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New Zealand police on Friday shot and killed a knife-wielding "extremist" who was known to authorities, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, after he stabbed and wounded at least six people in a supermarket.

The attacker, a Sri Lankan national who had been in New Zealand for 10 years, was inspired by the Islamic State militant group and was being monitored constantly, Ardern said.

"A violent extremist undertook a terrorist attack on innocent New Zealanders," Ardern told a briefing.

"He obviously was a supporter of ISIS ideology," she said, referring to Islamic State.

The attacker, who was not identified, had been a "person of interest" for about five years, Ardern said, adding that he had been killed within 60 seconds of beginning his attack in the city of Auckland.

Police following the man thought he had gone into the New Lynn supermarket to do some shopping but picked up a knife from a display and started "running around like a lunatic" stabbing people, shopper Michelle Miller told the Stuff online news outlet.

A witness told the New Zealand Herald the attacker had shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest).

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told the briefing the man was acting alone and police were confident there was no further threat to the public.

"We were doing absolutely everything possible to monitor him and indeed the fact that we were able to intervene so quickly, in roughly 60 seconds, shows just how closely we were watching him," Coster said.

Ardern said the reasons the attacker was known to authorities were subject to court suppression orders over legal proceedings.

New Zealand has been on alert for attacks since a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch on March 15, 2019.

Ardern, asked if the Friday attack could have been revenge for the 2019 mosque shootings, said it was not clear. The man alone who was responsible for the violence, not a faith, she said.

"It was hateful, it was wrong. It was carried out by an individual, not a faith," Ardern said. "It would be wrong to direct any frustration to anyone beyond this individual."

'SOMEBODY GOT STABBED'

A video posted on social media showed shoppers in the supermarket seconds after the attacker struck.

"There's someone here with a knife ... he's got a knife," a woman can be heard saying. "Somebody got stabbed."

A guard asked people to leave the shopping mall shortly before about 10 quick shots rang out.

Ardern's compassionate response to the 2019 mosque shootings united her shocked country but the Friday violence is likely to lead to questions about why the attacker was allowed to remain free if the authorities decided he had to be watched so closely.

Ardern said the man had not committed offences that would have led to his arrest.

"If he had committed a criminal act that would have allowed him to be in prison, that's where he would have been. Unfortunately, he didn't ... instead he was being monitored constantly, constantly, and followed," she said.

She said she was "absolutely gutted" when she got news of the attack.

Of the six wounded people, three were in critical condition, one in serious condition and two were in moderate condition, the St John ambulance service said.

Another witness, Amit Nand, told the Newshub outlet he had seen the attacker and told him to drop the knife just before police arrived.

"This undercover cop came to me ... I was going to hit him .... The cop is like 'get back' and he started shooting him," Nand said.

Gamal Fouda, imam of the Al Noor mosque, the main target of the gunman in Christchurch in 2019, said both white nationalists and Islamic State stood for hate.

"We are broken hearted but we are not broken again ... We stand with the victims of the horrible incident," he said. (Reuters)

Australia will receive an additional 4 million doses of Pfizer's (PFE.N) COVID-19 vaccine this month after agreeing a swap deal with Britain, to help accelerate its vaccination programme amid a record surge in infections.

The deal, announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday, will double the availability of Pfizer vaccines this month, with the first shipment of vaccines from Britain expected to arrive over the weekend.

Australia on Friday recorded its biggest one-day rise in COVID-19 infections, with 1,657 new cases and 13 deaths reported in the past 24 hours.

"On a difficult day like this, it’s important to bring hope. And, I can assure you, there is hope," Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

"This will enable us to bring forward significantly the opportunity for Australia to open up again."

Australia agreed a similar swap arrangement with Singapore earlier this week. Both deals will see Australia return Pfizer vaccines later in the year when the bulk of Canberra's order is delivered.

"Our agreement with Australia will share doses at the optimum time to bolster both our countries’ vaccination programmes," Sajid Javid, Britain's Health Secretary, said in an emailed statement.

LIVE WITH COVID

The surge in infections could make it more difficult for Morrison to persuade state and territories to remove lockdowns and restrictions on travel across state boundaries once 80% of their population over 16 years old are fully vaccinated.

Most of the new cases were again in Sydney, and New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned residents to brace for a spike in numbers as the next two weeks.

New South Wales and Victoria have warned people that they will now have to learn to live with COVID-19, though several other states have walked back on their commitment to the national plan.

These states, which are free of COVID-19, argue that the current third wave of infections makes it too risky to go along with the national plan to re-open borders.

The ongoing restrictions are threatening to drive Australia's A$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) economy into its second recession in as many years, and the discord over how to move forward will be a challenge for Morrison, who must call an election before May 2022.

A total of nearly 58,200 cases and 1,032 deaths have been recorded in Australia since the pandemic began, far lower than many comparable countries, but the Delta outbreak has cast doubt on whether it is wise to pursue elimination strategies. (Reuters)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the alliance would seek to evacuate more vulnerable Afghans and maintain contact with the Taliban, but that Afghanistan's new rulers would have to show themselves worthy of aid and recognition.

NATO member Turkey, which had run Kabul airport for six years, has offered to help keep it operational now that U.S. and other NATO troops have left, and Qatar has offered to help.

Stoltenberg said he had discussed the issue with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and the Qatari foreign minister.

He also said many Afghans who has cooperated with international forces and could therefore be at risk from the Taliban remained in Afghanistan.

"Operational contact with Taliban is necessary to get people out," he told Reuters in an interview. "NATO has been able to evacuate most of the staff working for us. But there are still many people left, and we will continue to do work to get them out."

He warned against expecting a swift recognition of a Taliban government, more than two weeks after the Islamist militia captured Kabul and brought an end to 20 years of war.

Stoltenberg said it was too early to pass judgment on Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar's designation as head of the new government. read more

"We have to judge them on their actions, not on their words," he said. "We will hold them accountable to what they have promised - on preventing Afghanistan being a safe haven for international terrorists, on human rights, especially rights of women, and on free passage."

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, echoed many Western governments in vowing to seek moderation from the Taliban, who enforced of a harsh version of Islamic law, including repression of women, when they were in power from 1996 to 2001.

"We will use our leverage, political, diplomatic and financial leverage on the new rulers in Afghanistan, and we will stand united," he said.

He said diplomatic recognition would be discussed among NATO allies and the wider international community "to put as much pressure as possible on the Taliban government". (Reuters)

 Afghanistan's 250 women judges fear for their lives, with men they once jailed now freed by the victorious Taliban to hunt them down.

While some women judges were able to flee in recent weeks, most were left behind and are still trying to get out, said judges and activists working around the clock to help them escape.

The militants, who swept into power last month as the United States withdrew its troops, banned women from most work when they last ruled the country 20 years ago. They have said women's rights will be protected, but have yet to provide details.

Women who work in justice have already been high profile targets. Two female Supreme Court justices were gunned down in January. read more

Now, the Taliban have released prisoners across the country, which "really put the lives of women judges in danger," a high-level Afghan women judge who fled to Europe said from an undisclosed location.

In Kabul, "four or five Taliban members came and asked people in my house: 'Where is this woman judge?' These were people who I had put in jail," she told Reuters in an interview, asking not to be identified.

She was among a small group of Afghan women judges to have made it out in recent weeks with the help of a collective of human rights volunteers and foreign colleagues at the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ).

Since then she has been in touch with colleagues back home: "Their messages are of fear and complete terror. They tell me if they do not get rescued their lives are in direct danger."

In addition to the judges, there are around a thousand other women human rights defenders who could also be in the Taliban's cross hairs, said Horia Mosadiq, an Afghan human rights activist.

Freed prisoners "are calling with death threats to women judges, women prosecutors and women police officers, saying 'we will come after you'," she said.

FEARFUL

British Justice Minister Robert Buckland said last week London had evacuated nine female judges and was working to provide safe passage for more of the "very vulnerable people".

"A lot of these judges were responsible for administering the rule of law and quite rightly they are fearful about the consequences that could now face them with the rise of the Taliban," he said.

Human rights and legal activists said Western countries did not make the evacuation of women judges and human rights defenders a priority in the chaos after Kabul fell.

"Governments had zero interest in evacuating people that were not their own nationals," said Sarah Kay, a Belfast-based human rights lawyer and member of the Atlas Women network of international lawyers.

She is working with an online group of volunteer veterans known as the "digital Dunkirk," named for the World War Two evacuation of British troops from Nazi-occupied France. It has helped hundreds of people escape with the help of chat groups and personal contacts.

At the IAWJ, a team of six foreign judges has also been coordinating information, lobbying governments and arranging evacuations.

"The responsibility that we bear is almost unbearable at the moment because we are one of the few people taking responsibility for this group," one of the effort's leaders, Patricia Whalen, an American judge who helped train Afghan female judges in a 10-year programme, told Reuters.

"I am furious about that. None of us should be in this position." (Reuters)