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Two Japanese sisters have been certified by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living identical twins, aged 107 years and 330 days, the organisation says.

The announcement coincided with Respect for the Aged Day, a holiday in Japan.

Sisters Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama were born on Shodoshima island in western Japan on November 5, 1913, as the third and fourth of 11 siblings.

The sisters as of September 1 broke the previous record of 107 years and 175 days set by famous Japanese twin sisters Kin Narita and Gin Kanie, Guinness World Records Ltd said in a statement.

About 29 per cent of the population of 125 million in Japan are 65 years or older, according to the health and welfare ministry.

About 86,510 of them are centenarians - half of whom turned 100 this year.

Sumiyama and Kodama were separated after finishing elementary school, when Kodama was sent to work as a maid in Oita on Japan's southern main island of Kyushu.

She later married there while Sumiyama remained on the island they grew up on and had her own family.

The sisters later recalled their difficult younger days.

Growing up, they said they were targets of bullying because of prejudice against children of multiple births in Japan.

Busy with their own lives for decades, the sisters rarely met until they turned 70 when they started making pilgrimages together to some of the 88 Shikoku temples and enjoyed being reconnected.

Their families told Guinness World Records that the sisters often joked about outliving the earlier record holders, affectionately known as "Kin-san, Gin-san," who attained idol-like status in the late 1990s for both their age and humour.

Due to anti-coronavirus measures, the certificates for their new record were mailed to the separate nursing homes where they now live, and Sumiyama accepted hers with tears of happiness, according to Guinness.

© AP 2021

Royal drama The Crown and feel good comedy Ted Lasso have nabbed the top prizes at television's Emmy awards on a night dominated by streaming shows, British talent and rare wins by women.

Chess drama The Queen's Gambit was named best limited series and tied with The Crown for the most wins overall at 11 apiece.

The best drama series win for The Crown gave Netflix its biggest prize so far, while Apple TV+ entered streaming's big league with the best comedy series win for Ted Lasso.

Neither Netflix nor Apple TV+ had previously won a best comedy or best drama series Emmy.

Jason Sudeikis, the star and co-creator of Ted Lasso, was named best comedy actor. The show also brought statuettes for Britons Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein for their supporting roles in the tale of a struggling English soccer team that won over TV fans with its folksy humour during the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic.

"This show is about family. This show's about mentors and teachers and this show's about teammates. And I wouldn't be here without those three things in my life," Sudeikis said on Sunday.

Despite a nominees list that boasted the strongest showing in years for people of colour, only a handful emerged as winners.

They included Britain's Michaela Coel, who won for writing the harrowing sexual assault drama I May Destroy You in which she also starred and directed; RuPaul, host of the competition show RuPaul's Drag Race; and the cast of hip hop Broadway musical Hamilton, which won the Emmy for variety special after it was filmed for television.

Dancer, singer and actor Debbie Allen was given an honorary award celebrating 50 years in show business. "It's taken a lot of courage to be the only woman in the room most of the time," Allen said.

It was a good night for women, and for Britons.

"Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn't comfortable," said Coel, who dedicated her Emmy to sexual assault survivors.

Lucia Aniello got a rare directing win for a woman for the comedy series Hacks about a fading female comedian. She also was one of the winning co-writers.

New Zealander Jessica Hobbs, who has worked extensively in Australian television, took home a directing Emmy for The Crown.

"Not a lot of women have won this award so I feel like I am standing on the shoulders of some really extraordinary people," Hobbs said.

Australian Yvonne Strahovski missed out on an award for her turn in The Handmaid's Tale.

Seven of the 12 acting awards went to Britons, including Olivia Colman and Josh O'Connor for playing Queen Elizabeth and heir to the throne Prince Charles in a fourth season of The Crown that focused on the unhappy marriage of Charles and Princess Diana.

"We're all thrilled. I am very proud. I'm very grateful. We're going to party," said Peter Morgan, creator of The Crown, at a gathering in London for the cast and crew.

An exuberant Kate Winslet won for her role as a downtrodden detective in limited series Mare of Easttown, while Ewan McGregor was a surprise winner for playing fashion designer Halston.

Concerns over the Delta variant of the coronavirus forced Sunday's ceremony to move to an outdoor tent in downtown Los Angeles, with a reduced guest list and mandatory vaccinations and testing but a red carpet that harked back to pre-pandemic times.

© RAW 2021

Fifteen flights to Australia from New Zealand, and their highly prized places in hotel quarantine, have sold out in three minutes.

Stranded Aussies and Kiwis on both sides of the Tasman Sea headed online on Monday morning in the hope of securing a passage home.

While many locked in flights and places in quarantine, thousands more were left disappointed.

Australians stuck in New Zealand were alerted to a new batch of flights last week.

Around 380 seats on 15 flights - from Auckland to Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth - went online at 8am AEST on Monday.

Air New Zealand executive Leanne Geraghty said all flights sold out by 8.03am.

"Our heart goes out to those customers who have missed out," she said.

"We were allocated a very limited number of managed isolation spaces to return customers home to Australia.

"Even though some flights will only have very limited people onboard, we are committed to operating these to get people home."

At the same time, tens of thousands of Kiwis, both in Australia and further aboard, logged onto the NZ government's system to attempt to find a route home.

On Monday morning, places in New Zealand's mandatory quarantine system - known locally as MIQ - were opened up after weeks without places available.

Demand far outstripped supply.

MIQ head Megan Main said 31,800 people were in the queue, but just 5364 people secured a voucher for the 3205 rooms available.

"I know many thousands of people missed out on vouchers in today's release. I want to reassure people that there are still several thousand vouchers still to be released through to the end of the year," she said.

With the closure of the trans-Tasman bubble, securing a spot in MIQ and undertaking a fortnight in quarantine is the only way New Zealanders can enter the country.

More than 170,000 people have undertaken quarantine in New Zealand since the start of the pandemic.

© AAP 2021