Kuala Lumpur’s Coffee Hero
New Zealander Michael Wilson used to be in the British Army and even started a construction company in Scotland before finding his true calling: coffee, with the Artisan Roast brand. Wilson also co-owns two cafés…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Silent Treasures from the NZ Film Archive on DVD
Over one hundred long-vanished films, including movies by John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Mabel Normand, were quietly residing in the New Zealand Film Archive when Brian Meacham, an archivist for the Academy of Motion Picture…
Connan Mockasin Swims Upstream
New Zealand psych-funk oddball Connan Mockasin hasn’t listened to anyone else’s music for 10 years; he shuns record labels and recorded his bewitching new album in a Tokyo hotel room, Ben Arnold…
NZ Native Forest Takes Root in Seattle
A New Zealand forest exhibit has opened at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle, the first of five eco-geographic forests to be completed in the Pacific Connections Garden, which eventually will cover…
Weatherman Predicts Year Ahead for Ireland
Auckland-born weatherman Ken Ring has made his latest predictions for the coming Northern winter, forecasting a white December for Ireland. Ring, who predicted the deadly Christchurch earthquake and Ireland’s arctic winter in 2010, also…
Urban Branches out with Billboard-Topping Fuse
New Zealand-born country singer Keith Urban, 45, has been branching out musically – playing with the Rolling Stones and others, and fresh collaborations on his latest album, Fuse, which debuted on Billboard’s 200 Albums…
Top of the Class in Stylish at London Fashion Week
“It’s rare to find a designer who sticks to her style guns through thick and thin but Emilia Wickstead isn’t your average fashion creative,” the Daily Mail’s Ruth Styles writes from London…
Protecting Our Wine Brands Against Counterfeits
New Zealand winemakers are lobbying for the same legal protection for their brands that French producers won for Champagne two decades ago, because of fears knockoff wines are posing as premium labels exported from…
Tormenting Kiwis a bonus for Spithill
One of the greatest comebacks in sporting history is still Australian Jimmy Spithill’s ambition – torturing New Zealanders worldwide is merely an added bonus. Facing an 6-0 deficit in the race to 9 points,…
New Zealand Olympian Wins Fifth Avenue Mile
New Zealand’s Nick Willis has won the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York, completing the run in 3 minutes and 52.1 seconds. It is the second time that Willis has won the title, having…
Misfits Making Mayhem in Chicago
Bay of Plenty writers James Morcan and Lance Morcan’s international conspiracy thriller, The Orphan Trilogy is set in Chicago at the site of the Pedemont Orphanage, where 23 orphans acquire the skills to become…
Baltimore-Based Artist Reminisces on Dog Days
Before he was an artist, New Zealand-born Hugh Pocock, 50, sold hot dogs in the heyday of Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Selling hot dogs was my first experience with real,…
Shout-it-to-the-Heavens Inspiring
“Xena: Warrior Princess, which ran for six years before it ended in 2001, was a show that charmed even as it taught its audience a thing or two,” American former model and actress Jennifer…
Kiwi Equities a Good Bet for Global Investors
The New Zealand growth story is attracting strong international interest in Kiwi equities as investors seek to escape volatile markets in Asia and low global interest rates. The Wall Street Journal reports that the…
Kiwi Set to Light Up US College Basketball Team
Exciting New Zealand basketball prospect Jack Salt will play for University of Virginia college team, the Cavaliers, next year. Salt will be coached by Tony Bennett, who played and coached in Auckland for four…
Bespoke Blends for Marks and Sparks
New Zealand winemaker Jeneve Williams joined Marks & Spencer in 2012 as the buyer for the retailer in charge of wines from South America, Eastern Europe, New Zealand and Italy. A year on, and…
Willis Switches Speed Codes
Lower Hutt-born middle-distance Olympic medallist Nick Willis, 30, is venturing into the hybrid sport of speed golf and will participate in the Speedgolf World Championships on 26 October and 27 October at…
Black and White Exhibition Opens in Berlin
Work by New Zealand artists Gordon Walters (pictured) and Judy Millar features in a new exhibition at Berlin’s Hamish Morrison Galerie, which opened 13 September and runs through 19 October. Walters and Millar are…
120 Years Since NZ Women Shook the World
The 120-year anniversary of one of New Zealand’s most momentous moments in global history is being marked with the public exhibition of the Women’s Suffrage Petition of 19 September, 1893. On that day in…
Kiwi’s Reach Kickstarter Goal in Seven Hours
Two Kiwi entrepreneurs have managed to secure their $30,000 Kickstarter goal within seven hours, allowing their prototype travel bag to go into production. After completing a 17,000 mile journey across North America, Jimmy Hayes and…
Debunking the Fire-Walking Myth in Georgia
Retired physicist John Campbell, formerly of the University of Canterbury, is offering a fire-walking demonstration at the University of Georgia on 19 September. For Campbell, fire-walking is a matter of thermal conductivity, and not…
Social Media Carrier for Mass Contagion
Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist in New Zealand and expert in mass hysteria, is warning how Facebook and Twitter have the potential to act as global carriers of mass hysteria. The most famous instance of…
Kiwi Jetpack to Hit US Market
It can travel at speeds of up to 80km/h, ascend to heights of more than 2km in the air and has enough juice to fly for 30 minutes – the much promised science fiction…
Freeze Frame in the Alaskan Wilderness
New Zealand director Scott Walker, who is currently promoting his first feature film The Frozen Ground, talked recently to KFTV about all aspects of the production, from development and casting right through to getting…
Flying the Flag and Stealing Hearts
Emirates Team New Zealand just keeps showing up and beating Oracle, regardless of the time or day, Al Saracevic writes for the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s a loose bunch of guys who are here…
Home is Where the Beer Is
A house where every tap pours cold beer? Yeah, right. Tui – the beer brand which created the Yeah, Right advertising billboards and commercials – has teamed up with a bunch of New Zealand…
Feminine in Work Wear at NY Fashion Week
New Zealand-born designer Rebecca Taylor “put old-school American work wear to work” in her Spring 2014 show at New York Fashion Week on 7 September. “Never mind that she normally dresses young women who…
Moa Bones Kill Dino DNA Dream
The dream of resuscitating dinosaur species – a la Jurassic Park – has been dealt a death blow in a new study examining the decay rate of DNA in the bones of the extinct…
“Bleeding” Park Reveals All Blacks’ True Worth
Apparently the English think New Zealanders can teach them a thing or two. Who knew? Of course, the thing or two is about rugby but even so. In the wake of the All Blacks’…
Rolling out Their Second Album from LA
Naked and Famous singer-guitarist Thom Powers says Los Angeles was the perfect environment for the New Zealand synth-pop outfit to make their second album, In Rolling Waves. “That side of living in Los Angeles is…
Triumph from the Saddle at Burghley Trials
New Zealanders have come up trumps at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials, with Jock Paget, 29, taking the top spot and Marlborough-based world No 1 Andrew Nicholson, 52, taking second place, as well as…
Winter Warmest since Records Began
Scientists says New Zealand has had its warmest winter since record-keeping began in 1909. The average nationwide temperature was 9.5C for June, July and August, about 1.2C above average, the National Institute of Water…
NZ Does Do-Good Ads Better than Anyone
Public service announcements, or PSAs, are a tough nut for the advertising world to crack, particularly when tackling drink-driving or the dangers of drugs. Too often a worthy cause is “laughably ineffective preachy”…
US Hills Are Alive to NZ Flora
“We call it the New Zealand dead look,” says horticultural manager, David Zuckerman, of Seattle’s Washington Park Arboretum new garden, New Zealand Forests. As a marketing statement about the attractiveness of Kiwi flora, Zuckerman’s…
Rude Tweets and Thumbs Up in Day of Drama
Thanks to a scintillating victory in what some are calling the greatest race in America’s Cup history, Emirates Team New Zealand inched closer to reclaiming the oldest trophy in sports. The day started…
Rothko Inspires Fashionable Understatement
Three residential designers who have mastered the style of “restraint … but not necessarily minimalism” – New Zealand-born Sandra Nunnerley, Canada’s Elizabeth Metcalfe and Suzanne Kasler of Atlanta – explain how they merge the…
Spaceman Fires up West Auckland Pupils
NASA aero-engineer New Zealander Mana Vautier, who works at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, is developing guidance systems, flight simulations and navigation controls to train NASA flight controllers. Vautier’s designs allow…
Fashion Shoots for Couture Clad Canines
New Zealander Paul Nathan, has become a kind of society photographer for the doggie couture crowd and has documented furry fashionistas in his book Couture Dogs of New York, which came out…
First the Cup, Now the Flat-Bed
Kiwis aren’t just beating the Americans on the water; they’re whipping them in the air too. Forbes’ travel correspondent Katie Kelly Bell put the new flat-bed business class to the test, comparing the Delta…
Double-Edged NZ World First
Kiwi homeowners won’t like it but the Wall St Journal is predicting New Zealand will be the first developed nation in the world to raise interest rates since the Global Financial Crisis hit in…
Good Management? Set Staff Free
You could fill the American Library of Congress with books about good management and still have enough left over to stack a few aisles in Boston’s Public Library. Despite the plethora of advice, the…
He Ain’t Ugly, He’s Our Parrot
An international public vote has given the beloved and endangered New Zealand parrot, the kakapo, the unwanted title of the world’s second most ugly animal. The ugliest, according to the online campaign by the…
Winning Off the Water
There’s only one thing Americans love more than the underdog – and that’s winners. So says Leon Grice, New Zealand’s consular general in Los Angeles, who believes imminent victory on San Franciscan waters will…
50th Birthday for Late Motorsport Legend
This week marks the 50th anniversary for the legendary racing team established by New Zealand motorsport legend Bruce McLaren and which bore his name. The good folk of Woking, where McLaren established his sporting…
Kiwis Take the Runway at New York Fashion Week
Karen Walker took to the runway at the Spring 2014 New York Fashion Week, with a collection Style.com described as ‘easygoing’. According to The Department of News, the collection, titled Utopia, looked to…
Alberta Landscapes in Hyper-Realism
New Zealand-born artist David Scott exhibits with Canadian Marilynn Jeffrey at St Albert’s Visual Arts Studio Association in a show called Between Earth and Sky: Portraits of Rural Alberta, which runs through 27 September. Scott…
Arnett Features in New AP Vietnam War Book
Distinguished New Zealand war correspondent, Pulitzer Prize-winning Peter Arnett is one of a number of well-known journalists whose text will be included in Vietnam: The Real War, a photographic history by the Associated Press,…
New Cookbook Serves Up Comfortable Fresh
New Zealand-born chef Justin North’s new book Family Cooking has “an appealing selection of recipes”, reviewer Michelle Rowe writes for The Australian. “ North is the latest in a conga line of chefs to…
‘Gritty Band of Sailors’ Seek to Slay Goliath
Even the British and Irish are rooting for New Zealand, in what The Independent is billing as a David versus Goliath fight for the America’s Cup, the world’s oldest sporting competition. “The New Zealanders…
Fashion Forward Wedding Attire
A “delicate crochet trouser suit with chiffon ruffled sleeves” created by 50-year-old New Zealand label Vinka Design “stole the show among an assortment of flowing gowns”, Irish Independent writer Aishling Phelan reported…
Morgans Charmed on N Korean Motorbike Trip
New Zealanders Gareth and Joanne Morgan have become the first people to motorbike across the Korean Peninsula and say they have some real insights to share, especially regarding the terrain, people and…
Experts Behind the Global Yachting Scene
“As the America’s Cup finals begin on 7 September on San Francisco Bay, the people of New Zealand will be watching most intently,” New Zealand Trade and Enterprise chair Andrew Ferrier writes for Forbes….
Sirocco Kakapo Creates a Buzz in Japan
New Zealand’s own celebrity parrot, Sirocco Kakapo, has charmed Japanese audiences and gained thousands of new fans after being mentioned on a popular Japanese television show with an audience of over 10 million. A presenter…
New Zealand Author Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize
New Zealand writer, Eleanor Catton’s book, The Luminaries, has been short-listed for the illustrious Man Booker Prize, becoming the youngest person to ever make the list. The 28-year-old’s book, about the New Zealand goldrush…
Emirates Team New Zealand Win Four of First Five Races
Emirates Team New Zealand is dominating in the America’s Cup finals, trouncing defending champion Oracle in four of the first five races. Oracle was so defeated after race five on Wednesday (NZT) that the…
As Much Attention to Heart-Rates as Hull Shapes
Taranaki-born Craig Monk, a mountain of a mariner, remembers his first year in charge of physical training for an America’s Cup team, Christopher Clarey writes for The New York Times. It was 1995 and…
