Valletta, Malta - Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said Friday that the European Union needs to strengthen its border patrols, and eventually create a European Coast Guard.

Speaking after talks with Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi in Malta, Karamanlis said illegal immigration was a major concern for both Greece and Malta and it was important that the EU responds "jointly and effectively."

Valletta - The European Union is right in demanding an end to state subsidies for Polish dockyards, according to Lech Walesa, the co-founder of the Solidarity union movement born in the shipyards where he once worked.

Poland's government signalled Wednesday that EU officials have refused privatization plans for its ailing shipyards and said it would ask Brussels for an explanation.

With 60,000 shipyard jobs at stake, EU approval for a rescue plan that avoids mass layoffs is a critical task for Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government.

Valletta, Malta  - The German Minister of State for Europe, Gunter Closer, has pledged his country's support to Malta on the problem of illegal immigration at bilateral and European Union levels, the Maltese government said Tuesday.

"The smallest EU member state cannot be left on its own when facing such considerable challenges," the Maltese Home Affairs Ministry quoted the German minister as saying during a meeting he had with minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici.

Valletta, Malta  - Several bodies spotted floating in the sea off Malta, prompted fears Wednesday that the find signals another shipwreck involving would-be immigrants trying to reach Europe.

The exact number or nationality of the dead remains unclear as the bodies still have to be recovered from the sea, officials on the Mediterranean island said.

The captain of a French navy vessel first alerted Malta's rescue centre on Tuesday of the presence of six bodies off the island.

Valletta, Malta - Two infants were flown Tuesday by helicopter to Malta's general hospital after they were rescued from a shipwreck involving would-be immigrants.

The pair, whose condition was described as "critical" by officials, were part of a group whose boat capsized some 60 nautical miles south of Malta.

The exact number of would-be immigrants involved in the shipwreck was not immediately known, officials said.

Valletta, Malta - A headline streams across The Times of Malta's online news portal: "Search is on for 70 missing migrants."

That was on August 27. There has since been no sign of the group despite an extensive search by two German helicopters and a Maltese army maritime squadron, part of the European Union's border patrol agency Frontex.

The 70 disappeared when they were swept off a flimsy craft which capsized after it left Libya, according to eight fellow-travellers who managed to cling onto the vessel long enough to be rescued.

It is one of the worst tragedies involving would-be immigrants in the Mediterranean - yet the Maltese newspaper's online readers' forum offered little, if any, compassion.