State leader offers to house asylum seekers

The premier of Western Australia state, a member of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Liberal Party, has offered to accept refugees from Australian-funded detention centers amid growing concern about conditions for the 1,350 people held in the camps.

Under Australian law, anyone intercepted trying to reach the country by boat is sent for processing to asylum seeker camps on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru or to Manus Island off Papua New Guinea. They are never eligible to be resettled in Australia.

Australia and Papua New Guinea said on Wednesday that they would close the Manus Island facility, but gave no timeline, and did not say where the people held there would be sent.