News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Pacific Gateway Ia Orana!

Pacific Gateway Ia Orana!

Air Tahiti Nui is now offering stopovers in Auckland and Tahiti for any direct flights between New York or LA and Sydney. Billed as the first-ever non-stop service between New York and the South Pacific,…

Environmental No.1

Environmental No.1

NZ leads the world in environmental performance according to the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities measured how close 133 countries came…

NewZealand.com the Business

NewZealand.com the Business

Business Week hails Tourism NZ’s Webby Award winning website, NewZealand.com, as “a vibrant blend of heritage and enterprise” – media savvy, innovative and easy to use. ” is clearly establishing itself as a prime mover with…

NZ has the Edge Online

NZ has the Edge Online

NewZealand.com, Tourism NZ’s award-winning website, earned further raves in a feature article by Brand Channel. “A ninth annual Webby Award winner, the homepage of NewZealand.com is a vibrant blend of heritage and enterprise, with both tourism and…

Heading the Catalogue of Life

Heading the Catalogue of Life

Dr David Penman has been elected chair of the governing board of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, an international organization working to develop the world’s first free mega-database of all living organisms. The internet resource, which will help…

A Glass a Day Won’t Keep the Doctor Away

A Glass a Day Won’t Keep the Doctor Away

NZ researchers have put a dampener on previous claims that drinking in moderation is good for the heart. According to Auckland University’s Dr Rod Jackson, the studies conducted in the 1970s and 80s were flawed and…

Chinese Opportunity

Chinese Opportunity

Fonterra has made the biggest ever investment in the Chinese dairy industry by a foreign company by purchasing a 43% stake in the Shijiazhuang San Lu Group for US$107 million. The San Lu Group produces powdered…

Would You Like Fries with that $25 Million?

Would You Like Fries with that $25 Million?

Three Kiwi entrepreneurs have sold their hugely successful chain of UK burger restaurants for NZ$25.7 million. Greg Driscoll, Brandon Allen and Adam Wills opened the first Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Battersea, south London, in 2001. Similar…

Evolution in an Egg Shell

Evolution in an Egg Shell

Massey University’s David Lambert has published his findings on the microevolution of Antarctica’s Adélie penguins in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Lambert’s research shows a marked difference between the genetic make up of modern…

Bright Spark

Bright Spark

Auckland University’s Johanna Montgomery has become the first southern hemisphere scientist in history to win a prestigious Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology. Dr Montgomery was one of 4 scientists to be awarded the…

Kiwi Kayak Heralds New Era of Design

Kiwi Kayak Heralds New Era of Design

NZ biochemist Murray Broom’s FirstLight Kayak received a three-page spread in I.D magazine, America’s leading authority on the art, business and culture of design. Reviewer Barbara Flanagan (I.D contributing editor and product designer) hails the…

Milk and Money

Milk and Money

Fonterra has announced plans to build an AU$15 million dairy innovation centre in Melbourne. “By investing significantly in innovation we are ensuring that we remain at the forefront of developing specialty ingredients and consumer products that will…

Seismic Shift for Psychiatry

Seismic Shift for Psychiatry

A study of schizophrenia by NZ psychologist John Read, as published in leading psychiatric journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, could potentially “trigger a landslide” in his field, according to Guardian columnist and clinical psychologist Oliver James. The traditional…

Sudoku Mania

Sudoku Mania

Retired Kiwi judge, Phil Gould, continues his path to world domination as the man behind current puzzle-page phenomenon, Sudoku. Gould now provides puzzles for 120 newspapers in 36 different countries. “It will fade but I don’t expect…

Bullionaire Business Opportunity

Bullionaire Business Opportunity

A Massey University graduate may soon be striking agricultural pay-dirt after founding the world’s first gold-farming company, Tiaki International. Chris Anderson spent 8 years at Massey developing a chemical process which causes plants to “hyperaccumulate” gold particles…

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising

NY Times feature on the burgeoning international alternatives to Coca Cola mentions NZ-brewed delight, Phoenix Cola. “This organic, caffeine-free drink from New Zealand is actually made from the cola nut. Refined-sugar shunners can opt for the honey-sweetened…

At the Forefront of Disease Control

At the Forefront of Disease Control

Professor Neil Pearce, Director of NZ’s Centre for Public Health Research, was elected President of the International Epidemiology Association (IEA) at the recent World Congress of Epidemiology held in Bangkok. The first ever president from the Southern Hemisphere,…

Nile by Mile

Nile by Mile

NZer Cam McLeay is co-leading an expedition aimed at accurately measuring the length of the River Nile. The six person team began their journey at Rosetta, Egypt, and will travel through Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and…

Technological Trailblazers

Technological Trailblazers

A group of Canterbury University scientists have developed a machine with the potential to revolutionise everything from counter-terrorism and border control to disease detection. Since the early 1980s, Professor Murray McEwan and his CU team have been…

Less is More

Less is More

In a study released by the World Bank, New Zealand has been named the most business-friendly nation in the world. The study ranked 155 countries and was based on classic American assumptions of economic success, like…

Future Craft Flies Thanks to Kiwi Know-how

Future Craft Flies Thanks to Kiwi Know-how

NZ engineer Bill White has designed an ultra-lightweight engine to power a “back to the future” style mini helicopter for US company AirScooter. Christchurch based company Pegasus Aviation began developing the AeroTwin engine in the 1990s…

Ben Ohau Doing Just Fine

Ben Ohau Doing Just Fine

The South Island’s MacKenzie Basin is internationally famous for two things; providing the stunning backdrop to the final battle in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and producing the most consistently high quality merino wool in…

The New Wave

The New Wave

Two NZ companies made international business magazine Red Herring‘s vaunted “Top 100 Private Companies in Asia” list for 2005. Esphion and Argent Networks, both based in Auckland, are rated as companies which could significantly…

School of Rock

School of Rock

A music teaching program designed by four Christchurch friends has taken off online, selling more than 10,000 copies – mostly in the US – in just two years. Jamorama is a step by step guide to…

Bellew Gives Oman a Go

Bellew Gives Oman a Go

Long-standing Christchurch Airport CEO, George Bellew, is leaving the top job for a major international one. Bellew is to run the Oman Airports Management Company, which means overseeing $1.46 billion worth of upgrades to the Middle Eastern…

Liddell Goes for Growth

Liddell Goes for Growth

Microsoft’s money man from Matamata is seeking to revive the company’s stock price with a story of significant growth based on a raft of new product releases. Chris Liddell says that Wall St is “starting to…

The “Little Airline that Could”

The “Little Airline that Could”

Air NZ’s ongoing $800 million overhaul has not gone unnoticed in the US, with lengthy articles devoted to its new look 747’s in the LA Times and FirstClassFlyer. Upgrades include fold-out flat beds in business class, personal…

Mongolian Musings

Mongolian Musings

Auckland born investment banker, John O’Loghlen, muses on Mongolia in the nicely titled Feeding a Dragon: Mongolia’s Position within a Rising Asia. Observations on the Land of Eternal Blue Sky for the Land of the…

Design on the Money

Design on the Money

Auckland based Cabco Group Ltd is to provide hi-tech shopping carts for US retail giants Wal-Mart and H.E Butt. The Wal-Mart deal alone is expected to net the company $50 million per annum. The TV Cart is…

Sam’s Back

Sam’s Back

Called by Kerry Packer “the world’s best television executive,” NZ-born Sam Chisholm is back helming Packer’s Channel Nine. In the 90s he turned UK’s BSkyB into a cash cow for Rupert Murdoch. The Auckland born…

Surf’s Up

Surf’s Up

The powerful, curling waves that draw surfers to beaches will soon be breaking inland, thanks to a novel shape-shifting rubber reef that can be fitted to the floor of a swimming pool. The Versareef,…

Industry in Good Hands

Industry in Good Hands

Malaysian Star feature looks at NZ’s thriving film, multimedia and technology schools; specifically Auckland’s South Seas Film and Television School, Media Design School, and University of Technology (AUT), and Palmerston North’s University College of Learning (UCol). “Thanks to…

Norris Ready for Take Off

Norris Ready for Take Off

Ralph Norris is leaving the helm at Air NZ to return to banking as managing director and CEO of Australia’s Commonwealth Bank. Norris is credited with turning Air NZ’s fortunes around. “Air NZ’s financial position has never…

International Man of Mystery

International Man of Mystery

Wayne Gould – retired NZ judge turned “international puzzle star” – is responsible for the latest craze in newspaper teasers, Su Doku. Gould discovered the number-based logic test in a Japanese bookstore in 1997. After six years…

Dishing the Dirt

Dishing the Dirt

NZ scientists at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research have developed a high-tech yet cost-effective new crime -fighting technique. The revolutionary system uses DNA analysis of the bacteria in soil to match a database of samples…

Interplanetary Fame

Interplanetary Fame

Two amateur Kiwi astronomers helped discover a planet 15,000 light years from Earth using simple backyard telescopes. Grant Christie and Jennie McCormick are part of a worldwide star-gazing collective called MicroFUN, led by Andrew Gould of Ohio…

All in a Day’s Work

All in a Day’s Work

The Economist reports on ructions to repair the dire finances and arcane structure at Oxford University. Proposals by new vice chancellor John Hood to centralize decision-making and change the way in which dons’ work…

Save the Kauri Part 2

Save the Kauri Part 2

Belgian researcher Lieven Claessens has discovered another reason to preserve our native kauri forests. According to Claessens’ Dutch-funded study, which was undertaken in the Waitakere ranges, the giant trees help stabilise areas susceptible to landslides and erosion….

Liddell to Work on Margins

Liddell to Work on Margins

TBR believes the addition of New Zealander Chris Liddell as Microsoft’s CFO should help usher in an era of growing operating margins and a tightening of the fiscal belt. In TBR’s opinion, the hiring…

Academia and Industry United

Academia and Industry United

Cambridge-MIT Institute director, NZer Michael J Kelly, speaks about the importance of combining entrepreneurial and business skills with academic learning in the Guardian.”Governments around the world realise that it shouldn’t be left to chance as to whether…

NZ Cancer Rates Third Worst in World

NZ Cancer Rates Third Worst in World

New international research from IRAC show NZ men and women have the third highest cancer rates in the world. Male cancer rates are highest in the United States, Hungary and New Zealand, and lowest in Niger,…

Forecast: International Sales

Forecast: International Sales

Raglan’s ASR Marine Consulting and Research has created a new computer-based program to predict long wave conditions, in what the company claims is a world first. The forecasting system was developed to help client Port Taranaki better…

Woolly Windfall

Woolly Windfall

The NZ Merino Wool Company has won a 7 year contract valued at approximately $NZ40 million to supply U.S apparel manufacturers SmartWool. SmartWool, whose chief business is in outdoor clothing and accessories, recently signed a deal with…

Finger on the Impulse

Finger on the Impulse

Researchers at Otago University, in conjunction with Germany’s Ruhr-University Bochum, have identified individual neurons in the pigeon forebrain that appear to control impulsive decision-making. The findings could prove invaluable to the understanding of such neuropathologies as drug…

A Method to the Madness

A Method to the Madness

An Auckland University research team has shed light on the mystery of human reproduction with a new study involving yeast. Headed by Matthew Goddard, the study compares two strains of live yeast, one with normal asexual…

Is There a Doctor on Board?

Is There a Doctor on Board?

SurfAid International, a volunteer group of surfing doctors established by NZ physician Dave Jenkins, was the first medical team on hand in the wake of the Indonesian earthquake. Jenkins founded SurfAid in Nias 6 years…

Measuring by Memory

Measuring by Memory

A group of Otago University researchers have proven that blind people are consistently more accurate in estimating the size of familiar objects – such as a loaf of bread – with their hands than their sighted…

A Step in the Right Direction

A Step in the Right Direction

Hamilton inventor and former chemical engineer, Brian Goggin, is seeking patents in NZ, the US, Japan, and Europe for a reinforced metal fuel tank which vents hydrogen gas safely in the event of an accident. The innovation…

Cutting Edge Electronics

Cutting Edge Electronics

NZ GPS innovators, Navman, showed off their latest creations at Germany’s prestigious CeBit electronics trade fair. These included the PIN 57, a Windows-based PDA, and the X300, which uses GPS to tell joggers, skiers and cyclists how…

Christopher Luxon by Degrees

Christopher Luxon by Degrees

Canterbury MCom grad and nz-edger Christopher Luxon is now based in Chicago via Australia and Europe, where he leads Unilever’s North American Deodorants & Grooming business. Presently he is jump-starting Degree for Men antiperspirant, advertising the brand…

Rann – Global Warming “Frightening”

Rann – Global Warming “Frightening”

Mike Rann, the Auckland University-educated and former NZBC journalist and now, Labor Premier of South Australia, writes in The Australian that “the world should make no mistake: in 2005, global warming is a real…

Christopher Shaw leads motor neuron research

Christopher Shaw leads motor neuron research

Professor Christopher Shaw, Professor of Neurology at Kings College London and Otago  University  graduate in Medicine (1984), is to co-lead a team to clone embryos to study motor neuron disease, in particular those patients whose condition cannot…

Miles Makes Leap to Big Pond

Miles Makes Leap to Big Pond

Managing Director of Vodafone NZ, Tim Miles, is to head the $12 billion UK  branch from April 2005. According to the NZ Herald, Vodafone went from 1.8 million mobile subscribers in late 2001 to…

SurfAid International Races Aid to Tsunami Areas

SurfAid International Races Aid to Tsunami Areas

SurfAid International   a non-profit organization founded by New Zealander Dr Dave Jenkins dedicated to the alleviation of human suffering through community-based health programs, has secured $500,000 worth of medical supplies and equipment, including 10,000 mosquito nets,…

Biotech Baby Steps

Biotech Baby Steps

NZ’s recently altered stance on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is the subject of an in-depth Technology Reviewfeature. “NZ, of all places, may have found a solution , proving once again that…

From the Ashes

From the Ashes

Air NZ was announced the winner of Air Transport World magazine’s annual Phoenix Award in January. The award is given to an airline which “achieves a commercial rebirth through a life-changing transformation.” After its “near-death experience”…