WELCOME TO AUSTRALIASTAN

Just keep giggling at America and praying to the Chinese, but know your future Australia. Just know it.

RISING TIDE OF IMMIGRANTS UNSETTLES ATHENS

Another battle in the war to end all wars seems lost.

About 80,000 migrants have traveled to Greece this year and decided to stay illegally, according to the authorities, who say the country can no longer handle the task of guarding the European Union's southeast flank.

While initial problems with the flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East who are desperate to enter Europe centered on the Aegean islands, migrants are now wreaking havoc in the capital.

The historic center of Athens has been riven by several street battles in recent months, involving what the police characterize as rival groups, often involved in dealing drugs, from Afghanistan, Iraq and war-torn African countries wielding swords, axes and machetes.

After 11 people were hurt in one such brawl in late August, the police began 24-hour patrolling of the area. Store owners and residents are leaving the busy central shopping and restaurant district.

The unrest in Athens has triggered a backlash from the far-right party Laos, whose popularity has jumped to 5.4 percent in opinion polls from 3.5 percent when it entered Parliament a year ago.

"The city center has been taken hostage by gangs of illegal immigrants with knives - isn't it about time we asked ourselves if we have too many of them?" a Laos legislator, Antonis Georgiadis, said during a recent television debate. He is not related to the immigration official.

Police figures show that most immigrants arrested on drug-related charges in central Athens this year were from war-torn states like Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

INTERESTING: MEXICO WILL HELP STOP CUBANS FROM IMMIGRATING TO THE US, BUT WON'T HELP STOP MEXICANS

Although it's not stated in the article, the reason for this apparent anomaly is simple. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. Cuba has an interest in keeping it citizens out of America. And Mexico has an interest in keeping Cubans from taking jobs from Mexicans...in America. The Mexicans are doing more to protect their jobs in America than the U.S. government is doing to protect American's jobs...in America.

Cuba and Mexico are discussing how to clamp down on the flow of illegal Cuban immigrants through Mexico to the United States, Cuba's Ambassador Manuel Aguilera said on Thursday.

Aguilera said the two countries could reach an initial agreement on undocumented migration when Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque visits Mexico in the next few weeks.

"What we are discussing is how to get both countries to increase our cooperation so that the migratory flow between Mexico and Cuba is safe, legal and orderly," Aguilera told a news conference.

Thousands of Cubans slip into Mexico by boat each year, mostly to the Yucatan Peninsula, without exit permits from the Cuban government.

They then make their way overland to the United States where, unlike other Latin American immigrants, they only have to make it onto U.S. soil and request political asylum to be let in.

If arrested in Mexico, the Cubans are often released, and then they head north.

Cubans seeking to get to Florida traditionally packed into boats and motored across the Florida Straits, but U.S. drug patrols in the area have made it harder to get through. The longer route via Mexico has become more popular in recent years.

Human traffickers are believed to be working in conjunction with drug smuggling gangs that control organized crime and police protection rackets up and down Mexico.

The Cuban ambassador said talks were centered around cracking down on migrant-smuggling gangs while also making it easier for academics and business executives to get visas to travel between the two countries.

MORE IMMIGRANTS FEELING UNWELCOME IN EUROPE

These people act as if it's their birthright to immigrate illegally. Sound familiar America?

For 35 years, Nura Hadzovic has lived in a gypsy camp on the edge of town, raising four children and working.

Yet this month, for reasons she doesn't fully comprehend, Hadzovic may become one of the latest casualties of the anti-immigrant backlash sweeping Italy and elsewhere in Europe.

Rome's new mayor has vowed to bulldoze 20 immigrant shantytowns in the city, including the one where Hadzovic lives. Giovanni Alemanno — the first right-wing leader to serve as Rome's mayor since fascist Benito Mussolini ruled Italy during World War II — also has promised to expel 20,000 immigrants with criminal records.

In a debate reminiscent of one occurring in the USA, many European leaders are under public pressure to tighten their borders and stop the rising crime and social strain caused by a tide of illegal immigrants.

Alemanno was greeted by some supporters on election night with a stiff-armed salute and cries of duce, or "leader" — open signs of nostalgia for Mussolini, a dictator nicknamed Il Duce who collaborated with Nazi Germany.

Rich western European countries, which have some of the world's highest incomes and most generous social services, are dealing with immigrants from several regions: Africa, south Asia and eastern Europe, where living standards are much lower.

"Migratory pressure on Europe is huge and is destined to increase," says Hugo Brady of the Center for European Reform, a London think tank. "Very few societies welcome large influxes of foreigners. But you'll never stop immigration. What the EU and member states are doing is trying to manage it."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who becomes the European Union's president July 1, is making a hard-line immigration policy the centerpiece of his six-month rotation to lead the 27-nation bloc.

The EU already is considering rules to allow illegal immigrants to be detained up to 18 months — longer than currently allowed in two-thirds of the member countries.

In Switzerland, where more than 20% of its 7.5 million population is foreign, voters recently rejected a measure that would have made it harder to gain citizenship.

In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi campaigned to crack down on illegal immigrants, describing them as part of "an army of evil."

Don't let the bastards drag you down.

ITALIAN FAT CATS WAFFLING ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DEPORTATION

God, country and a clean house.

Italians have belatedly realized that Silvio Berlusconi's crackdown on illegal immigrants could deprive them of hundreds of thousands of foreigners who clean their homes and look after their children and elderly relatives.

Having elected the conservative media mogul to a third term as prime minister in April, thanks partly to his vows to crack down on illegal immigrants, they are now pleading for foreign cleaners, nannies and care-workers to be exempted.

Gypsies, tramps and thieves.

IMMIGRANTS CLASH WITH SOCCER FANS IN BELGIUM

Take your country back Belgium!

CHARITY BOXES ROBBED BY IMMIGRANTS IN FRANCE

Tolerance is so 90s.

ROME'S NEW MAYOR PROMISES TO PURGE CITY OF IMMIGRANTS

Will this serve as a model to the rest of Europe? Is the proverbial poop about to hit the proverbial fan?

The new mayor of Rome has promised to purge the Italian capital of 20,000 illegal immigrants and to raze 85 gipsy camps.

Gianni Alemanno, 50, a firebrand neo-fascist and the first Right-wing mayor of the city since the Second World War, vowed to make Rome "secure" as he was sworn into office after his election at the weekend.

The election of Mr Alemanno confirmed a strong shift to the Right by Italians, who have been sickened by a spate of violent crimes committed by immigrants.

The new mayor said that his first action would be to begin "immediate expulsions" of the 20,000 immigrants in the city with criminal records.

"We cannot welcome them without discipline," he said. "We will chase out the delinquents. There are 85 abusive nomad camps to destroy."

Not surprisingly, cries of fascist are ringing out from the left. But what is the alternative? A never ending stream immigrants and the destruction of Italian society?