Seven immigrants drowned on Sunday during an attempted crossing to Italy by gripping on to a large tuna fishing cage towed by a trawler, according to witnesses from among the 95 people rescued by the coast guard. Italy's coast guard rescued the migrants off the shores of Sicily after reports came in of dozens of people clinging desperately to the tuna cage out at sea. Survivors later told rescue workers that seven people with them had drowned after they had tried to scrabble on board the trawler when the crew cut the line linking the boat with the cage.

Australian authorities Monday said they had called off their search for a boat carrying at least 55 asylum-seekers which disappeared suddenly off a remote Indian Ocean territory, adding they were unable to recover any bodies due to separate ongoing operations. Officials suspended the search for a vessel off Christmas Island -- which was seen before it went down carrying men, women and children -- late on Sunday after failing to find any survivors.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged the United Arab Emirates not to deport migrant building workers for staging a rare strike to demand better pay and conditions. "It would be scandalous if the UAE deported workers who have taken a courageous stand for their basic rights," HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement. The New York-based group cited media reports claiming authorities in the UAE had slapped deportation orders on 43 migrants who joined a strike by workers at the Arabtec construction giant.

Tucson, Arizona, May 14 (EFE).- The detention of undocumented immigrants has become a multimillion dollar business for corporations devoted to the administration of prisons and detention centers in states like Arizona, activists say. "The latest figure we have is that each month $17 million is paid for the undocumented people who are processed under the Streamline program in federal court in Tucson," Isabel Garcia, a lawyer and director of the Arizona Human Rights Coalition, told Efe on Tuesday.