Home in the Clouds
Choreographer and former Footnote dancer Lisa Densem returns to New Zealand from Berlin, where she has been based for over a decade, to collaborate with the company on a new work called, Cloud In…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Shopping at Sundance
Feature debut from New Zealand filmmakers Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland, Shopping, which has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, deals with the troubled home life of two half-Samoan brothers against a backdrop of…
Futures in the Public Sector
New Zealand’s State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie has called on civil servants across the world to remember to think ahead in addition to addressing short-term challenges. Rennie, speaking as part of the Guardian’s Global…
New Zealand Extends Hand to Mindanao
Since the 1960s, some 150,000 people have died and more than three million have been displaced on Mindanao Island (Philippines); the result of a bloody conflict between Muslim rebels and government forces. Now, after…
Remarkable Global Firsts
New Zealand has much more to shout about than just global rugby dominance and hirsute heroes of the big screen, according to Kate Rowan of the Irish Independent. “Taking a look at New Zealand’s…
Dotcom Goes MEGA
From his home north of Auckland, former hacker and internet cult hero Kim Dotcom, tells the Guardian his eyes have been opened to US tactics after his Megaupload site was shut down last year….
Yes He Can
Mosgiel man Dean O’Brien, 34, a former radio presenter, has topped the United Kingdom iTunes children’s chart this week with, The Yes I Can Club, an album created to make children feel…
Students Give Cyclone Relief
New Zealand volunteers “joined hands” with locals and other foreign aid workers to help Fiji get back on its feet after recent Tropical Cyclone Evan, the biggest such storm in 20 years. High School…
Touring Dance Thrills
Professional New Zealand Strictly Come Dancing star Brendan Cole, 36, who has appeared in all ten series of one of Britain’s longest running television programmes, has built up a following of his…
Letting in the Light
New Zealander, Huxley Somerville, 52, a managing director at Fitch Ratings in New York, bought a run-down Upper West Side brownstone apartment in 1994 and set about converting the space into “four separate living…
Whale Attracts Curious
Hundreds of people gathered to take a look at the remains of a 15-metre, 45-tonne sperm whale, which washed up on Paraparaumu Beach this week. This image featured in the Guardian daily series, ‘Best…
Biking Africa for Acumen
Twenty-four-year-old New Zealander Phillip English has been making his way by bicycle from Egypt to Cape Town, travelling for the past 10 months over some 15,000km through Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi,…
Cycling Holidays Transformed
By the end of 2012, 10 of the 20 tracks making up the 2340km New Zealand Cycle Trail were open to riders, with the remainder scheduled for completion by the end of 2013. Veteran…
Clark Pleads Complexity
Administrator of the United Nations’ Development program Helen Clark is in a philosophical and operational stoush with her governing board over approaches to global poverty reduction. The UNDP board issued a report…
Looking Back As If Beggars
Wellington band The Garbage & the Flowers originally released Eyes Rind as if Beggars in 1997, but these songs were recorded earlier in the decade, Wire reviewer Frances Morgan writes….
Return To Middle Earth
“In New Zealand, there is a peculiar clarity to the sunlight,” Lonely Plant traveller Alex Von Tunzelmann writes for the BBC. “Highlights blaze; shadows are cast very, very dark. The effect makes the grass…
Bevan’s Gold Win
Queenstown-born film producer Tim Bevan (standing left in picture) took the stage with fellow cast and crew at the 70th Golden Globes Awards for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy for Les Misérables. The…
Outdoing the Big Guns
“Even when New Zealand isn’t top of the list, they’re outranking and outperforming the United States on just about any index you want to consider,” contributor Nonny Mouse writes for political blog Crooks and…
Weaving the Threads of Life
New Zealander Cassandra Ellis, a quiltmaker who has settled in London, believes a quilt is a great way to mark an occasion, from a birth to a death to a marriage or…
Everyone’ll be Here Next Year
Waiheke Island is included in the prestigious New York Times’ “46 Places to Go in 2013”, featuring at No 35 under the title, “A homegrown arts scene beckons from down under”. “Long home to…
Tackling Teen Angst
New Zealand director Andrew Niccol’s film The Host is one of several films to be released over the next three months targeting “voracious” teen movie goers. In his quest to adapt Stephenie…
Where No Man Has Gone Before
New Zealand world record-breaking freediver William Trubridge, 32, is one of the few people on the planet who can dive deeper than WWII submarines without coming up for air. Trubridge talked to Bob Simon…
Tourism At Speed
New Zealand’s newest cross-country Te Araroa Trail is the perfect challenge for British ultrarunner Jez Bragg, 31, who plans to run the track – from Cape Reinga to Bluff – in 50…
On The Run And Insanely Hot
Taking a page from Strike Back, the new series Banshee also stars an insanely hot foreigner who sounds more American than she does, according to New York Post television critic Linda Stasi, who writes…
Freedom At The Edge
New Zealanders enjoy a higher level of human freedom than anyone else, according to a report written by The Canadian Fraser Institute, which evaluated 123 countries to see how each country measures up in…
Oil Man Bows Out
After 36 years of “distinguished” service, New Zealander Leo Lonergan will retire from his position as chief procurement officer at Chevron in London. Executive vice president Jim Blackwell said: “During his tenure as chief…
Fun-Loving MP Lit Our Screens
As New Zealanders gathered around their black and white sets to experience the miracle of television for the first time the face many of them will have seen staring back at them was that…
Head Coach Role For Soccer Star
Former All Whites captain and Tottenham Hotspur player Ryan Nelsen, 35, has been signed with Toronto FC as head coach. Christchurch-born Nelsen is no stranger to Major League Soccer (MLS), having captained American team…
Tips From The Top
New Zealand’s top performing farms operate on seven principles according to Irish dairy consultant Dr Mary Kinston. Firstly: “Top farmers benchmark against other farm businesses. Eighty-five per cent of farm managers would have a…
On The Road
New Zealand’s five best alternative road trips are included in a Lonely Planet feature this month. From a Caitlins penguin drive to Auckland’s newest winemaking area east of Warkworth, author Brett Atkinson recommends experiencing…
Fresh HBO Role For Starr
New Zealand actor Antony Starr, 37, who played twins Van and Jethro West in Outrageous Fortune, has a role in the new HBO/Cinemax action-drama series Banshee, produced by Alan Ball of True…
Trading Black Gold
New Zealand is famous worldwide for its dairy exports, Sylvia Pfeifer writes for the Financial Times. “Its dairy industry generated $13.9bn in revenues in the year to March 2012. But now the government is…
Our Dark Side
Jane Campion’s seven-part miniseries Top of the Lake, which was shot in and around Queenstown, premieres on the Sundance Channel in the United States on 18 March. “It’s the most comprehensive documentation of modern…
Sauvignon Impossible To Overlook
“In New Zealand’s case, the elephant in the room is Marlborough sauvignon blanc,” Bill Zacharkiw writes for The Montreal Gazette. “While most emerging regions struggle to communicate who they are, few have been as…
From the Streets of Aleppo
Cairo-based New Zealand journalist Glen Johnson writes from the Free Syrian Army-occupied streets of Aleppo. “What began as a series of protests early 2011, demanding human rights and democratic reform, is…
Solo Protest Paddle Completed
New Zealand-born surfer and activist Dave Rastovich has completed his 350km solo protest paddle mission from Taranaki to Piha, to raise awareness for the nearly extinct Maui’s dolphin and the hazards that seabed mining…
Trail Running Trend Speeds Up
“It is the perfect new year challenge – a week’s journey on foot and at speed through New Zealand’s fairytale valleys,” The Financial Times’ Jonathan Thompson writes. “It is, to put it mildly, a…
New Look Cathedral Unveiled
Christchurch’s new cathedral, which will be made of cardboard and will house 700 people, is due for completion in April next year. The city’s magnificent Gothic revival cathedral hewn from local basalt was irreparably…
Memorial To A Friend
A sculpture in memorial to pioneering New Zealand plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe will be created by Martin Jennings, whose war hero father was one of McIndoe’s grateful guinea pigs. Jenning’s own father was one…
Wave To End The War
During the Second World War, New Zealand and the United States conducted secret tests of a “tsunami bomb” designed to destroy coastal cities by using underwater blasts to trigger massive tidal waves. The tests…
Extraordinary Talent Sorely Missed
Oscar-winning sound editor New Zealander Mike Hopkins, 53, who worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy and other blockbusters, has died in a rafting accident on the Waiohine River in the Tararua Range….
Rethinking Team Rankings
Economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New Zealander Niven Winchester, who studies sports rankings as a hobby, argues that The National Football League (NFL) should rank teams more the way rugby does. Winchester calculates…
Dishing Up Comfort Food
Peter Gordon’s 2012-published Peter Gordon Everyday is one of Catherine Phipp’s ‘Best Food Books of the Year’. “Flashes of trademark fusion sit with more personal dishes from New Zealand childhood,” Phipps…
Quigley’s Own Heroic Symphony
New Zealand author Sarah Quigley’s novel The Conductor is a “vivid evocation” of winter in Leningrad during the years 1941-42. “As the German army besieged the city, her citizens starved, corpses clogged the snowy…
Through A Child’s Eyes
In Sailing the Unknown: Around the World With Captain Cook, American poet Michael J. Rosen imagines the journal of the real-life 11-year-old Nicholas Young, the youngest sailor aboard Captain Cook’s Endeavour. “We know very…
Role Of The Year
New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey’s role as depressed twentysomething divorcée in Hello I Must Be Going is one of Paste magazine’s ‘25 Best Movie Performances of 2012’. “Most recognizable for her recurring role on…
Home in the Desert
Moving to Las Vegas was a dream come true for New Zealander Jennifer Scott, a former journalist and magazine editor. Scott said she has had an obsession with the city since she…
Surprise Involvement
When the premiere of West of Memphis was first announced for the Sundance Film Festival this year, the participation of Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson was something of a surprise, not…
Outsider Looking In
“This smart and sophisticated novel by prolific New Zealand writer C.K. Stead surveys the atrocities of our time – the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, the Balkan and Iraq wars, the…
Librarians Confer
Under a new five-year Arrangement on Cooperation agreement signed by the National Library of New Zealand and the National Library of China, the two institutions will share knowledge and information in joint…
What Could Be Better
The New Zealand specialty bacon and egg pie features in The New York Times’ ‘Diner’s Journal’ weekly column and video. “I got the inspiration to make a bacon and egg pie from an article…
American Deal For Angels
Wellington company Angel Delivery, owned by Becs Cass, has struck a US partnership that will see the four-year-old freshly made meal and treat delivery service enter the New York market. Partnering with…
Brilliant Ideas Remain
Gifted Wellington-born academic Amanda Rohloff, who has died aged 30, is fondly remembered by her friend, Philippa Chandler in a Guardian obituary. “She grew up in Karori, excelled at hockey as a teenager and…
Must See On The West End
Everyone should see New Zealander Sam Wills in The Boy with Tape on His Face, writes Telegraph reviewer Dominic Cavendish. “But not everyone should sit near the front or close to the aisles,” Cavendish…
Review Of Whimsy
Magazine illustrator New Zealander Peter Campbell’s work is collected in Artwork and describes his 30-year career as art director, contributor (writing more than 300 articles) and, from 1993, cover artist of the…
Look At That
Auckland-born Academy Award-nominated director Andrew Adamson – of Shrek and The Chronicles of Narnia fame – returns to the realm of the fantastic with Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, a film that captures eye-popping…
