Australia

The airport has made plans to segregate at-risk and no-risk travellers - dividing the international terminal into two self-contained processing zones.

Zone A, a safe travel area, will be used exclusively for quarantine-free arrivals and all departures.

Zone B, the health management area, will be used for processing arrivals who are going on to managed isolation facilities.

Auckland Airport chief executive Adrian Littlewood told Morning Report that planning started in August 2020 and its price tag is in the millions.

Parts of New South Wales have seen almost 1m (3.2ft) of rain, flooding hundreds of homes and severing roads.

Despite the rains subsiding, water levels have not yet peaked in some areas, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

Around 18,000 people in NSW have been displaced.

"It is catastrophic in its dimensions," said NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Western Sydney was now the "greatest concern".

He said Sydney's largest dam would continue to spill over for at least another week.

Parts of New South Wales have seen almost 1m of rain and more is forecast with the peak coming on Tuesday.

Thousands of people have been evacuated and troops deployed as the government warned the floods were extremely dangerous.

Millions in most of the country are under weather warnings.

No deaths have been reported which New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Berejiklian called a "miracle given what we have been through". Prime Minister Scott Morrison told MPs there was "serious risk still ahead"

Fiji's government said it has proven itself as a safe destination for travellers during the pandemic with no cases reported for more than 320 days.

Fiji said it was ready to open its border to Australia and New Zealand and urged both countries to join Fiji's so-called Bula Bubble scheme.

But its major regional partners say the Fijians are not on the priority list for a seat on the trans-Tasman travel bubble, just yet.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday several concerns needed to be resolved before a trans-Tasman bubble could go ahead.

Dozens of people have been rescued from floodwaters, and residents in many low-lying communities of New South Wales have been ordered to leave their homes.

Police say hundreds of people have flocked to evacuation centres in areas north of the city of Sydney.

Major roads have been shut. Footage has emerged of a house being swept away.

Warragamba dam in Sydney, the city's main water source, has begun to overflow for the first time since 2016, and WaterNSW warns others are also expected to spill over.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the doses would be sent immediately, along with other critical care equipment.

Papua New Guinea's fragile healthcare system is under huge strain.

Officially, there are 1,400 active cases in the country, but the true number is thought to be much higher.

Testing has been an issue for the island nation. As of 10 March, only 50,000 tests had been carried out in a country with a population of nine million.

Ministers are actively working on the proposal and the next step would be for it to go to the full Cabinet, potentially this coming Monday.

That will be on the condition there are no community outbreaks of Covid-19 or lockdowns in the meantime.

There could also be an arrangement for safe travel zones with realm countries, the Cook Islands and Niue, which the government have long said would be a priority.

The door has already been partially opened, with New Zealand allowing passengers from the Cook Islands and more recently Niue to come here quarantine-free.

Hundreds of new confirmed Covid cases in the past few days have taken PNG's total number of cases to nearly 2,500.

Despite limited testing, the picture of high community transmission is becoming glaringly clear, particularly in the capital Port Moresby and other urban areas.

A proliferation of cases among health workers has only exacerbated the shortcomings of PNG's ailing health system in this time of crisis.

The joint commitment was made following the first leaders' meeting of the so-called Quad - a group formed in 2007.

The vaccines - expected to be the single-dose Johnson & Johnson product - are set to be manufactured in India.

The US said the "massive joint commitment" would initially focus on delivering doses to South East Asia.

Seven solders will undertake military skills courses with the Australian army once they have completed their mandatory quarantine period.

According to the Australian High Commission in Tonga, the remaining 21 who are crew members of the VOEA Ngahau Koula will travel to Cairns when they have completed quarantine requirements.

They will re-crew the Guardian Class Patrol boat for its passage back to Tonga.

The Ngahau Koula has undertaken a period of maintenance in Australia.

Once it returns to Tonga it will join its sister Ship Ngahau Siliva.