NZ

In March, Brenton Tarrant made a late guilty plea to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

He is due to be sentenced on 24 August.

Tarrant appeared via audio-visual link (AVL) in Christchurch High Court this morning where he waived his rights to a lawyer to represent himself for sentencing.

His previous lawyers Shane Tait and Jonathan Hudson withdrew their application to represent him.

The Times of India has quoted an unamed Indian cricket official saying New Zealand is the latest country after UAE and Sri Lanka which has offered to host the compeition in case the billion dollar league can't be held in India because of COVID-19.

The competition was due to start in March but has been postponed indefinitely although the BCCI is hopeful is of playing it from the end of September-early November.

The United States, Brazil and China are excluded.

Along with New Zealand on the current Covid-19 'safe list' are Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.

The EU is ready to add China if the Chinese government offers a reciprocal travel deal for EU citizens.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there are still no cases reported from the community.

Both cases have been in managed isolation since they arrived and are now in the quarantine facility in Auckland, Dr Bloomfield said.

One is a man in his 50s who arrived in NZ from India on 24 June - his result came from day 3 testing.

The second is a woman in her 20s who arrived from the US on 18 June, the wife of a previous case who tested positive on 22 June and was already in quarantine as she was considered a close contact.

There are now 20 active cases in this country, none of them are in the community. The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in New Zealand is now 1176.

The first new case is a woman in her 30s who arrived in New Zealand from India on 14 June. The Health Ministry said she is the wife of a previous case who earlier tested positive and had been isolating separately from her husband since his positive test. She tested positive on day 11 of isolation.

In documents released today, the government says the Pacific will need significant investment to recover from the Covid-19 fallout.

The foreign affairs ministry says the region is facing an array of uncertainties in a significantly altered international environment.

It says New Zealand will have to do more to help the Pacific's weakened states through serious challenges, even if the coronavirus is kept at bay.

The paper says security risks will rise, with greater opportunities for people smugglers and transnational crime.

The latest infections bring New Zealand's confirmed case total to 1169. There are 13 active infections in the country. No cases of community transmission have been detected.

A record number of tests were processed on Wednesday - 10,436 - bringing the overall test total to 368,432.

Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said Fiji was working on a "Bula Bubble", between his country, New Zealand and Australia.

Upon arrival, travellers would have to spend 14 days in Fiji government quarantine facilities and then be required to pass a Covid-19 test to enter the general public.

This would be at their own cost or that of their respective government.

In a statement released this afternoon, the Ministry of Health said there were no new cases for the ninth straight day.

The total number of confirmed cases remains at 1154. The combined total of confirmed and probable cases is 1504.

There have been no further deaths.

After a week of no new cases, the number of active cases dropped to one on Friday.

There were 2111 tests carried out yesterday, and 280,983 have now been processed in total.

There are calls across the region for travel to be reinstated, possibly before a trans-Tasman bubble with Australia.

Ashley Bloomfield said the Ministry of Health hadn't yet been asked for advice about an arrangement.

"My own view is that the risks can be managed well, especially if we've got countries that have got good testing in place and we know that they haven't got any cases and the arrangements can be put in place for travel to and fro," Dr Bloomfield said.