Local authorities and Red Cross volunteers on Crete are racing to prepare shelter and food for hundreds of immigrants on a crippled freighter being towed to safety by a Greek navy frigate.

The ordeal of hundreds of Americans and other foreigners stuck on a ferry for three days has ended as their ship finally left a Libyan port.

Hundreds of Americans and other foreigners are spending a third day stuck unable to leave strife-torn Libya due to rough seas.

A British man has been charged with attempted murder on the island of Crete, after his girlfriend fell from a hotel balcony and was impaled by an iron railing spike, police said today.