Fully vaccinated international students, eligible visa holders and travellers from Japan and South Korea will be welcomed back to Australia from next week. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said eligible visa holders would be able to come to Australia from the beginning of December without needing to apply for a travel exemption. "The return of skilled workers and students to Australia is a major milestone in our pathway back, it's a major milestone about what Australians have been able to achieve and enable us to do," he said. Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said welcoming travellers from those countries would further help the tourism industry recover "These changes are crucially important to Australia as we go through our reopening phase," she said. "We are working on a figure of 200,000, it may well be more than that but we will be actively looking to bring as many people into Australia as soon as we possibly can." Migration rates fell sharply when the border was closed to everyone except Australian citizens and permanent residents in March last year in response to the emerging pandemic. Now, almost two years later, many industries are reporting a shortage of workers, with projects including big public infrastructure works at risk. The migrant intake will expand to around 200,000 places a year from December 1, including more refugee visas, but it is not yet clear how many new spots will be made available in each area. Currently, there are 79,600 places in the skilled visa category, 13,750 in the humanitarian program, and no cap on the number of student visas that can be granted. International students back at uni Vaccinated international students with a valid visa will no longer need an exemption to travel to Australia, but they will be subject to the quarantine arrangements of the state/territory they are travelling to. In jurisdictions with quarantine-free travel, international students will not count towards passenger caps. Finance Minister Simon Birmingham said international students would be back at universities early next year. "We would be encouraging them to make their plans, and to be back here to give that lift to universities and to the many other parts of our economy that have benefited so much from international students over the years." Senator Birmingham said the expansion would be undertaken in line with the plans of the states and territories. "As with returning international Australian citizens and permanent residents, you've got Victoria and New South Wales who have been playing a leading role in reopening their international borders," he said. "Other states have spelt out different criteria for when they will provide that type of movement, and that will be a matter for those states to continue to work through those issues, and we'll respect that. "Obviously we want them to get the very high vaccination rates of New South Wales and Victoria so that they hopefully can follow suit and have international students back for commencement at their unis next year." Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Sky News more migration would accelerate the economic recovery from the pandemic. "Both skilled workers and international students play an essential role in our economy," he said. "International students are worth some $40 billion to our economy. "We know that there are workforce shortages out there and skilled workers can play a key part in meeting some of those shortages." SOURCE: ABC NEWS

Minister for Education Hon. Jimmy Uguro, MP has called on students to respect government property and not to damage them if they have any grudges with the school management. “Students must learn to take their grievances to the right authority in the school if they are not happy with the school management instead of taking their frustrations out on school property like classrooms and dormitories,” the Minister said. The Minister said this after a number of schools and institutions’ facilities such as classrooms and dormitories were either damaged or burned down allegedly by students and that were reported by the media recently. “I am very disappointed with these recent events and call on school authorities of the schools affected to take appropriate action as soon as they can,” the Minister said. He added that willful damage of property is a criminal offence under the recently launched Behaviour Management Policy and schools must refer the students involved to the police to deal with them. “The facilities take a number of years to build and at huge costs. Therefore, students and the community must look after them for their use and also for future generations,” the Minister said.

East New Britain Provincial Administrator Wilson Matava, was arrested and charged for fraud by Detectives from the National Fraud & Anti-Corruption Directorate on the 18 November, 2021. Wilson Marava, aged 51 from Kabakaul village, Kokopo District, East New Britain Province was slapped with One count of Money Laundering and One count of Misappropriation of K510, 770.40 the property of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea. Mr Wilson Matava is the current Provincial Administrator for East New Britain Province. He was appointed to the substantive position 2016. This offences are alleged to have been committed after he had been made permanent. The allegations against Mr Matava was that the K20 million that was released by the National Government to ENB Provincial Government and Provincial Administration for the purpose of developing Tourism Related Infrastructure in Kokopo, ENBP was not used for the purpose it was intended for and was grossly misappropriated. In 2014, the National Government made a policy decision to declare Tokua in East New Britain Province as the Tourism Hub for Papua New Guinea. Based on that policy decision, K58 million was allocated in the 2014 Development Budget for Tourism Related Infrastructure Development for Kokopo, East New Britain Province. Out of the K58 million budget allocation, K20 million was initially released to the ENB Provincial Government and its Administration as a first batch in 2014. However, despite specific appropriation of K20 million in the Development Budget identified for Tourism Related Infrastructure Development, this money was grossly misappropriated on unrelated and non-development and unqualified expenditures not in any way associated with Tourism. Out of the K20 million, he directed that K1 million be allocated to Legal Fees Vote. From the Legal Fees Vote, K510,770.40 was paid to Waisi Lawyers who had represented him court against former Provincial Administrator – Mr Aquila Tubal in court. The total cost for Waisi lawyers legal fees was K40, 950.00 which Waisi lawyers kept in the law firms Trust Account whilst the balance of the money was paid to various entities and individuals as directed by the Provincial Administrator which were not related to Infrastructure Development for Kokopo  which was identified as Tourism Hub for Papua New Guinea. The complaint was made to the Police by interested stakeholders such as Chamber of Commerce and ENBP Tourism Board and Civil Society against Corruption. Mr Matava was picked up at Jacksons Airport and taken to National Fraud & Anti-Corruption Directorate Office in Konedobu, where he was interviewed and charged and later placed at Boroko Police Station cells. He has been leased on K2,000 bail and will appear before Waigani District Court. Since the offences were committed in Kokopo East New Britain Province, this matter will be transferred to Kokopo District Court for committal hearing there.

Autonomous Bougainville Government’s (ABG) President Ishmael Toroama has described the late Selau Constituency MP Joseph Watawi as a patriotic and passionate Bougainville leader who worked throughout his life to ensure there is political liberation and freedom for their people. The late Joseph Watawi passed away on 15 November, at his home at Kokopau in North Bougainville. In his condolence message, President Toroama said late Watawi played an integral role in the peace process during the negotiations and creation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001. The late Watawi was also instrumental in the formation of the first Bougainville House of Representatives in 2005 and was elected as the inaugural Member for Selau Constituency. He was then appointed by former President Joseph Kabui as Vice President and the Minister for Commerce. “As Vice President he worked with President Kabui to hold together a deeply divided Bougainville and bring about socio-economic and political change,” Mr Toroama said. “These changes strengthened Bougainville and paved the way for unity to prevail and development to flourish.” President Toroama said while many can attest to the Late Joseph Watawi’s accomplishments, his overall legacy will be his commitment to Bougainville’s Independence Mission. “He leaves behind a legacy that we as a people must strive to emulate.” “On behalf of the Government and people of Bougainville I offer our sincerest condolences to the family of the Late Joseph Watawi and the people of Selau.”

After talking the climate talk at U.N. negotiations in Scotland, the Biden administration now tests whether a divided United States can walk the climate walk: push a massive investment for a new era of clean energy through the narrowest of margins in the Senate. The House passed a roughly $2 trillion social policy and climate bill Friday, including $555 billion for cleaner energy, although the legislation is almost certain to be changed by the Senate. What ultimately emerges in the climate part of the bill will have a lasting impact on America and all its neighbors on Earth, and help determine whether the United States does its promised share to keep climate damage at a level not disastrously worse than it is now. “The problem is that when you have these storms that are coming with such frequency, just as soon as you deal with one, you're dealing with the next one,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who has struggled with five federally declared disasters in his six years leading the global oil hub on Texas' Gulf Coast. Turner talked on the sidelines of the U.N. conference in Glasgow, where he was one of dozens of mayors pushing for investment in climate. After years of storm deaths in intensifying deluges and hurricanes from the tropics, Houston residents froze to death in record numbers in a wobbling polar vortex this year. “And so for our vulnerable communities ... where people are already on the margins, it keeps getting a little bit further down,” Turner said. In the Senate, cost-cutting demands by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin from the coal state of West Virginia and that chamber’s strict rules seem certain to force significant changes to the bill. That would prompt fresh disputes between party centrists and moderates that will likely take weeks to resolve. If Biden's package passes, its impact boosting clean energy sources and technologies will mean the U.S. likely will just miss, by 5%, Biden's target of halving fossil fuel emissions by the end of this decade — more precisely and wonkily, of halving the amount of carbon dioxide that the U.S. is pumping out by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. That's according to modeling by researchers at Princeton University and elsewhere, climate scientist and energy analyst Zeke Hausfeather explained. But if Biden's bill fails in Congress, the United States likely will fall shy of its emission-cutting promise by much more, by 20%, the academic modeling shows. Market forces making renewable energy ever cheaper would help carry the United States a lot of the way regardless, Hausfeather said. But with that broken promise behind it, it would be harder for the U.S. "to convince countries like China and India to follow through on their climate commitments ... if we are unable to follow through on our own promises,” noted Hausfeather, a director at the Breakthrough Institute research center. The United States over time is the world's biggest emitter of the coal, natural gas and oil fumes that are altering the atmosphere and heating the Earth. China, with its dependence on coal-fired power plants, is the biggest emitter currently, and the U.S. No. 2. India, with its booming population and coal dependence, is poised to overtake both in coming decades. At Glasgow, Bangladesh climate negotiator Quamrul Chowdhury fought, as he has for years, for the United States and other big polluters to make the fast, big cuts needed to keep his and other low-lying nations above water. After decades of U.S. climate policies flipping with the political parties of incoming administrations, Chowdhury was eager for Congress to seal the deal. “In your domestic legislation, if it is enshrined, that will help,” Chowdhury said. At climate conferences, leaders “make promises, make commitments, but those are not met. Promises are made, only to be broken." The sharpest U.S. climate swing of all was by the Trump administration. It pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, slowed offshore wind projects, promoted oil and gas exploration and drilling. It canceled Obama administration projects that had aimed to promote clean energy and discourage coal. Scores of Republican lawmakers in Congress are stepping forward now to lay claim to a middle ground on climate, between Trump and Biden, whose falling popularity is raising doubts about continued Democratic power in Washington. In a conservative caucus founded by Republican Rep. John Curtis of Utah, the Republicans say they know how to move voters off fossil fuels and argue for a climate policy that continues use of natural gas in particular. They emphasize trees, as well as carbon capture technology that has yet to be developed to scale, to capture climate-damaging emissions. “We know we must reduce emissions. Now let's have a thoughtful conversation about how we go about it,” Curtis said in a panel with other U.S. lawmakers at Glasgow. “And that's, that's a new place, I think, for us.” Depending on whether a next Republican administration, like Trump's, actively opposes efforts to scale down fossil fuel use, another U.S. retreat on climate efforts might knock the nation a few more percentage points back further on meeting Biden's emission-cutting goal, Featherhaus said. But “I think the larger effect ... would be from the lack of global leadership on the issue, and creating the (quite justified) impression that U.S. pledges are not to be trusted,” he said in an email. SOURCE: ABC NEWS

A fisheries project that will create over 40,000 jobs for Papua New Guineans and several billion kina for the country is yet to kick start because of funding constraints. The Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) project in Madang was launched in November 2015 and also captured in the recent Fisheries Strategic Plan 2021-2030 where the special economic zone for fisheries will provide necessary infrastructure for downstream processing of fish products. Yangoru-Saussia MP Richard Maru raised the question in Parliament this week regarding the project following the delay in its work. “This industry is worth over K1.5 billion if we are able to process all the fish in our waters,” Mr Maru said. “Currently we’re losing over 10,000 new jobs.” Fisheries Minister Dr Lino Tom in response said 40,000 jobs are pending at the moment because of the delay in building the infrastructures required. “Our only problem is funding, it is something we don’t really have to start off this good project,” Dr Lino said. “As leaders, we have our local needs that seem to be pressing and having more space in the fiscal budget so it is quite difficult for us to build this transforming infrastructure,” Dr Lino added.

Papua New Guinea needs external support to beef up the security capacity for the upcoming 2022 National General Elections. Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas said it is evident that the national security force lacked the capacity in dealing with the election exercises and this has led to many compromised elections over the years. Sir Peter proposed to Prime Minister James Marape to seek assistance from Australia and New Zealand police forces to provide support in capacity building in the lead up and during the national general elections. “Why are we shying away from asking outside help for this matter?” Sir Peter asked. “During APEC, we asked for outside help where foreign troops were deployed to beef up the national security.” “Why don’t we do the same for this upcoming national election where we all know too well our past experiences in this exercise has always been compromised.” “These external security personnel can come in as early as January next year and work with the national security personnel to identify areas that have the potential to disrupt good elections and ensure that doesn’t happen.” He said elections in the country, especially in the Highlands region is always filled with corrupt practises and this should be minimized and stopped if the government is responsible to the people.

It may have been Venus and Serena Williams on the court all these years, but the story of their success isn't just about them. In an interview with ABC News, Venus Williams said the film, "King Richard" highlights the significance of her family's role in the making of the two pro tennis champions. "I think you get to really see the ecosystem of my family," she said. "It's not perfect, but all that matters is that you are going in the same direction together and building each other up. That's what we did and that's what we do." The title of the film alludes to the dad Richard Williams, who famously had his youngest daughters' fate as tennis greats mapped out before they were even born. Will Smith, who plays Richard Williams, has said Richard Williams was one of the most misunderstood people of his time. "People didn't understand him but I think that it didn't take long for people to realize that this is a guy who's for his family, for his daughters, ride or die, no matter what," said Venus Williams. As a tribute to her dad, Venus Williams created an activewear collection inspired by "King Richard" to be added to her brand Elevens. Williams said the clothing encapsulates the essence of her dad and the clothing the family wore in the '90s. SOURCE: ABC NEWS

The opportunity to vote freely and fairly in the upcoming National General Elections must be given to the people unlike what was experienced in past instances. Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas said for this to happen, this government needs to seriously address the security issue surrounding the national elections. “In this parliament, we said to give the opportunity to women to vote freely, how do we ensure that happens when we cannot control the law-and-order issues faced during elections?” Sir Peter asked. “Over many years now, we have observed that many elections are not properly held and successive governments have failed time and again to fix these election related issues.” “Some of us sitting here are responsible for corrupting the elections and we cannot continue to sit here and do nothing about it.” Sir Peter called on Prime Minister James Marape to admit the fact that PNG lacked the security force capacity to carry election operations and to seek external help wherever possible.

Dr Jack Amana, 55, Deputy Chief Heart Physician/Cardiologist at the Sir Buri Kidu Heart Institute was diagnosed with Stage 3 Cancer of the mouth or squamous cell carcinoma in August this year and urgently needs funds for his treatment overseas. “Dr Amana has helped a lot of people and has touched a lot of lives so we really want to return this favor by making sure he gets the best treatment.” “We have been outsourcing his medication from Australia through Sesago Pharmacy.” “So far, he has completed a 6-cycle treatment at the Port Moresby General Hospital,” said his sister, Mrs Ruth Mays. Mrs Mays said that his 6-cycle treatment of immunotherapy treatment with cetuximab injection costs K15, 000 per week and he will need another 6-cycle treatment before travelling down to Raffles Hospital for further investigation and treatment between December and January of next year. She also said that Dr Amana needs an estimate of K250,000 for him to receive the Post Chemotherapy treatment. The family has previously had mini fundraisers by selling food packs and Mumu dishes to start of the fundraising for Dr Amana’s Medical Appeal, however still need to raise more funds to make the trip possible. There will be a corporate fundraising dinner to raise funds for Dr Amana to travel to Raffles Hospital, Singapore for the post chemotherapy treatment. The dinner is set to take place on the 4th of December at the Dynasty restaurant inside Vision City. “We originally planned to have the dinner in October but we could not do so due to the C19 measures in place in the city.” “We have written a letter to the Controller and we have gotten approval to have the dinner in December.” Mrs Mays added that they had hoped to have about 500 people for the dinner however due to the C19 restrictions, they’ve been given approval to have only 100 people at the fundraising dinner. The Family has created a Trustee account with Kina Bank and they have been receiving donations from family and friends which has covered the costs of his medical treatments so far. Mrs Mays thanked everyone that has helped out in donations of cash and kind to date.

Following the resumption of jet services to Wewak last week, Air Niugini has advised the travelling public that the airline has now also resumed its Fokker jet services to Madang as of Wednesday this week. The resumption of Fokker flights follows the completion of runway maintenance works by the National Airports Corporation (NAC). Since the works on the airport runway commenced early this year, Link PNG has been operating to Madang airport using smaller Dash-8 aircraft, but with passenger numbers restricted to as few as 20 at times because of the shortened runway. For a period of time in July/August the runway was closed to even Dash-8 size aircraft. Air Niugini General Manager Commercial, Mr Dominic Kaumu said the last months of restricted operations at Madang has been inconvenient for both the customers, business houses in Madang, and the airline. "However, we understand runways must be maintained to the highest standard and we are pleased the works are now complete and we can resume our Fokker 100/70 jet services into Madang airport,” Mr Kaumu said.

The National Identification Program (NID) will be reviewed by the government in December this year to ensure the issues experienced in the processing and its’ requirement to access services faced by the public is resolved. Prime Minister James Marape gave this undertaking on the issue in Parliament today after being asked by Nawae MP Kennedy Wenge on the government’s approach to the issue. Mr Wenge said people in his electorate including students have had issues accessing banking, travel and other services because of the hiccups with the NID system. “Some had to ask me to assist them with money to travel to Port Moresby so they can visit the main office to process their NID cards.” “And when they come to Port Moresby, they are lined up again at the NID office and wait again for some time to have their NID processed,” Mr Wenge said. In response, Mr Marape said so much money was put in for this project however because the funds were given on an ad hoc basis, it wasn’t successfully carried out. “The then O’Neill government committed over K400 million for this project but it wasn’t rolled out to expectations and my government now had to inherit these issues.” “The intention of the project was good, however the set up did not cover all parts of the country.” The Prime Minister said after the review next month, the government will announce on how it will ensure the NID requirements are relaxed so it is accessible while at the same time work with provincial governments to establish NID offices throughout the entire country.