Seeds of Discontent
The controversial lifting of a 2-year moratorium on genetically modified crop trials in NZ has been covered extensively by the Guardian, BBC, and Wired. The issue is a divisive one in a country reliant…
Blog Archives
Kiwis Tie Down Kangaroos
The Kiwis convincingly defeated the Australian Kangaroos with a rousing 30-16 victory in a rugby league test at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland. Led by the hat-trick of tries by Clinton Toopi (a trans-Tasman record) and another…
Runway Successes
19 October 2003 – The usual suspects stood out from the crowd at the 2003 L’Oreal NZ Fashion Week in Auckland, with WORLD (above), Nom*D, and Zambesi flying the edge flag for innovative and individual…
Salty tales for stay-at-homes
Voyaging the Pacific, Miles Horden’s account of sailing between his native NZ and Patagonia, reviewed in Japan’s Daily Yomiuri. “Miles Horden’s book … is a cracking good yarn, mainly because he is such a…
The ‘Rapa’s Best Kept Secrets
Herald writer, Tim Dick, extols the many virtues of his Wairarapa homeland – which have thus far escaped the notice of Wellingtonian wine tourists. High on his list of recommendations are having a “three-scoop ice-cream from the…
“Dark fairytale” played out on the edge
Gaylene Preston and Rachael Blake NZ director and Australian star of Perfect Strangers speak to the Age about filming on the South Island’s rugged West Coast. Preston used the sense of…
Pacific Watchdog
Ngati Tuwharetoa leader, Tumu Te Heuheu, has been elected to represent all Pacific nations on the UN’s World Heritage Committee. NZ beat more than 20 other countries to win one of 8 seats on offer. The…
Salt of the edge
In wake of the latest Booker Prize controversy – in which winner, DBC Pierre, announced his prize money would be used to pay off $200,000 in drug debts – the New York Times looks…
AllOver UpOverDownUnder
Waikato University film graduate, Hadyn Butler, won both the best film and audience award at the annual UpOverDownUnder Antipodean Festival in London this year. His entry – Fresh – looks at the quintessential OE…
Day of Thunder for Dixon
Scott Dixon, 23, racing for the Target Chip Ganassi Racing Team, claimed the Indy Racing League title in Fort Worth, Texas. It was his first attempt on the circuit. Finishing 2nd in the season’s nerve-racking final…
Making Waves Out of Raglan
Kerry Black and his Raglan-based company, ASR (Artificial Surf Reef Ltd), are the focus of a SunSpot article on improving surf on America’s East Coast. A former Waikato University lecturer, Black is at the forefront of artificial…
Ocean Masters
Team NZ/Hawaii won the 52nd annual Hawaii Modular Space Molokai Hoe on October 12 by almost 5 minutes. The 41 mile race is considered the world championship of long-distance outrigger canoeing. Team NZ/Hawaii comprises four Kiwis (Rob…
Sideline Action
With all eyes on Australasia for the Rugby World Cup, an Observer travel feature looks at new attractions on offer in the region. Included is the West Coast’s Wave Watchers Retreat (“a romantic bolthole with great…
Winning Edge
2002 women’s rugby world champions, the Black Ferns, stormed a two-test series against a World XV with two convincing wins; 37-0 in Auckland, 38-19 in Whangarei. Chief point scorers in the second match were Mere Kingi,…
Perfect Strangers
Sam Neill, Rachel Blake (Lantana) and Joel Toebeck star in Gaylene Preston’s genre-bending twisted-tale of a pick up gone wrong on the South Island’s rugged West Coast or, “chick flick – deconstructed … subversion…
Clean Dealings
An annual survey by global anti-corruption campaigners, Transparency International, ranks NZ as the world’s third cleanest business environment (equal with Denmark) on 9.5 points. Finland topped the list with 9.7 points, followed by Iceland on 9.6. The…
Giant of the Game Acknowledged by IRPA
The International Rugby Players Association (IRPA) presented Jonah Lomu with its discretionary Special Merit Award at a ceremony in Sydney on November 18. Lomu, described by The Star as “the face of the last two World Cups,”…
Let’s Talk About Sex
“Jane Campion has made an incredibly sexy movie, and she knows it.” Further cinematic exploration along the edge of the erotic, In the Cut debuted at September’s Toronto Film Festival, stirring up as much…
Bring Back Germs
According to a NZ report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, children who suffer from asthma at an early age are less likely to outgrow the disease by adulthood. The figures are drawn from an…
Hillary the Height of Fashion
Newcastle designer, Nigel Cabourn, has released a limited-edition clothing range inspired by Sir Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest in 1953. The collection was launched at an exhibition in Tokyo honouring the event’s 50th anniversary…
East Midlands Look to the South
England’s East Midlands are looking to NZ for inspiration in their bid to become a leading holiday destination. “In the world of tourism, NZ spent many years as the poor cousin to neighbouring Australia. But thanks…
Thinking Inside the Square
Auckland-based graphic design company, Creative Force, has won two awards at America’s Creative 33 competition for the second year running. Established in 2001 by Emma Mann, Creative Force beat thousands of entries from around the globe –…
Littler fish to fry
Fresh from US horror flick The Ring and Bollywood musical Bride and Prejudice, Kiwi actor Martin Henderson is to star alongside Cate Blanchett in the Australian film, Little Fish. Set in Sydney’s ‘Little Saigon’…
A star is Bourne
NZ actor Karl Urban, currently galloping across screens as Eomer in the LotR trilogy, will next appear in two major Hollywood sequels for cult sci-fi / horror flick, Pitch Black, and as Matt Damon’s…
Great Expectations
The All Blacks go into this year’s Rugby World Cup ranked second after England, yet the British press largely favours them to win. According to the Observer, “the ABs are certainties for the final stages. If…
Not-so-cheap seats
LotR fans from Japan to Canada have been lining up to sponsor seats at Wellington’s Embassy Theatre, currently being refurbished in preparation for the world premiere of The Return of the King. 613 of…
Deep south delights
The Australian finds the university city of Dunedin a “hearty mix of charm and character – with plenty of wee surprises”. In the ‘Scotch Broth’ Stephen Brook includes culture and characters during a visit…
Antarctic Archives
NZ’s Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences has received international funding to drill more than a kilometre beneath Antarctica in order to gain access to the “untapped record of climate change” held in its sedimentary layers. Otago…
Back to the Nest
According to Time Asia Pacific, globetrotting NZers are returning to their native shores in record numbers. 2002 saw a 13% increase in Kiwis coming home and a 28% drop in numbers leaving. Analysts believe both economic…
Edge Breath Freshener
Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award Foundation – the “alternative Nobel” – honoured former-PM David Lange for his “steadfast work over many years for a world free of nuclear weapons.” The foundation was formed in 1980 by former European…
Shining Happy People
NZ was ranked 15th happiest nation overall in a World Values Survey of over 65 countries – ahead of the US (16th), Australia (20th) and the UK (24th). The study is a global examination of sociological…
Off the Map, On the Edge
Moko: Art of Nature, by Serena Stevenson and George Nuku, is to screen at this year’s Resfest digital film festival in the US. Resfest was established in 1997 as a forum for cinema breaking new technological…
Mad for Merino
A trip to NZ “pulled the scratchy wool from eyes” with the discovery of Kiwi staple, merino. “This is not your grandfather’s wool, most of which could have doubled as a Brillo…
Tamahori’s triple-X factor
Lee Tamahori is going from Bond to Bond-inspired as the new director of xXx. The second instalment in the lucrative franchise in which Ice Cube replaces Vin Diesel as the titular extreme athlete-turned-secret…
Pacific Edge Connections
Works by contemporary Maori artists including Vicky Lee Hipora Stark, Roi Toia (above, Pakake – Whale), Sandy Adsett, Fred Graham, and Robert Jahnke featured in the Kiwa Pacific Connections: Maori Art from Aotearoa exhibition held in Vancouver…
Tips from the Top
Telecom NZ CEO, Theresa Gattung, interviewed in the SMH after figures from the second annual survey by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency show a “miniscule” improvement in the Australian corporate world’s gender imbalance….
Time Travellers Beware
NZ relativity expert, Professor Matt Visser, attended a Cambridge University discussion on the troublesome issue of time travel, in honour of Stephen Hawking’s 60th birthday. “Most physicists view time travel as being problematic, if not downright repugnant,”…
Watching Wildlife World-Leaders
Kiwi production company NHNZ scooped three awards at the 2003 NaturVision wildlife film festival held in Munich, Germany. The Case of the Baby-Faced Assassin (above) a documentary on Australia’s nocturnal carnivorous marsupial,…
Finely sculpted prose
Michael Dunn’s New Zealand Sculpture: A History praised as “a fine production … readable and informative” in Art Monthly Australia‘s book review issue. Dunn’s comprehensive historical overview is the first of its kind published…
Nu-Zealand metal hits the spott
Kiwi nu-metallers, Blindspott, reviewed in NSTP after performing before 45,000 fans in Indonesia. “In a frenzy of tattoos, studs and machismo, six huge, six-foot blokes from NZ exploded onto the … stage like a…
In the frame … again
Janet Frame was again shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature for a second time, despite making the Swedish Academy’s top five finalists and being picked to win by one of the country’s…
42 Below NZSX-y
Award-winning NZ vodka label, 42 Below – has enlisted the help of Kiwi supermodel Kylie Bax and San Antonio Spurs basketball player Sean Marks to promote his product in the lucrative US market….
Kapiti Creme Anglaise: Finger Licking Good
SMH’s ‘Good Food Guide’ salivates over Kapiti Creme Anglaise: “Talk about the perfect dinner party treat. Heavenly drizzled over cakes and tarts. Or on your finger when you’ve got a hankering for something sweet…
Making the cut, taking a break
Jane Campion has been welcomed back by cinema critics and audiences after a 4 year break between films, with her harrowing thriller/love story, In the Cut. USA Today describes the film as…
Making Hollywood inroads
NZ actor Martin Csokas (Rain, Shortland Street, XXX) is in the running for the lead role in Ridley’s Scott’s next film, Kingdom of Heaven. The epic period drama centres on a young peasant-turned-knight who…
No Mutinies Here Mate
The British government has named Auckland businessman, Leslie Jacques, as the new day-to-day administrator of Pitcairn Island. According to the British High Commission, Jacques has been hired for an initial 4 month period, during which time he…
Suffr-edge-ettes Applauded
Guardian feature on the campaign for women’s suffrage in Kuwait notes NZ’s status as the first country in the world to grant their female citizens the right to vote – in 1893. Australian women waited until…
What Will Pinetree Think …
The All Blacks are using Telecom’s most state-of-the-art technology in their bid to win this year’s Rugby World Cup. Coach John Mitchell will be able to view streamed video footage of multiple angles of the game…
Break In
Coach Jeff Green is confident that the NZ Breakers’ status in Australia’s National Basketball League will be similar to that currently enjoyed by rugby league team, the NZ Warriors. “One team, one country … The country’s…
Eric “Bueller” Watson
SMH charts the enviable career of Eric Watson; from butcher’s apprentice to multimillionaire businessman and owner of the NZ Warriors, (who bowed out in the semi-finals of the 2003 NRL to eventual winners Penrith). “See Eric…
Warriors Fight to the Finish
The New Zealand Warriors fought strongly again this season, losing in the NRL Preliminary Final to eventual winners Penrith Panthers 28-20 in a match played at a cracking pace. They again earned respect for their commitment and…
No worries for Wunderkid
Dunedin-born baritone, Jonathan Lemalu, is soon to make his Royal Opera House debut as Zoroastro in Handel’s Orlando. Described by the Guardian as “ the next Bryn Terfel,” his career has skyrocketed since graduating…
Little Brother is Watching…
NZ’s National Radiation Laboratory has been given the government go-ahead to build a NZ$1 million nuclear test monitoring station in Fiji. The station will be one of a global network of 321 facilities set up in…
Sweet as
NZ soprano Hayley Westenra is the voice behind the fastest selling debut classical record of all time in UK history. Pure has outstripped albums by Pavarotti, Charlotte Church and Andrea Bocelli, with nearly 20,000…
Amazing win
New Zealand Edged Phil Keoghan (with wife Louise, above) as host was among the Emmy winners for his role in The Amazing Race, the Jerry Bruckheimer produced reality show that picked up…
Watt’s Up Jackson?
Peter Jackson has reportedly asked Australian actress Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive, The Ring) to play the female lead in King Kong, which begins shooting in Wellington this November.
