A majority of Lebanese asylum-seekers detained in the Pacific will choose to return home, a Lebanese member of the council advising the Australian government on asylum-seekers said.

Australian media reports said on Tuesday that Dr. Jamal Rifi, a prominent member of Sydney's Lebanese community, visited the detention centers in the islands of Papua New Guinea and Nauru last week.

Australia said Sunday it would give Sri Lanka two patrol boats to tackle people-smuggling in the Indian Ocean, but the government came under fire for collaborating with Colombo.

Canberra is hoping that boats can be detected before they leave the island's waters as the Australian government intensifies efforts to deter asylum-seekers arriving by boat, a sensitive political issue.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck off Papua New Guinea Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there was no widespread tsunami warning issued.

The quake hit at a depth of 58 kilometers (36 miles) at 8.31 pm (1031 GMT), 65 kilometers west of Panguna town on Papua New Guinea's Bougainville Island, and 642 kilometers west of Honiara in the Solomon Islands.

A Papua New Guinea man described as a vampire has been arrested after allegedly murdering his young daughter by biting her neck, eating her flesh and drinking her blood, a report said Friday.

Police called the grisly incident that occurred on Wednesday at a settlement near Lae "an act of cannibalism".

A third man has died from injuries suffered during a bloody ambush on foreign trekkers in Papua New Guinea which has rocked the tourism industry, police said Monday.

The man, a porter for the group of Australian and New Zealand hikers on the remote Black Cat track, sustained machete wounds in last week's violent assault and died in hospital in Lae, police spokesman Superintendent Dominic Kakas said.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was forced onto the defensive on the key election issue of asylum-seekers Saturday, three weeks ahead of national polls, with cracks appearing in his hardline refugee policy.

Rudd's so-called Papua New Guinea Solution allows people smuggled by boat to be sent to the impoverished Pacific nation even if found to be genuine refugees.

The United Nations on Friday said it was "troubled" by Australia's decision to send asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Papua New Guinea given conditions there failed to adequately protect refugees.

In it's first assessment of the hardline policy announced a week ago by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it was concerned greater numbers of asylum-seekers could be sent to the poor and developing nation.

Buildings were razed as hundreds of asylum-seekers escaped detention during riots at an Australian refugee facility on Nauru, witnesses said Saturday, following the launch of a hardline immigration crackdown.

Australia announced on Friday that boatpeople will no longer be resettled in the country and all future unauthorized arrivals will be sent to poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea for permanent resettlement.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Friday announced that no more boatpeople will be resettled in Australia as refugees, with all unauthorized arrivals to be sent to poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea.

"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as a refugee," said Rudd, unveiling his new hardline border protection policy in an election year flanked by PNG counterpart Peter O'Neill.

Two big earthquakes struck Papua New Guinea early Monday but no tsunami warnings were issued and seismologists said while they would have been felt damage was unlikely.

A 7.2 magnitude quake hit the Pacific nation at 4:35 am local time (1835 GMT Sunday), some 110 kilometers (68 miles) northeast of Taron on the island of New Ireland.