NZEDGE News — New Zealand through the eyes of the world's media

Antarcticans Unite

Nearly every New Zealander, according to American author of The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica, Leslie Carol Roberts “has some link to Antarctica – either they had been there, or someone they…

Parliamentary Melting Pot

Pansy Wong, 53, is New Zealand’s first Asian cabinet minister, having been named Minister for Ethnic Affairs and Minister of Women’s Affairs in the new government. Wong, who was born in Shanghai, said her…

With Grand Applause

Wellington-based author Eleanor Catton’s first novel The Rehearsal has been bought by US publisher Granta for a six-figure sum. Currently working on her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as a 2008 Glenn Schaeffer…

Te Rauparaha’s War Cry

The all-Maori team first performed a haka against Surrey in Richmond in 1888 where they, according to theIllustrated London News, “cavorted about in ostrich-feather capes and tassell’d caps in a device of novelty and…

Judd Mixes It Up

Chief winemaker at Cloudy Bay Kevin Judd’s 2008 sauvignon blanc has just hit British shelves and in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Judd explains the complexities of blending wine. “In the old days…

Women’s Open Confirmed

Wellington golfer Sarah Nicholson and Aucklander Liz McKinnon will be two of 20 New Zealand and Australian players in a total field of 144 to appear at the inaugural New Zealand Women’s Open staged…

Easy Street in Rawene

New Zealand-based designer Lise Strathdee’s company Outpost Hokianga, located in Rawene, is a “hip concept store that mixes fashion, books, art and fine food,” according to Time magazine. The notion that fashionable shopping…

Collision with the big guns

Te Awamutu-born Crowded House frontman Neil Finn is Billboard’s featured artist, just ahead of a planned studio project with his son singer Liam Finn, UK band Radiohead and American rockers Wilco. In a sequel…

Looking Back to Black

Former All Black hooker Anton Oliver, 33, is now studying at Oxford University for an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management, but he’ll play “one more decent game” against Cambridge in the Nomura Varsity…

New Zealander in Ink

Auckland tattooist Nikole Lowe, 36, is one of four London-based artists featured on the Discovery Channel’s six-part reality show London Ink, a series which delves into the world of tattooing. Lowe is interviewed in…

Waterborne Cars Are Go

16 November 2008 – New Zealand entrepreneur Alan Gibbs, 69, has opened an amphibious vehicle engineering and research centre for his firm, Gibbs Technologies in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Gibbs previewed two of his company’s…

In all honesty

“The curry-scented streets of Pip Brown’s east-London neighbourhood Brick Lane are a far cry from her beginnings in New Zealand,” writes The Independent on Sunday’s Luiza Sauma in a frank interview with Brown, now…

Mail Man Has Role in US

Former New Zealand Post CEO and Royal Mail executive deputy chairman Elmar Toime has been appointed to American online postal service Earth Class Mail Corporation’s board of advisors. Toime – who also led the…

The siege of Helengrad

Antony Green, election analyst with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, summed up Election 08 thus (abridged): “Whether New Zealanders wanted change or just a change of government is the mandate question that John Key will…

Celebrating Two Decades

For over 20 years, since A.J Hackett and Henry Van Asch’s first tandem leap of faith in 1988, bungee jumping has poured more than $1 billion into the New Zealand economy. On November 12,…

One Visitor at a Time

New Zealand has been judged to have the most responsible tourism practises on the planet at the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards in London. The judges declared New Zealand the overall winner of 2008…

Music to his ears

Associate professor in instrumental and vocal composition at The New Zealand School of Music Jack Body’s latest cross-cultural composition is a production called ‘The Seven Ages of Man’, which is a “multimedia music theatre”…

Fame from the field

Wellington-born Singer Will Martin, 24, is one of a number of classical crossover performers who, writes the Times Online, made their “big break” singing the national anthem at a sporting event. Martin first performed…

Rugby’s Poster Boy

All Black fly-half Dan Carter, who recently made number 11 on American network E! Entertainment channel’s list of the 25 Sexiest Men of the World, this week also featured in CNN’s Talk Asia series….

Key In Clark Out

8 November 2008 – National Party leader John Key, 47, has ousted Labour’s Helen Clark from office and a nine-year term, with a mantra of change. Prime Minister Helen Clark conceded defeat. Clark, 58,…

Legendary Cricketer

Former test-cricketer and left-arm spinner Aucklander Hedley Howarth has died, aged 64. Howarth claimed 86 wickets in 30 tests for New Zealand between 1969 and 1974, retiring from test cricket in 1977. He was…

Home with Benefits

New Zealand is the favoured country for British expatriates to live because of its low property prices, mild weather and favourable tax rates. Having the lowest average property price at £105,750, low fuel, food…

Awarded for Imagination

New Zealand mineral chemist Dr Alan Reid, 77, has won the Ian Wark Medal in acknowledgement for his outstanding contribution to Australia’s prosperity through the advancement of scientific knowledge. One of a number of…

Tidal promotion

Christchurch singer-songwriter Anika Moa’s third studio album ‘In Swings the Tide’ has been released in Australia, and with the release Moa, 28, will perform several promotional concerts in Melbourne ahead of shows supporting Crowded…

Rethinking Polar Power

Later this month, Meridian Energy will begin work on the most southernmost wind farm in the world, on Crater Hill, Ross Island in Antarctica. The turbines will provide renewable energy to New Zealand’s Scott…

Southpaw Inducted

Carterton-born golfer Sir Bob Charles, 72, has been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the veterans category – the Hall of Fame’s first New Zealander, and its first left-hander. Charles won…

Lakeside Hedonism

Blanket Bay luxury lodge on the shores of Lake Wakatipu is the starting point for any adventure a guest can imagine, but it is also home to some very fine cuisine, according to The…

The Wild Edge

New Zealand’s dramatic scenery is the backdrop for an 11-day “fall” fashion shoot in the latest issue of National Geographic Adventure, which takes the writer/photographer and his models from Auckland to Te Anau. “This…

Blondes make blog

Auckland singer Gin Wigmore, 21, and Wellington’s Ladyhawke are both plugged in Perez Hilton’s Hollywood gossip blog, who enthuses that if you are blonde and from New Zealand, he is: “LOVING you this week.”…

R.I.P Harry

Henry William Bourne Palin, British actor Michael Palin’s uncle, was a farmhand in New Zealand who at the outbreak of war in 1914 enlisted in the 1st battalion of the Canterbury Regiment of the…

Green Light District

New Zealand’s “liberalisation” of the world’s oldest profession is, according to the Economist, a success story, where in 2003 the magazine writes, “that country decriminalised the sex trade with a boldness that exceeded that…

Better Late Than Never

30 October 2008 – For the first time in approximately two hundred years, a tuatara has been discovered nesting on the New Zealand mainland. The event happened at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, where four…

Clay’s Reading Gift

New Zealand-developed remedial programme Reading Recovery, devised by the late educationalist Dame Marie Clay, is proving successful in the UK with 30,000 British children a year expected to take part by 21. Under the…

Craved in Canada

Kathmandu founder and owner of design store Nood, or “New Objects of Desire”, Jan Cameron has opened four stores in British Columbia. Nood carries a range of household and personal products, including designer furniture…

With eyes for art

New Zealander Jennifer Flay, artistic director of Fiac (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain), is heading a break-through at the contemporary Parisian art fair, a role she was appointed to in 2003. “While location is one…

With Comforts, Without Pack

Opened in 1992, the 71km Queen Charlotte Track is located between Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sound, and Los Angles Times’s reporter Amanda Jones ó who considers herself “an outdoorswoman” but for who the “appeal…

Winning Ways

Former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick has been asked to take part in a one-on-one mentoring initiative with a group of young Scotland players. Fitzpatrick will be linked with Ross Ford, the present Scotland…

KR on Argentinean Edge

27 October 2008 – Saatchi & Saatchi CEO and Lovemarks instigator Kevin Roberts keynoted HSM’s Buenos Aires management conference alongside Harvard U strategy guru Michael Porter, Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz (Economics) and Muhammad Yunus…

Newspaper Half Mast

A homage to Sir Edmund Hillary has won this year’s best newspaper advertisement at the 2008 Caxton Awards in Australia picking up the top prize, the Quinlivan Black Award. The Saatchi & Saatchi Australia…

Fonterra’s Melamine Nightmare

Criminal contamination of the milk supply chain in China embroiled New Zealandís largest commercial organization Fonterra in a crisis that left four babies dead and 3,000 still in hospital. An estimated 54,000 children were…

In the Hot-seat

New Zealander Geoff Vuleta, co-founder and chief executive of New York-based innovation consultancy company Fahrenheit 212, commutes between the US city, and home to Auckland every 8 weeks. Vuleta discusses his frequent-flyer lifestyle, and…

Trumps in Mexico

Whangarei triathlete Sam Warriner, 37, took gold at the Huatulco BG World Cup in Mexico and with the win becomes the 2008 BG Triathlon World Cup series champion. Warriner was victorious in a time…

Tough Gets Going

Sportswear apparel maker Canterbury of New Zealand, which produces the shirts worn by the Scottish Rugby Union team, will this week open its first retail outlet in Europe. Canterbury, which also supplies Glasgow Warriors,…

Everyman in the lens

Northland photographer Ross T. Smith exhibits images of subject Hemi Tuwharerangi Paraha at the Visual Arts Gallery of the University of Alabama through November 1. The images are powerfully elemental. He becomes…

Let Cones Be Licked

Chief judge for the New Zealand Ice Cream Awards and sensory scientist at Massey University Kay McMath has proved the dessert tastes better when licked from a cone. McMath said that the flavour in…

Influence from the inside

New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton has won the world’s longest running environmental film festival, Cinemambiente for his feature-length documentary Nuclear Comeback, parts of which were filmed in Chernobyl’s abandoned radioactive control room and core….