Wellington - A babysitter who admitted torturing and murdering a 10-month-old girl was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison, news reports said.

Tiana Mary-Anne Odesa Kapea, 30, who was described as a trusted family friend, admitted in the Auckland High Court to swinging the infant by her hair, hanging her in a wardrobe and on a clothesline, and putting her into a freezer several times over a period of six weeks.

The child, named Jyniah Te Awa, died in September 2007 after being kicked, thrown against a wall, shaken and smothered.

"Our baby would be brought home with lollies and bumps and bruises, and every time we'd ask what happened, we'd be given excuses," mother Lisa Cassidy told the court.

Wellington - The former head of New Zealand's immigration service, Mary Anne Thompson, 53, has been charged with fraud, Radio New Zealand reported on Monday.

Thompson appeared in the Wellington District Court on Friday facing three counts of using a document for pecuniary advantage and was remanded to appear again next month, the report said.

Wellington  - A search by a New Zealand Air Force plane for 29 fishermen believed to be drifting in life rafts in the Pacific has been abandoned after three days of fruitless, low-altitude flights, the Defence Force announced Sunday.

The maritime surveillance Orion covered thousands of square kilometres of ocean in the search for crew of the Taiwanese long liner Ta Ching 21, which was found burned out and floating on November 9 near Kiribati's Phoenix Islands.

Wellington

Wellington  - New Zealand's Greens have won an extra seat after votes cast in advance of this month's general election were counted, giving them a total of nine members in the 122-member parliament, the Chief Electoral Office announced Saturday.

The official declaration reduced the number of seats won by the conservative National Party by one to 58 but does not affect the power-sharing arrangement it has made with three other parties, which gave the centre right an overall majority.

Wellington  - A Royal New Zealand Air Force plane continued to comb thousands of square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean on Friday, looking for 29 missing fishermen whose burnt boat was found 12 days back.

According to a Defence Force statement, an initial search for the crew of Taiwanese, Chinese, Filipino and Indonesian nationals from the Ta Ching 21 was conducted by a US Air Force C-130 Hercules on November 12 without success.