News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Experience True Silence in Doubtful Sound

Experience True Silence in Doubtful Sound

“With towering snow-capped mountains, surreal waterfalls, crystal clear lakes and lush rain forests Doubtful Sound in New Zealand is a destination frozen in time… just like when it was discovered 15,000 years ago,” Nivedita…

Banker Ross McEwan Receives OBE

Banker Ross McEwan Receives OBE

Former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) New Zealander Ross McEwan, whose job at the UK lender was labelled one of the toughest in banking, has been named in the Queen’s…

Chef Monica Galetti’s Festive Food Tips

Chef Monica Galetti’s Festive Food Tips

As this year’s MasterChef: The Professionals drew to a nail-biting finale i spoke with one of the show’s judges, New Zealander Monica Galetti, to find out what she made of this year’s contestants, her…

How Uni Dropout Nick Mowbray Built a Toy Empire

How Uni Dropout Nick Mowbray Built a Toy Empire

The BBC’s weekly ‘The Boss’ series profiles different business leaders from around the world. Last week, the broadcaster’s Virginia Harrison spoke to New Zealander Nick Mowbray, 34, co-founder and co-chief executive of toymaker Zuru. A…

In Dublin Caroline Gardner is Making Good

In Dublin Caroline Gardner is Making Good

The brainchild of New Zealander Caroline Gardner and Irish woman Joan Ellison, Dublin’s We Make Good teams designers with people who face social difficulties and challenges, to create lovely things that everyone can feel…

On the West Coast Beauty Doesn’t Stop

On the West Coast Beauty Doesn’t Stop

Though now only partially open to the public owing to a slip, the 55.7km Paparoa Track on the West Coast is the first addition to the Great Walks in 25 years. Sebastian Modak, The…

LA-Based Eden Iris Shares New Soulful Single

LA-Based Eden Iris Shares New Soulful Single

Every six weeks, New Zealander Eden Iris will release a new single. Timed perfectly, when these tracks run dry it will be just in time for the release of the singer and songwriter’s debut…

Rocket Lab’s Virginia Launch Pad Opens

Rocket Lab’s Virginia Launch Pad Opens

Rocket Lab recently celebrated the opening of a launch complex on the Virginia coast in the United States, half a world away from its first launch pad in New Zealand, award-winning science writer and…

Families and Investors Love Koru Kids

Families and Investors Love Koru Kids

Koru Kids is a London startup, founded by New Zealander Rachel Carrell, trying to help busy parents. They help parents find a local after-school nanny who will do the school pickup, help with homework…

What California Can Learn from Christchurch

What California Can Learn from Christchurch

“I went to New Zealand on a long-planned vacation to see the setting for The Lord of the Rings movies and the mountain scenery. But as the earthquake reporter for the Los Angeles Times,…

NXT Star Dakota Kai Reinvents Herself Post-Injury

NXT Star Dakota Kai Reinvents Herself Post-Injury

Professional wrestler Auckland-born Dakota Kai, 31, is quickly becoming an indispensable piece of popular television programme, WWE NXT’s success, Jason Barrosso reports for Sports Illustrated magazine. Kai, real name Cheree Crowley, played the underdog babyface…

Sir Peter Snell Sports Champion of the Centuries

Sir Peter Snell Sports Champion of the Centuries

Sir Peter Snell, three-time Olympic champion on the track and arguably the greatest runner in the history of New Zealand athletics has died, aged 80, at his home in Dallas, Texas, where he lived…

NZSOF Mission After Disaster on Whaakari

NZSOF Mission After Disaster on Whaakari

The team that recovered bodies from Whaakari/White Island went “to the depths of their endurance and past it,” said the colonel who oversaw the mission. The bodies were almost half a kilometre from shore, some…

New Zealand Theatre Showcase Presented By NYC’s SoHo Playhouse for 2020

New Zealand Theatre Showcase Presented By NYC’s SoHo Playhouse for 2020

A season of New Zealand theatre is set to hit New York stages next year. Showing at SoHo Playhouse, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, Modern Māori Quartet: Two Worlds and The Contours of…

Remote Lindis Lodge Wins World Architecture Award

Remote Lindis Lodge Wins World Architecture Award

Spectacular Lindis Lodge in the Southern Alps, designed by Wellington-based Architecture Workshop, has taken out the top hotel award at the World Architecture Festival, Colleen Hawkes reports for Stuff. The lodge won the Hotel and…

Jojo Rabbit Star Thomasin McKenzie in Demand

Jojo Rabbit Star Thomasin McKenzie in Demand

After her stunning breakthrough in Leave No Trace, Wellington actor Thomasin McKenzie, 19, landed roles in four major films including awards contender Jojo Rabbit, directed by Taika Waititi. Screen talks to the fast-rising star. There…

Niki Caro’s Mulan a Timeless Re-Creation

Niki Caro’s Mulan a Timeless Re-Creation

Disney has been busy of late reviving our favourite childhood animation films into live-action remakes. Following in the footsteps of Dumbo, Aladdin and The Lion King (which were all released in 2019), New Zealander…

Jacinda Ardern Makes Annual Bloomberg 50 List

Jacinda Ardern Makes Annual Bloomberg 50 List

“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern banned military-style semiautomatic and assault rifles six days after 51 people died in the worst mass shooting in the country’s modern history … and rallied the leaders of…

Labour Elects Hungarian-Kiwi Claire Szabó

Labour Elects Hungarian-Kiwi Claire Szabó

“A truly surprising story from New Zealand. The ruling Labour Party has elected Claire Szabó as its new president. New Zealand-born Szabó is also a Hungarian citizen, her father served as Hungary’s Honorary Consul…

Guilt-Free Coffee With Air New Zealand

Guilt-Free Coffee With Air New Zealand

“You might think that all airplane food tastes like plastic packaging, but good news: In a twist of fate, you can now eat airline packaging that actually tastes like food. Because it is food…

In the Shadow of the Mt Erebus Disaster

In the Shadow of the Mt Erebus Disaster

It remains New Zealand’s worst peacetime disaster. On 28 November 1979, a sightseeing aircraft carrying 257 people crashed head-on into the side of a volcano in Antarctica. The tragedy of flight TE901 was a…

Tackling Hot-Button Liberal Issues in One Swoop

Tackling Hot-Button Liberal Issues in One Swoop

Next year, our country will hold public referendums to decide whether to legalise assisted suicide and recreational marijuana, and separately, lawmakers will consider a bill that would decriminalise abortion. Conflict-averse New Zealanders may be…

Housing Crisis Bites in Northland

Housing Crisis Bites in Northland

A 30 per cent  rise in people waiting for state housing in Northland is fuelling New Zealand’s “desperate” shortage in affordable homes, resulting in some families living in the woods, and in huts built…

Gatland’s Gate Honours Former Wales Coach

Gatland’s Gate Honours Former Wales Coach

New Zealander Warren Gatland says he is “humbled” to have been honoured by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) after having a gate at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium named after him, ITV News reports. The main vehicle…

Jane Campion’s The Piano No 1 on BBC Poll

Jane Campion’s The Piano No 1 on BBC Poll

New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion’s stunning 1993 classic, The Piano has topped BBC Culture’s poll of 368 critics in 84 countries. The broadcaster’s Hannah Woodhead reveals why it’s a worthy winner. “In 1993, Campion made history…

First Ans Westra Exhibition In The USA Urban Drift: Aotearoa / New Zealand

First Ans Westra Exhibition In The USA Urban Drift: Aotearoa / New Zealand

The first U.S. exhibition by pioneering New Zealand documentary photographer Ans Westra opens at New York’s Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side on December 5 ‘Urban Drift: Aotearoa / New Zealand’ centres around…

Dyslexia Entrepreneur Matt Strawbridge Heads to US

Dyslexia Entrepreneur Matt Strawbridge Heads to US

When Matt Strawbridge was a boy growing up in New Zealand, school became difficult. He couldn’t read given his dyslexia, and his grades suffered. Looking back, the experience isn’t filled with joy, he told…

Four-day Work Week At A Tipping Point, Says Andrew Barnes

Four-day Work Week At A Tipping Point, Says Andrew Barnes

“I think we’re now at a tipping point,” says Andrew Barnes, author of the book The 4 Day Week to be published in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand in early 2020….

Major Len Lye Exhibition Motion Composer Opens In Europe

Major Len Lye Exhibition Motion Composer Opens In Europe

The most comprehensive exhibition of Len Lye’s art to be seen in Europe has opened at the Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland.  Featuring his kinetic sculptures, paintings, photograms, drawings, models and films, the exhibition occupies…

New Zealand Launches First HIV Positive Sperm Bank

New Zealand Launches First HIV Positive Sperm Bank

The world’s first HIV positive sperm bank has been launched in New Zealand in an effort to reduce the stigma experienced by those living with the virus, the Press Association reports in an article…

Michelin Guide’s Top Rating For Josh Emett’s Book The Recipe

Michelin Guide’s Top Rating For Josh Emett’s Book The Recipe

The Recipe by New Zealand chef Josh Emett is the sole book inclusion in The Michelin Guide’s “Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide for the Foodie.” The portfolio contains 19 “gourmand-level gifts that are sure…

Air New Zealand Does It Again

Air New Zealand Does It Again

Our flagship carrier has knocked Singapore Airlines off its throne to reclaim the title of world’s best airline for the sixth time, the Jakarta Post reports. AirlineRatings.com released the latest edition of its annual…

Anne Young Improving the Welfare of Horses

Anne Young Improving the Welfare of Horses

It’s 6pm on a freezing winter’s night, the wind is howling and the rain beating down. In the darkness, New Zealander Anne Young, the president and founder of Victoria’s Horse Shepherd Equine Sanctuary,…

Teen Harry Sills Performs on West End Stage

Teen Harry Sills Performs on West End Stage

New Zealand-born teenager Harry Sills is starring at the Royal Opera House in Benjamin Britten’s, Death in Venice on London’s West End through 6 December. The 14-year-old, who can act and dance, said: “The opportunity…

Aldous Harding Holding Our Focus

Aldous Harding Holding Our Focus

New Zealand musician Aldous Harding is popular: she’s sold out shows for her tour and headlines London’s Roundhouse next month. Young women who present themselves as she does, daring you to turn away, are…

Pioneer Croatian Settlers in New Zealand

Pioneer Croatian Settlers in New Zealand

Historian and author Kaye Dragicevich has been extensively researching the Far North of New Zealand, the area where a large number of pioneering families came from Croatia in search of a better life over…

Sam Neill Earns AACTA’s Highest Screen Accolade

Sam Neill Earns AACTA’s Highest Screen Accolade

When Sam Neill first stepped in front of a camera on a movie set he had no idea he was launching a career that would span five decades and take him around the world,…

Wallabies Appoint Dave Rennie Coach

Wallabies Appoint Dave Rennie Coach

New Zealander Dave Rennie has been tasked with resurrecting the Wallabies, replacing Michael Cheika as head coach in a deal that will take him through to the 2023 World Cup, Pascal Guyot reports in…

New Zealand Hosts US Comedian Stephen Colbert

New Zealand Hosts US Comedian Stephen Colbert

In a stunt hailed as a coup for the New Zealand travel industry, American comedian Stephen Colbert has screened segments from his trip here on The Late Show. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern…

First for Surfskier Danielle McKenzie in Hong Kong

First for Surfskier Danielle McKenzie in Hong Kong

World champion surfskier New Zealander Danielle McKenzie proved that winning the ICF Canoe Ocean Racing World Championships in France in September was no fluke when she backed up her performance in Hong Kong recently…

Designer Richard Clarkson Has His Head in the Clouds

Designer Richard Clarkson Has His Head in the Clouds

For people living in the forest of skyscrapers like Manhattan, seeing the open sky is often not always part of their everyday scenery, according to Epoch Times correspondent Robert Jay Watson. With his ‘Cloud’…

Physicist Stephen Parke Makes Maths Discovery

Physicist Stephen Parke Makes Maths Discovery

Three physicists, including one New Zealander, wanted to calculate how neutrinos change. They ended up discovering an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in maths, Natalie Wolchover reports for online publication,…

Emilia Wickstead’s Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep

Emilia Wickstead’s Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep

New Zealander Emilia Wickstead has built her eponymous brand on the premise of being properly dressed for every occasion, be it a black tie event or a boardroom meeting; a wild night out or…

Tūī Winner Benee Has a Vision

Tūī Winner Benee Has a Vision

Aucklander Benee, otherwise known as Stella Bennett, who claimed four Tūīs at this year’s Vodafone Music Awards, talked to Billboard’s Gab Ginsberg in the United States recently about her latest EP, Stella & Steve,…

Winemaker Michael Corbett Expands Business

Winemaker Michael Corbett Expands Business

New Zealand-born winemaker Michael Corbett, co-founder of Vanguardist Wines in South Australia, has recently opened a new Clare Valley cellar door in Clare’s original town hall, wine writer Katie Spain writes for Adelaide newspaper, The…

Moe mai rā Nancy Brunning

Moe mai rā Nancy Brunning

One of New Zealand’s best loved actresses Nancy Brunning, made famous as Nurse Jaki on Shortland Street, has died in Wellington, aged 48, Daily Mail Australia reports. Brunning, a talented playwright, acting coach and director,…

New Zealand’s Bird of the Year is the Hoiho

New Zealand’s Bird of the Year is the Hoiho

The endangered hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) won New Zealand’s coveted Bird of the Year competition after two weeks of intense campaigning, the BBC reports. The hoiho saw off many avian rivals to become the first…

In Wellington Meet Food Hero Monique Fiso

In Wellington Meet Food Hero Monique Fiso

Chef and owner of Wellington restaurant, Hiakai, Monique Fiso has been named a “Hero of Travel 2019” by Australia’s Traveller publication. “Travel is a little like theatre – much of the magic happens behind the…

Taika Waititi Puts on a Tuxedo

Taika Waititi Puts on a Tuxedo

His film Jojo Rabbit may be the year’s most unlikely Oscar contender: a Nazi comedy. How will the irreverent director fare amid Hollywood’s sacred rituals? Pop culture reporter Kyle Buchanan investigates for a New York…

Sharna Osborne’s Shots Like Nothing Else in Fashion

Sharna Osborne’s Shots Like Nothing Else in Fashion

The videos and stills made by the New Zealand-born artist Sharna Osborne don’t look like anything else in the fashion world – or at least not like anything else being produced today, this decade,…

Young CEO Jamie Beaton Inspired by Chance Encounter

Young CEO Jamie Beaton Inspired by Chance Encounter

When New Zealander Jamie Beaton, 24, was in his first year of high school, he happened to bump into the dux of his school on a train, Alexis Carey writes for Australian news site,…

Rich Production Incentives Draw Global Projects

Rich Production Incentives Draw Global Projects

For a small country with a film industry that is export-driven, the quality of New Zealand’s incentives is critical, Variety’s Asia bureau chief Patrick Frater reports. Despite the kudos and tourism dollars delivered by producing…

New Zealand Passes Zero Carbon Law

New Zealand Passes Zero Carbon Law

New Zealand has passed a law to reduce its emissions in a bid to become mostly carbon neutral by 2050, Britain’s Independent newspaper reports. The zero-carbon bill aims to tackle climate change by setting a…

Sonny Bill Williams’ Toronto Signing Makes Waves

Sonny Bill Williams’ Toronto Signing Makes Waves

A long-time member of the famed All Blacks, who has won the Rugby World Cup twice and represented New Zealand at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Sonny Bill Williams is a superstar of the highest…

Christchurch Opens Its Doors to More US Visitors

Christchurch Opens Its Doors to More US Visitors

American Airlines has announced the first ever direct flight service between the US and Christchurch. Beginning in October of 2020 the carrier will embark on the 13-hour voyage three times a week. The announcement…

Rodin Reveals Formula One-Like Hypercar

Rodin Reveals Formula One-Like Hypercar

The car you see here might look and drive like a Formula One model, but it’s actually the work of a New Zealand-based hypercar brand, Rodin Cars, Sam Jeremic writes in a motoring story…