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James Packer, a wealthy Australian businessman who owns a chain of casinos, has said that the Australian government should make it easier for Chinese visitors to get Australian tourist visas.
Mr Packer, Australia's second richest man according to BRW, a respected Australian business magazine, is the chairman of Crown Limited, a company which owns and part-owns 'integrated resorts' which include casinos in Australia, the Philippines and Macau.
The US has refused to grant a visa to Iran's chosen delegate to the United Nations, Hamid Aboutalebi. Because the UN meets in New York, this in effect prevents Mr Aboutalebi from taking up his post. The Iranians have protested that the US is in breach of international law.
US Senators believe that Mr Aboutalebi was involved in the 1979 storming of the US embassy in Teheran during which 52 American embassy staff were held captive for over a year. The Congressmen and women believe that he should therefore be barred from entering the US. Mr Aboutalebi denies any previous wrong-doing.
Quebec has announced that it will reopen its Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP) later this year despite the decision of the Canadian federal government to close its investor program. Quebec's immigration ministry, Immigration et Communautés Culturelles Quebec (ICCQ) has announced that the program will reopen on September 8th 2014.
The UK's opposition Labour Party has criticised the Coalition government for its failure to 'get a grip on illegal immigration'. The shadow immigration minister, David Hanson accused the government of 'a shocking record…that the government should be ashamed of'.
Mr Hanson was speaking after he received a breakdown of statistics on arrests of suspected illegal immigrants in the UK for 2013. 4,535 people were arrested over the course of the year. Only one third of those, 1,585 people were deported. There were 15 prosecutions.
A respected political commentator has warned that the UK's Conservative Party, headed by Prime Minister David Cameron, may lose power at the next election in 2015 because it's policies are unpopular amongst immigrant voters.
Mary Riddell, who has written for many of the UK's national newspapers including The Guardian, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Telegraph says that the Conservatives' immigration policies are unpopular amongst British citizens from ethnic minorities which may have unintended electoral consequences.
Rand Paul, a right-wing Republican and a potential challenger for the presidency in 2016, has said that the Republican Party has to 'get beyond' its problem with illegal immigration or it will never gain significant support from the Hispanic community.
Mr Paul was speaking at the launch of MRC Latino, a right-wing media lobbying group that will campaign against left-wing bias in the Spanish-speaking media in the US. He said 'The bottom line is the Hispanic community is not going to hear us until we get beyond this issue'.