Bougainville Referendum Commission Chairman Bertie Ahern has announced that more than 98 percent of valid ballots favoured independence.
The victims in Hela province included two pregnant women and eight children. Highland clans have fought each other for centuries, but the recent influx of automatic weapons has made the clashes more deadly.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill resigned on Sunday following a string of high-profile political defections that threatened his leadership. He handed over the reins to veteran politician Julius Chan, who has twice been prime minister.
Behrouz Boochani, who is held by the Australian state in a remote Pacific detention centre, has won the country's top literature prize with his book written on his mobile phone and delivered one chapter at a time via WhatsApp.
The two-day summit in Papua New Guinea was punctuated by acrimony and underlined a rising rivalry between China and the West for influence in the usually neglected South Pacific.
US Vice President Mike Pence called many of China's global infrastructure projects as low quality while Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against protectionism, saying countries are facing a choice of confrontation and cooperation.
The devastation of the magnitude 7.5 quake that hit the region early on Monday is becoming apparent with a rising death toll and a shut down of economic activities as aftershocks continue to rock the country.
"The finding opens the way to a major compensation and also for consequential orders against both the PNG and Australian governments," says Refugee Action Coalition spokesman.
Reports have emerged of baton-wielding officials dragging refugees from their rooms towards buses bound for PNG-run transition centres elsewhere on Manus.
Australia's current policy on asylum seekers is to intercept refugees and migrants at sea, deny them entry, and process them in centres like the camp on Manus Island in neighbouring Papua New Guinea. Critics consider the process inhumane.
Refugees in the former Australia-run camp in Papua New Guinea posted photos to social media showing police entering the abandoned detention centre as fears grew that the situation could turn violent.
Authorities in Papua New Guinea say they will take steps to forcibly remove around 450 men who remain in an abandoned Australian detention centre on Manus Island.
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