Melbourne, February 8
In an overhaul of the immigration policy, Australia will cancel 20,000 visa applications from foreign nationals, including Indians, who have been staying in the country under the existing skilled migration programme.

The changes which will be unveiled Monday will see 20,000 current applications binned as a result of an overhaul of the list that identifies occupations in demand and awards points on the basis of professional qualifications of the applicants.

State governments will be asked to develop new migration plans and a new list will be prepared to define occupations in demand in the country. The government will also set a maximum number of visas for a single occupation.

The new system will favour skilled workers such as nurses, medical practitioners, engineers and teachers instead of groups such as cooks and hairdressers.

The cancelled applications apply to all offshore general skilled migration claims lodged before September 2007. Refunding 20,000 visa applications will cost taxpayers about $14 million, The Age reported.

The government, however, will make transitional arrangements for such applicants until 2012.

Foreign students who have a qualification for an occupation no longer considered in demand will get to apply for a temporary 18-month visa, allowing them to gain work experience.

If foreign graduates fail to find an employer willing to sponsor their applications, they will have to return to their country of origin.

According to Immigration Minister Chris Evans, the existing programme "has been delivering self-nominated migrants from a narrow range of occupations with poor to moderate English language skills who struggle to find employment in their nominated occupation". Evans also acknowledged the unscrupulous migration agents in the country.

"These (agents) have been misleading many international students into believing that a course in Australia will give them an automatic entitlement to permanent residence," Evans was quoted as saying. "It does not, and it will not".

The minister, however, said "The government supports skilled migration and continues to want migrants, "Be they from India, the United Kingdom or China - our three largest source countries or elsewhere".

"We want skilled migrants on terms that work both for Australia and for the migrants themselves. We need a programme with integrity and direction," Evans said. — IANS

Washington, February 8
NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour was launched today from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle has begun a 13-day flight to the International Space Station (ISS) and the final year of shuttle operations.

Endeavour’s STS-130 mission will include three spacewalks and the delivery of the Tranquility node, the final major US portion of the station.

Tranquility will provide additional room for crewmembers and many of the space station’s life support and environmental control systems.

Attached to Tranquility is a cupola with seven windows, which houses a robotic control station.

The windows will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft. After the node and cupola are added, the orbiting laboratory will be approximately 90 percent complete. — ANI

Just a day after the killing of Nepal’s controversial media tycoon Jamim Shah, a person posing himself as a close aide of Indian underworld don Chhota Rajan has owned up the responsibility, a media report said.

According to Avenues Television, a national private television channel in Nepal, a person posing himself as Bharat Nepali called up the television on Monday and admitted that he is an aide of Chhota Rajan and Shah was killed as he worked against the “Indian interest”.

Nepali is reportedly said that he had masterminded the death of Shah, who is alleged to have had links with another underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Indian media had been accusing Shah of being close to Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI and suspected him of having links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. However, he always denied the accusations.

Meanwhile, the government has formed a high-level judicial probe panel to investigate the incident.

According to Minister for Information and Communication Shankar Pokharel, an emergency cabinet meeting held this afternoon decided to form a five-member panel under the convenorship of former justice Govinda Parajuli comprising representatives of security agencies.

BRIEFLY

Astrology to beat recession
London: At unease due to recession, Italians are increasingly turning to astrology to get rid of their financial woes. A new report by the European Consumers Association has revealed that Italians are spending millions of Euros a year to seek advice from astrologers and fortune tellers, instead from banks and brokers, on financial matters. More than 30,000 Italians are paying between 20 and 600 Euros each day to tarot card readers and fortune tellers for financial advice, amid rising unemployment and gloom over the state of the economy. — PTI

Mother hurls girl from mall
Hong Kong: A woman hurled her four-year-old daughter from the seventh floor of a Hong Kong shopping mall before leaping to her death, the latest in a string of murder-suicide attempts, the police said on Monday. The young girl survived the incident on Sunday afternoon after landing in a net below, and suffered no serious injuries, the police said. But her 41-year-old mother crashed through the net intended to prevent rubbish falling on pedestrians below and was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said. — AFP