the Malian capital Bamako on Monday.

ATHENS, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Greek port police said Monday they found the bodies of seven suspected illegal immigrants who likely drowned when their boat sank northwest of Greece, near Turkey.

Police recovered the first of the bodies, all male, on Thursday near the Greek port of Alexandroupolis. Three were found Monday morning, the merchant marine ministry said.

DAKAR, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Mali's president stood side-by-side with top officials from France and the European Union at the opening Monday of the EU's first African immigration information centre.

ANKARA, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Eighteen people died when a truck carrying illegal immigrants veered off the road and fell into a ditch in northwestern Turkey Sunday, a local official told the Anatolia news agency.

Twenty-three others were injured in the accident near the town of Malkara, Tekirdag province, governor Aydin Nezih Dogan said.

NAPLES, Italy, Oct 4, 2008 (AFP) - Paratroopers armed with assault rifles patrolled a mafia stronghold in southern Italy on Saturday in a government show of force following mafia-linked bloodshed last month.

ROME, Oct 3, 2008 (AFP) - Some 500 paratroopers will deploy to the Naples area at the weekend to join the fight against the local Camorra mafia, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Friday.

ROME, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - Italian authorities have picked up around 51 illegal immigrants, mostly Tunisians, travelling in a sailing boat off the Sicilian coast, local police said Wednesday.

The passengers called for help after their 16-metre (52.4 feet) vessel was damaged in the Sicilian Channel, the strait which separates the Italian coast from Africa.

CASERTA, Italy, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Police made nearly 30 new arrests in the Naples area Tuesday as part of a crackdown on the Camorra mafia following the killings of an Italian businessman and six African immigrants.

LOS CRISTIANOS, Spain, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Nearly 230 African boat people were taken to Spain's Canary Islands after authorities rescued them at sea, in the largest immigrant landing in two years, officials said Tuesday.

ROME, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Police carried out dozens of arrests in the Naples area Tuesday as part of a crackdown on the Camorra mafia following the killings of an Italian businessman and six African immigrants.

LOS CRISTIANOS, Spain, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Some 230 African migrants were taken to Spain's Canary Islands after authorities rescued them at sea in the biggest-ever landing here of a single ship, officials said Tuesday.

ROME, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Three members of the local Camorra mafia were arrested Tuesday near the southern Italian city of Naples over the September 18 murder of six Africans, police said.

ROME, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Three suspects in the September 18 killings of six Africans and an Italian in the Naples area, blamed on the local Camorra mafia, were arrested Tuesday near the southern Italian city, police told AFP.

They were among about 30 members of the Camorra's powerful Casalesi clan who were arrested in the sweep, police said.

ROME, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Police made nearly 30 new arrests in the Naples area Tuesday as part of a crackdown on the Camorra mafia following the killings of an Italian businessman and six African immigrants.

LOS CRISTIANOS, Spain, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Some 230 African migrants were taken to Spain's Canary Islands after authorities rescued them at sea in the biggest-ever landing here of a single ship, officials said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - US immigration officials on Monday announced moves to ease and speed up visa-processing for HIV-positive visitors to the United States, months after a 21-year entry ban on people with the virus was lifted.

ROME, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Investigators seized assets worth 10 million euros (14 million dollars) belonging to a suspect in the killings this month of an Italian and six Africans in southern Italy, the ANSA news agency reported.

DUBAI, Sept 28, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of people, mostly Filipinos, are awaiting renewal of their visas for the United Arab Emirates on the Iranian island of Kish or the Omani town of Buraimi, Dubai newspapers reported on Sunday.

The Khaleej Times and Gulf News said the cause of the backlog is a change made in July to the rules for renewing United Arab Emirate visas.

BRUSSELS, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - EU interior ministers were set Thursday to endorse a new 'Blue Card' scheme aimed at attracting highly skilled workers to Europe, and adopt new guidelines for managing immigration.

CASTEL VOLTURNO, Italy, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - Twin attacks blamed on the Camorra mafia that left six Africans and an Italian dead last week has highlighted the 'hell' that immigrants say they face in this small city wracked by crime and poor living conditions.

BRUSSELS, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - EU interior ministers endorsed Thursday sweeping new guidelines for managing immigration, but struggled to agree on a Blue Card scheme aimed at attracting highly skilled workers to Europe.

VALLETTA, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - Malta on Thursday hailed an immigration pact agreed by EU interior ministers in Brussels that will help small member states deal with influxes of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, a report said.

BRUSSELS, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - EU interior ministers endorsed Thursday sweeping new guidelines for managing immigration, and closed in on agreement on a Blue Card scheme aimed at attracting highly skilled workers to Europe.

EL-ARISH, Egypt, Sept 24, 2008 (AFP) - Israeli soldiers have killed an Egyptian smuggler who had sneaked across the border, a security official told AFP on Wednesday.

Suleiman Sweilam Suleiman, 26, was killed 'earlier this week' by the Israeli army after he crossed from the Sinai peninsula into Israel and is suspected to have planned to sell drugs, the official said.

ROME, Sept 24, 2008 (AFP) - At least six boat people have drowned following a shipwreck in bad weather off the Mediterranean island of Malta, an army spokesman there said on Wednesday.

ROME, Sept 23, 2008 (AFP) - Italy approved Tuesday the deployment of 500 soldiers to the Naples region where an attack blamed on the local mafia left an Italian and six Africans dead.

ROME, Sept 23, 2008 (AFP) - Rome will send hundreds of soldiers to the Naples region for three months to help police fight the local Camorra mafia, blamed for an attack that left an Italian and six Africans dead, the government said Tuesday.

MADRID, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - Spanish coastguards picked up 164 illegal African immigrants this weekend off the coast of the Canary Islands, local police said Monday.

'They were all sub-Saharan Africans: 151 men, three women, three boys and three girls,' a police spokesman told AFP.

They were picked up Sunday around 170 miles (315 kilometres) from the island of Gran Canaria.

ROME, Sept 22, 2008 (AFP) - Italian police arrested Monday the first suspect in an attack blamed on the Neopolitan mafia that left an Italian and six Africans dead last week, police said as some 400 police reinforcements deployed to the area.