Latest news with #visaProcessing
RNZ News
11-06-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Pacific news in brief for 12 June
Dr 'Aisake Eke. 27 January 2025 Photo: Facebook / PM Press Tonga Prime Minister ʻAisake Eke hopes a new Tongan consulate in Fiji will ease visa processing delays. Talanoa O Tonga reported the consulate is set to be opened in January. Tongan students studying in Fiji and Vanuatu have experienced visa delays of up to four months, disrupting their education. Recent reports show Tongan students have been turned away at borders despite visa-free agreements. The consulate is expected to handle visa applications and community support directly, reducing administrative burdens. In Vanuatu, the government says it has appointed a special team to negotiate with teachers on a collective agreement. For more than a year, the government and members of the teachers' union have been embroiled in an industrial dispute. This started in June last year when teachers across the country went on strike over over what the union called long-standing pay remuneration problems. The government agency in charge of appointing teachers responded by suspending 600 teachers. The ongoing legal case is now before the Court of Appeal, after the Supreme Court found the industrial action by teachers to be lawful. The Vanuatu Daily Post reported the government formed its negotiating team this week because student's learning was being negatively affected. Pacific leaders have issued a unified call for urgent global action to protect the world's largest tuna production region from the accelerating impacts of climate change. The call was made at the 3rd UN Oceans Conference in France during an event on Tuesday. Tuvalu Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, who opened the event, said Pacific islands rely deeply on tuna resources, adding that tuna is not just food or revenue - it is sovereignty, it is development, and it is dignity. He also highlighted the Pacific's global leadership in sustainable fisheries management which has been going for decades. Pacific leaders from Niue, PNG, Palau, FSM, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati and Marshall Islands were also at the event. Australia will now begin selecting people from Tuvalu for permanent residency as part of its Falepili Union Treaty. There are 280 spots up for grabs each year, allowing people to live, work and study there. Australia's Pacific Island affairs minister, Pat Conroy, said this is the most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific country in four decades. The last being the agreements for PNG's independence in 1975. The Falepili Union is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world that recognises Tuvalu's statehood and sovereignty will continue, even when climate change-related sea level rise swallows the land. A pay rise proposed by the Remuneration Tribunal for the police and prisons ministry, worth more than US$1 million or 3.2 million Samoan tala, has been stalled because of the budget failure. The Samoa Observer reported more than 900 law enforcement officers are impacted. The unsuccessful budget noted that the recommendation from the Remuneration Tribunal was accepted by the finance ministry. The plan was that once the increment in the salary scale is rolled out, there will be no more raises for the ministry.
Skift
05-06-2025
- Business
- Skift
White House Considers $1,000 Fee to Speed Up Tourist Visas, Memo Says
While fast tracking visitor visas would make travel easier for some travelers, it might not do much to solve the pressing issue of lengthy wait times for interviews. The Trump administration is weighing a $1,000 fee for expedited visa interview appointments for tourists and other nonimmigrant applicants, according to a State Department memo obtained by Reuters. The pilot could launch as soon as December. However, the agency's legal team said there was a "high risk" the proposed fee would be rejected by the White House budget office or struck down in U.S. courts, according to the memo. The memo said setting a fee higher than the cost to provide the service "is contrary to settled Supreme Court precedent." Currently, nonimmigrant visa applicants pay a $185 processing fee. "The Department's scheduling of nonimmigrant visa interview appointments is dynamic and we are continually working to improve our operations worldwide," a State Department spokesperson told Skift. The State Department reported it issued 11.5 million nonimmigrant visas during the 2024 fiscal year, including 8.5 million visitor visas. Reports of a possible $1,000 fee for an expedited visa interview come after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month that the State Department was looking at ways to speed up the processing of visitor visas ahead of next summer's FIFA World Cup. U.S. Travel Association CEO Geoff Freeman said in February that the extended wait times for visa processing at U.S. offices abroad were a major deterrent to visiting the country. The organization reported last month that the average visa wait time for applicants from top inbound markets was 188 days in April.
