Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said there were strict criteria for these for early vaccinations – and only would be granted "for people who need to travel outside of New Zealand on compassionate grounds or for reasons of national significance".
US President Joe Biden says he plans to stand for re-election in three years time.
Biden says it's his "expectation" that he'll run for re-election in 2024. Biden is 78 and already the oldest president to hold office.
He would be 82 at the start of a second term. Biden was asked at the first news conference of his presidency whether he thought he could face a rematch against Donald Trump.
Biden scoffed at the question. "Oh, I don't even think about it," Biden said. "I have no idea."
Biden announced the re-election pledge and new vaccination goal in his first formal news conference since his term began on January 20.
He also pledged to have 200 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered by the end of his first 100 days in office - double the goal he set in December and reached earlier this month before his 60th day in office.
Biden's goal seems ambitious, but it amounts to a continuation of the country's existing pace of vaccinations through the end of month. The US is now averaging about 2.5 million doses per day.
A rate even greater than that is possible. Over the next month, two of the bottlenecks to getting Americans vaccinated are set to be lifted. The U.S. supply of vaccines is on track to increase and states are lifting eligibility requirements for people to get the shots.
Biden also said he was committed to making progress on overhauling the US immigration system, bolstering gun laws and strengthening voting rights.
"I am going to deal with all of those problems," he pledged.
Biden said his administration was working on getting beds and other facilities up and running so children held in Border Patrol custody could be transferred. Biden said most of the migrants who are coming to the US-Mexico border were being sent back, except for children.
He said his administration was working to ease delays so children could be released from government custody to sponsors. Biden said parents sending their children alone across the border was a "desperate act".
The president says he wantd to help change the conditions in Central American countries when the migrants are coming from, but said there was no easy answer. Biden is pushing back against the idea there's a crush of migrants coming to the border.
President Joe Biden says he intends to stand for re-election in 2024. Photo / Evan Vucci, AP
Biden said addressing a nuclearised North Korea was his top foreign policy issue.
He said North Korea had violated UN. resolutions by launching ballistic missiles and the United States and its allies would respond if the North escalated the situation.
"I'm also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearisation."
He said he agreed with former President Barack Obama's warning that North Korea was the most pressing foreign policy priority to watch. Four missiles fired this week were all short-range and don't pose a direct threat to the US mainland.
People watch a TV showing North Korea's missile launch during a news programme at the Suseo Railway Station in Seoul on March 25, 2021. Photo / Ahn Young-joon, AP
According to South Korea's assessment, the first two weapons launched Sunday were believed to be cruise missiles. But Japan said the two fired Thursday were ballistic missiles. These were more provocative weapons that North Korea were banned from testing by UN resolutions.
Earlier in the news conference, Biden said he was not ruling out supporting changes to Senate procedures to help him achieve his goals.
Biden said he believed senators should have to engage in old-fashioned filibusters if they wanted to try to hold up legislation. That would force senators to have to stand on their feet and talk for hours, as was the case during the civil rights era and is portrayed in Hollywood movies, if they objected to Biden's agenda.
But Biden said the rule was being abused in a "gigantic way." He added: "If there's complete lockdown and chaos, as a consequence of the filibuster, then we're going to have to go beyond what I'm talking about."
Biden's first formal news conference in the East Room of the White House looked quite different from past presidential news conferences, given the coronavirus pandemic.
President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House. Photo / Evan Vucci, AP
The presidential lectern was on a rug before American and presidential flags in the expansive room. Just 30 socially distanced chairs were set out, and the White House limited attendance at the news conference due to the virus.
Microphones were shuttled to reporters by White House aides and sanitised before being passed to the next journalist. Biden has gone longer than any recent president in waiting to hold an initial formal news conference.
President Joe Biden has been in the White House since January 20, but only on Thursday, more than two months after taking office, did he hold his first formal news conference.
President Joe Biden opened his first formal news conference with a nod toward the improving picture on battling the coronavirus. Photo / Evan Vucci, AP
Biden is the first chief executive in four decades to reach this point in his term without having conducted such a question-and-answer session.
Biden has been on pace with his predecessors in taking questions from the press in other formats. But he tends to field just one or two informal inquiries at a time, usually in a hurried setting at the end of an event or in front of a whirring helicopter.
Pressure had mounted on Biden to hold a formal session, which allows reporters to have an extended back-and-forth with the president. Biden's conservative critics have pointed to the delay to suggest that Biden was being shielded by his staff.
West Wing aides have dismissed the questions about a news conference as a Washington obsession. - AP
