Chocolate Carbon Credits
New Zealand graphic designer Giles Barker and his wife, trained chef Vanessa Kettelwell established confectionary company Bloomsberry & Co in 2001 and already they’ve have had their chocolate bars whipped out “from under…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Solving the Belch
New Zealand scientists are conducting world-first research into solutions for agricultural methane emissions including genetic engineering, cloning and a vaccine for gassy animals. “Given that we’re trying to turn around hundreds of thousands of…
Running on Jatropha
Air New Zealand and Boeing plan a three-hour test-flight at the end of the year using fuel produced from jatropha, a poisonous tree which grows seeds rich in oil. The airline expects to use…
NZ Cinema in Beijing
The 2008 New Zealand Film Festival opens in Beijing and includes screenings of Eagle vs Shark, No. 2 and Out of the Blue. The Festival is a means of offering Chinese…
Union Man’s Aria
Christchurch-born singer Max Merritt, who fronted Max Merritt and the Meteors, will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame alongside New Zealand band Dragon. “I didn’t expect it – it was an incredible…
Solomon Islands Position
New Zealander Peter Marshall has been sworn in as the Acting Police Commissioner for the Solomon Islands. Marshall has over 35 years experience across all areas of policing and since 27 has held the…
Spontaneous Hors Concurs
Mark Todd, 51, and his Olympic stead, 10-year-old Gandalf made for a surprise entry at a Lincolnshire dressage show. Trudy Clark, who runs twice-monthly affiliated competitions at Elms Farm Equestrian Centre, could barely believe…
Ward and Puhi reunite
Director Vincent Ward, 52, has been in Sydney at the world premiere of his latest feature Rain of the Children, a film which documents the life of Tuhoe woman, Te Puhi who Ward met…
Rodents Settle Debate
The arrival of Pacific rats in New Zealand decides the debate about the settling of the country by Polynesians; the findings confirm that settlers arrived here some 1,000 years later than was previously thought….
Sausage Day cinema
Janet Frame was a waitress at Dunedin’s Grand Hotel when she wrote A Night at the Opera, until now unknown, thought to be written in 1954, and this month published in the latest issue…
History Lessons in Mood
Professor Sydney Shep, senior lecturer in print and book culture at Victoria University, has uncovered the emoticon’s “pre-history” stumbling upon emoticons in an 1882 typographic journal at St. Bride’s Printing Library in London. There, on the page,…
Dean’s Ultimate Crusade
The Crusaders, who have won more titles than any other team in the franchise, have claimed another winning this year’s Super 14 against the Waratahs and coach Robbie Deans, who leaves to coach the…
Changeably Crowe
This is New Zealand actor Russell Crowe on the cover of the June issue of PhotoIcon in “typical mercurial and irreverent mood”. Taken by British portrait photographer Michael Birt in February 2000 at a…
Short lines hide
Wellington poet Bill Manhire takes the cover of the 2008 spring edition of literary periodical Poetry London, in which his poems ‘Song with a Chorus’, ‘Velvet’ and ‘The Carpe Diem Poem’ appear. Manhire read…
Europe Follows Lead
New Zealand is the first English-speaking country in the world to have banned smacking and Europe wants to follow suit. The New Zealand police were reassured when they won the right to apply the…
Search Engine Commemoration
The anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mount Everest in 1955 has been honoured by search engine giant Google. Google periodically changes its logo to celebrate special events and…
By the People for the People
Auckland trio, Tim Tregonning, Dan Phillips and Danis Roberts are crowd pleasers; their project, OurBrew is currently recruiting beer drinkers to unite and develop a collective drop by signing up online, voting and then…
Chip off the Old Block
Jeremy Coney, as announcer on Sky TV’s ‘Test Match Special’, is “cricket’s answer to the poet and critic Tom Paulin”, according to Guardian sports blogger Rob Bagchi. A guest on TMS for the last 20 years,…
Home Amidst History
Four hours from Auckland, New Zealand developer Peter Cooper’s 400 ha Mountain Landing property boasts white sand beaches, native bush and historical value. “When I first saw the property, I knew that it was…
For the Love of Letters
Thirteen-year-old Hamilton spelling champion Thomas North will compete at the 81st Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., travelling further than any of the record 288 competitors. North competes a year after Christchurch entrant Kate Weir’s memorable…
Flaming Britches
James Watson, head of Massey University’s school of history, philosophy and politics in Palmerston North and author of agricultural study, ‘The Significance of Mr Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers’, won an Ig Nobel prize…
Fear the Flanker
Forty-eight test veteran, Jerry Collins, 27, has announced his retirement from New Zealand rugby. Collins said: “It’s difficult for me to talk about myself but I know I’ve always been committed to every minute of every…
Ice Man Wins Indy 500
New Zealander Scott Dixon, 27, woke to the traditional 6am race-day explosion, ate American pancakes with hot syrup for breakfast and then from pole position drove 200 laps to win the 92nd Indianapolis 500,…
Hobbiton revisited
New Zealand is once again the backdrop for Middle Earth, Peter Jackson and Hobbit director Guillermo Del Toro confirmed in an hour-long live internet chat with fans. Speaking from New Zealand and London respectively,…
Luxury Golf Getaways
The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs in the Bay of Islands was voted one of New Zealand’s best resorts in 2007 and one of the top 20 resorts in the world by readers of Andrew…
Peaceful Isles
New Zealand comes in at number four on the second annual Global Peace Index released by Britain’s Economist Intelligence Unit. A survey on the harmoniousness of the world’s nations, the Index evaluates…
Enigma funds school
Though New Zealand tycoon Christopher Chandler keeps a reclusive profile, he has invested $50 million in a business school for students from developing countries in Boston. Chandler, a beekeeper’s son from Matangi who has…
Corporate Iwi Unite
Divided into four tribes: kea, ruru, tui, and weka, 200 employees of US firm Seagate Technologies face the elements in the mountains above Queenstown in a week-long “mother of all of team-building events”. CEO…
Constantly Gardening
Auckland greensman Robbie Penny has worked on Bridge to Terabithia, 10,000 BC and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian arranging on-set nurseries, sourcing Belgian lettuce ferns and relocating apple orchards. Feet are…
Colonial Space Rockets
First published in New Zealand in 1881, the second volume of science fiction novella The Great Romance lay hidden on the shelves of Dunedin’s Hocken Library until the 1990s when the work was discovered….
Unlikely Gathering
On a subsea mountain peak 400km south of New Zealand, a robot submarine has filmed tens of millions of waving five-armed creatures called brittlestars, in a never-seen-before seamount discovery. Scientists from New Zealand and…
Finding Precious
Tauranga-based filmmakers Lance and James Morcan are searching for the best person to take on the role of four-foot-nine power-lifting champion Precious McKenzie. Ranked the best weightlifter in South Africa, McKenzie, now 71, was…
London from home
New Zealand author Emily Perkins leans out to close a window at her publisher’s in Soho and “raising her voice over a building site, takes a deep breath of London air to say, ‘It’s…
Touting the Youth
New Zealand ‘the youngest country’, is the new focus of Tourism New Zealand’s international branding. Tourism chiefs have called in London PR agency Henry’s House as they revive the country’s popularity post-Lord of the…
For the Good of All
Lake Karapiro in Cambridge is the headquarters for Rowing New Zealand’s centralized training programme which has produced “one of the strongest rowing squads in the world” on a budget of just four million dollars….
Kosher in Canterbury
Christchurch is visited by some 20,000 Israeli backpackers annually, and to cater for these numbers, the city will soon be home to New Zealand’s first kosher restaurant. Rabbi Mendy Goldstein, formerly of Brooklyn, New…
Oliver the Oxonian
Former Highlander Anton Oliver, 32, will play the last rugby matches of his career at Oxford University while he studies for an MSc in Biodiversity, Environment and Management. Oliver, winner of 55 New Zealand…
Out of the Shade
Sir Richard Hadlee and his father, Walter are probably one of the most successful father-son sporting combinations according to the Guardian’s Will Buckley, but this son doesn’t want to be compared. Richard Hadlee,…
An Intelligence Question
James Flynn, Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago and moral philosopher, says human intelligence has improved over the last century, rather than declined as was widely thought. “But,” Flynn…
NZ Pop’s Work Permit
Auckland band Ruby Suns has the UK press “salivating” over its latest guitar-pop album Sea Lion, with other acts like the Brunettes, Connan and the Mockasins and Lawrence of Arabia proving…
Union Commute
First five-eighth and fullback Aucklander Nick Evans has signed a three-year contract with English side the Harlequins for the 2008-2009 Guinness Premiership season. Considered the high-quality understudy to Daniel Carter, Evans is one of…
Cattle for Capital
New Zealand dairy farmers are benefiting from a worldwide demand for milk and cheese with Fonterra Cooperative Group members promised big payouts for their efforts this year. Never before has the term “cash cow”…
Geometric on the Bay
The 1931 Napier earthquake devastated the Hawkes Bay region, but two years later Napier was rebuilt and an Art Deco masterpiece. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rebecca Lancashire pays a visit and “wanders the city…
Royal Interlude
Filmmaker Andrew Adamson’s Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, shot in New Zealand, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, has been released worldwide. The release comes just before Adamson takes a break from what has been…
Safety in Cyber-space
New Zealand-designed educational software Hector’s World, which teaches children about the dangers of online aedophiles with cartoons, has been launched at St Vincent de Paul RC Primary School, in Westminster, Central London. Hector’s World…
For the Whales
Actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 19, has joined the Save the Whales Campaign and is urging the New Zealand government to reject Japan’s proposal to resume commercial whaling in its waters before a June 22 International…
Economic Hardware
In 1949, New Zealand engineer and economist Professor William “Bill” Phillips astonished the London School of Economics revealing his “do-it-yourself” creation: an analogue computer model of the workings of the British economy. The Monetary…
Comedic Eclecticism
Flight of the Conchords have “a gift of genre-blending that makes even David Bowie’s efforts pale in comparison,” writes London Time Out. Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie shift comfortably from the soft-hitting hipn hop…
Weathering the Storm
Rotorua-born and Ruatoria-raised political campaigner and artist Tame Iti has the leading role in a Europe-bound performance based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Iti will perform in Tempest II with the 15-member Mau Dance Company….
The Highest of Achievers
Colin Murdoch, inventor, pharmacist and self-taught engineer, a man who designed something the world could not do without, has died in Timaru, aged 79. Murdoch led an extraordinary life; creator of the disposable syringe,…
Berkett Settles In
Neil Berkett is eight weeks into his role as chief executive at Virgin Media and already has battle scars. Actually, he explains in an interview with Sunday Times reporter Andrew Davidson, he just banged…
Debating the Warrior Gene
The Mongrel Mob feature in an episode of BAFTA award-winning BBC documentary Ross Kemp on Gangs, in which Kemp explores the history of the gang, formed in Hastings in the 1960s. He follows members…
Oram Fit for Lords
Palmerston North Black Caps all-rounder Jacob Oram, 29, has recovered from stress-related injury and is braced for the first Test against England at Lords on May 15. Oram’s economy rate of 2.4 is the best among…
Singer Performs on Ice
New Zealand singer/songwriter, Mihirangi has returned from a trip to Antarctica where she filmed a video for her latest single No War. “They put me on this iceberg all by myself!” she said. “It…
Breathing Clean Air
New Zealand is a haven for environmental refugees and in this BBC World Service programme, one of six in the Global Perspective documentary series, four immigrants discuss their new home. In Escape to New…
Paquin in beautiful 100
Academy-Award winner Anna Paquin, 25, features on US Men’s magazine Maxim’s 2008 Hot 100, the “ultimate list of the world’s most beautiful women.” At number 50, Paquin is described as the: “sexy, troubled, and…
