New Zealand

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Tuesday that Australian and New Zealand residents will be able to travel between the two countries without having to quarantine. The trans-Tasman travel bubble will start on Sunday, April 18 at 11:59 p.m.

“This is an important step forward in our COVID response and represents an arrangement I do not believe we have seen in any other part of the world. That is, safely opening up international travel to another country while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and a commitment to keeping the virus out,” Arden said.

New Zealand’s Parliament unanimously approved legislation on Wednesday allowing mothers and their partners three days of paid bereavement leave after a miscarriage or stillbirth. Previously, employees were provided with paid leave in case of a stillbirth, the new bill now extends those benefits for those who lose a pregnancy at any point.

Team New Zealand have won the 36th America’s Cup, beating Luna Rossa 7-3 in the best-of-13 series with a dominant 46-second victory in race 10 off the coast of Auckland. The defender retained the Auld Mug, international sport’s oldest trophy, four years after beating Oracle Team USA 7-1 at the 2017 match in Bermuda. It was their fourth America’s Cup triumph after winning in 1995, 2000 and 2017.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reported that New Zealand has purchased enough of Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine to inoculate its entire population. The government has signed an advanced purchases agreement with the vaccine manufacturer for an additional 8.5 million doses. Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine will be the country's primary vaccine.

Whilst the Pfizer vaccine does need to be kept at ultra-cold temperatures, this challenge is offset by only having to deal with one vaccine, rather than multiple vaccines with multiple protocols. It will simplify our vaccine roll out," Arden said.

Travel pass – a Covid-19 vaccination passport app developed by the International Air Transport Association – will be tested on Air New Zealand flights between Auckland and Sydney from April on “to streamline the health verification process to help customers know what they need to take their next international trip safely”.

Luna Rossa wrapped up a comprehensive 7-1 win over Ben Ainslie's Ineos Team UK to win the America's Cup Challenger Series in Auckland.

The Italian boat won both of Sunday's races to set up next month's contest against holders Team New Zealand for the 36th America's Cup.

In January, Luna Rossa edged the USA boat American Magic out of the Prada Cup Semi-Final.

Starting from the 1980s Italy has seriously launched the challenge to the America's Cup. On two occasions, in 1992 and 2000 it won the Challenger title, but coming out defeated on both occasions. In 2021 it re-launched the challenge again with Luna Rossa, winning the final at Prada Cup that gives away the title of Challenger 2021.

Despite being a serious challenger to the America's Cup repeatedly since 1983, this is the first time Italy

On Wednesday, Facebook announced users in Australian will no longer be able to find nor share news from neither local or international sources as a response to a proposed Australian legislation that would force platforms to pay publishers for news content.

William Easton, the managing director of Facebook Australia & New Zealand, wrote in a blog post that the "proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content."

“It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter,” he added.

New Zealand schools across the country will be stocked with free period products from June, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced at Fairfield College in Hamilton on Thursday.

”There’s lots of barriers that shouldn’t exist for our young people,” Ardern said. “And one of the things stopping our young people from going to school is an issue called period poverty. One in 12 of our students possibly miss school because they don’t have access to period products. That’s just not right and not in a country like New Zealand.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that genomic sequencing showed that the recent three Covid-19 cases were the variant B117, the more potent variant first detected in the UK, resulting in an Auckland-wide lockdown.

The Ministry of Healthy announced it was investigating the Auckland cases, prioritising "close contacts and casual plus contacts to be tested so we can understand any risk in the community."

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Sunday announced a three-day lockdown in Auckland after three unexplained cases of coronavirus were discovered.

The country had successfully stamped out community spread, after closing its international borders and implementing strict social distancing rules early on in the pandemic.

A 56-year-old woman has tested positive for Covid-19 in New Zealand, after being released from government managed isolation following two negative tests. The woman arrived in Auckland on 30 December after travelling in Spain and the Netherlands for four months.

The woman was released on 13 January and travelled around south Northland with her husband, visiting as many as 30 locations, including popular holiday spots, AirBnBs, and shops.

Political leaders across the globe, have expressed their concern and shock as Pro-Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and condemned the violence happening on the day the US Senate was to certify the Electoral College results.

"The right of people to exercise a vote, have their voice heard and then have that decision upheld peacefully should never be undone by a mob," so Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and said she and her countrymen were "devastated" by the events.

Leader of the nationalist League party in Italy, Matteo Salvini, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump, said on Twitter that "violence is never the solution" and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India called for an "orderly and peaceful transfer of power."

According to JA Bayona, who is directing the new Amazon-exclusive series playing in the Lord of the Rings universe, the production has wrapped up filming in New Zealand. He posted on Instagram that "this is my last photo in New Zealand" but added that his "heart feels a little kiwi no" and that he "can't wait to be back" while also thanking "this extraordinary land and its beautiful people for taking me in".

There is no release date for the series as of yet.

New Zealand agreed Monday on a two-way travel bubble with Australia, allowing quarantine-free travel between the two nations in the first quarter of 2021.

“It is our intention to name a date ... in the New Year once remaining details are locked down,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference in Wellington.

97 pilot whales and 3 bottlenose dolphins have died as a result of a mass stranding on the remote Chatham Islands, located 800 kilometers off New Zealand's east coast. New Zealand's Department of Conservation was notified of the incident on Sunday, however rescue efforts were thwarted by the remote location and rough sea conditions.

The US rock band Guns N' Roses plans to perform in a stadium tour in a year's time. In May, the group around the founding members Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan had to cancel their European tour planned for early summer 2020 at short notice. Now they have announced a statium tour for Australia and New Zealand in November 2021. Tickets go on presale on November 23rd.

Zeena Ali has become the first New Zealand police officer to wear a police-issued hijab as part of her official uniform. She had joined the police forces after the Christchurch terror attack and now worked with the police to design a hijab that is both functional for work as a police officer and considerate to her religion.

Nanaia Mahuta will be New Zealand's foreign affairs minister, the first woman and the first Indigenous woman to take that job. Jacinda Ardern promoted Mahuta, who has served as the country's first female member of parliament to wear a moko kauae, a traditional tattoo on her chin, for the past four years.

"I'm privileged to be able to lead the conversation in the foreign space," so Mahuta.

"This is a cabinet and an executive that is based on merit that also happens to be incredibly diverse and I am proud of that," Ardern said Monday.

New South Wales reports seven new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, five of which were locally transmitted.

Premier Daniel Andrews expressed frustration with the Australian Border Force and Kingsford Smith Airport during a press conference over a technicality that allowed 17 travellers from New Zealand to enter Victoria despite the state's lockdown. The identity of the travellers has yet to be determined.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has won a second term after a landslide victory in the country's general election. Preliminary results show that Ardern's centre-left Labour Party has won 49% of the vote.

Saturday's result means the Labour Party is projected to win 64 out of 120 parliamentary seats, and be the first party in 24 years with a clear majority.