New Zealand

Community Law Aotearoa blames the government for blocking scores of people from getting the official help that is available to other Afghans with visas.

Chief executive Sue Moroney also says Immigration New Zealand had just two officers processing their visas, and the whole situation "flies in the face" of the court's intentions.

A Cabinet minister said the former prime minister will travel on the next available flight.

The 76-year-old former prime minister was admitted to intensive care last Thursday and stayed in hospital for five days.

Health officials told Radio Polynesia last week that Tuilaepa had a high fever.

Tuilaepa has not been able to attend parliament since it resumed on Tuesday.

The Human Rights Protection Party has yet to issue an official statement regarding its leader's situation.

A Ministry of Health official said they had already prepared the necessary paperwork for Cabinet's review and consideration.

Last Thursday the 76-year-old was admitted to Intensive Care at the Tupua Tamasese Meaole hospital and released on Tuesday.

Radio Polynesia reported Tuilaepa had a high fever.

Parliament resumed this week but Tuilaepa, who became the opposition leader following last year's acrimonious election, has not taken his seat.

The Auckland MIQ worker returned a positive test result as part of routine testing.

The Ministry of Health has now confirmed that the worker has caught the Omicron variant.

More than 50 close contacts have so far been identified.

All of the case's seven household contacts identified have already been contacted, isolated and tested, and returned a negative result.

The case and one household contact are now isolating in a MIQ facility. The remaining household contacts are isolating at locations in Auckland and Taupō.

He did not show up to a court appearance at the Te Kūiti District Court on Wednesday and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

His lawyer Garth O'Brien told the court he had not heard from Phillips since he informed him of his court date.

Judge Phillip Crayton issued a warrant for his arrest.

Waikato West Police area commander Inspector Will Loughrin said Phillips is believed to be with his three children.

He would not say what police are doing to find him.

But Inspector Loughrin said they are receiving useful information from members of the public.

The flights are from Australia and New Zealand.

A Government release said a Fiji Airways charter will also bring home scholarship students awaiting their final exam results and people from the region moving in Samoa for employment as planned for the third week of January.

Three Qantas charter flights are scheduled to repatriate Seasonal Workers from Samoa to Australia on 14^th , 20^th and 25^th January.

On 22^nd January there is an Air New Zealand repatriation flight from Auckland New Zealand.

The highly transmissible variant has rapidly spread around the globe and New Zealand has dodged a community outbreak so far.

But with the escalating number of overseas returnees testing positive, there are fears a new wave of the virus could be out in the community within weeks.

Epidemiologist and University of Otago professor Michael Baker called the variant a "huge threat" and said it was not a matter of if there was an outbreak, but when.

Faumuina Professor Fa'afetai Sopoaga leads the New Year's Honours list for Pacific recipients.

She was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Pacific health and tertiary education.

She was the inaugural Pacific Associate Dean, Division of Health Sciences at the University of Otago between 2009 and 2020.

Faumuina has championed medical and public health education for Pacific communities since the 1990s.

Education was always important to her parents, she said.

The research, by Unitec's Dr Hoa Nguyen and Senior Lecturer David Kenkel, is based on the lived experiences of undocumented Tuvaluan migrants and their children, and forms a detailed picture of the desperate situation they face.

With assistance from the Tuvaluan Auckland Community Trust, the pair of academics conducted interviews with undocumented migrants and compiled the information they uncovered into this report.

In yesterday's update of the numbers on the Ministry's official website, one death has been recorded in the 0-9 age group.

That age group had no deaths listed 24 hours ago and was last updated yesterday. The data says the child is a Māori boy, registered to the Counties Manukau DHB.

The death was not reported in today's 1pm update from the Ministry.

There have now been 49 deaths of people with Covid-19.

The youngest age group has recorded 2201 cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began - 16.5 percent of all cases.