Spanish police arrested five more people with suspected links to the March 11 train bombings. Three were identified as Moroccans. Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office, confirmed that authorities had searched the apartment of a Moroccan man in the central city of Darmstadt in connection with the terrorist bomb attacks in Madrid.

If the suspicions against the Moroccan were to be found true, then it would be the second link to Germany of radical Islamic terrorism, after the core conspirators in the September 11, 2001 suicide plane attacks have lived in the northern German city of Hamburg.

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The 2004 Athens Olympics will be the first Summer Games since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that changed the world. For the first time, spectators at the ancient site were forced to go through metal detectors. Greece presents what security planners call a challenge.

The nations involved are working closely with the FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies to minimize the threat that terrorists might try to carry out strikes during the Olympic Games in Athens this Aug. 13-29.

Thousands of illegal immigrants from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere cross from Turkey to the Greek islands and mainland every year, raising fears terrorists could use similar routes. Neighboring Turkey has blamed al-Qaida for a pair of truck bombings in Istanbul last November, and concerns have risen that terrorists might use Turkey as a staging point to strike Greece during the Olympics.

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The Tel Aviv District Court issued sentences ranging from seven years in jail to a one-year suspended sentence to three people, including a woman, convicted of trafficking in women from the former Soviet Union. The court said the sentences in the plea bargain deals did not fit the severity of the crime.    

Interior Minister Avraham Poraz decided to give victims of women trafficking residency and work visas in Israel without having to undergo a long bureaucratic process. “This is a basic human step for the protection of the victims of human trafficking” Poraz said. 

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While U.S. anti-terrorism measures are making visas tougher to get, many European countries are granting citizenship to children of European immigrants around the world. Even though Europe may be more wary of foreigners in the wake of the March 11 subway bombings in Madrid that killed more than 190 people, Venezuelans of European descent will reach Europe as citizens with passports in hand, rather than as immigrants. This, many say, makes the U.S. a much less attractive alternative.

Italian, Portuguese and Spanish consular officers have unofficially estimated that there could be as many as 300,000 Venezuelans eligible for European Community passports.

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The home secretary of the United Kingdom stopped all visa applications last week from Bulgarians and Romanians wanting to enter Britain after allegations of an organized immigration scam.  Letters leaked revealed that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate had been warned of the scam as far back as August 2002. 

Among the leaked documents are letters showing that migrants from Bulgaria and Romania were allowed to come to Britain to set up businesses even though some could speak no English, had few skills and had no money.  All immigration applications from Bulgaria and Romania were immediately suspended as the British Home Office attempted to deal with the allegations regarding immigration controls.