New Zealand has announced a phased reopening of its borders, as the country starts to ease some of the world’s toughest Covid restrictions. Vaccinated citizens in Australia can go home from 27 February without needing to undergo state mandatory hotel quarantine. Jabbed citizens elsewhere will be allowed in from 13 March, said PM Jacinda Ardern. People will still have to self-isolate for 10 days but can do so at home. The announcement comes after growing criticism of Wellington’s controversial closed-border policy to keep out the coronavirus. New Zealand’s borders have been shut for nearly two years due to the pandemic.

An Australian billionaire has launched a criminal case against Facebook, alleging the company failed to prevent scam ads that used his image. Andrew Forrest argues Facebook breached Australian anti-money laundering laws over the spread of cryptocurrency cons. He said it was the first time Facebook was facing a criminal case globally. Facebook’s owner, Meta, did not comment on Dr Forrest’s case but said it was “committed to keeping those people [scammers] off our platform”. Dr Forrest, who is chairman of miner Fortescue Metals, alleged Facebook had been “criminally reckless” in not doing more to halt the ads, which first appeared

The final resting place of Captain James Cook’s HMB Endeavour has been found, Australian experts say – a claim their US colleagues say is “premature”. On Thursday, the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) said a wreck in Newport Harbour, off Rhode Island in the US, had been confirmed as the ship. But the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) immediately said “many unanswered questions” remained. The British-built coal ship famously landed in eastern Australia in 1770. Before that, HM Bark Endeavour had sailed for several years around the South Pacific, after setting out from Plymouth in England. The vessel, then

After eight years in the US, Nick Bryant returned to Australia to find a country that had retained many of its finest qualities. But it had also turned in on itself and become a more fractured nation. It was the final full day of our summer holiday – January is the August of the southern hemisphere – and our friend had returned to the beach, in the golden hour of the late afternoon, to capture a few last snapshots. By then, the sands had largely emptied. The sea looked too rough to swim in. But over the crash of the

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has said he offered to quit after calling the prime minister “a hypocrite and a liar” in a text. Mr Joyce apologised after learning that the message – sent last year and passed to a former staffer of Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party – was being made public. The text was dated 22 March, before Mr Joyce took on his current role. Rejecting his resignation, Mr Morrison said: “We all have our frailties and none of us are perfect.” Mr Joyce, 54, told reporters on Saturday: “I want to apologise to the prime minister… I