Up on the Plane
New Zealand-founded company Gibbs Sports Amphibians will introduce a new off-roader on to the market this week, the Quadski, which is equipped with retractable wheels and a BMW motorcycle engine. Gibbs’ chairman Neil Jenkins…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Discovering Sounds of Home
New Plymouth-born saxophonist and composer Hayden Chisholm, 37, toured Germany to learn about its rich folk music tradition – and why the Germans have a problem with it. His back-to-the-roots journey was captured in…
Inside His Head
New Zealand-raised filmmaker and host of online show Inside Horror Elric Kane, who currently lives in Los Angeles, talks to Werewolf editor Gordon Campbell about the show and all things horror-fic. “The first…
Local Talent Lights NY
New Zealanders Hayley Heartbreak, Elspeth Hoskin and Johnson Witehira, winners of the Chorus NZ national competition for tertiary student artists, recently displayed their artwork on the neon billboards of Times Square in New York….
Alternative Traditional Remedies
“With its unique flora and fauna, New Zealand offers a large array of plants found only in that region, many of which became part of the Maori traditional system of medicine known as Rongoa…
Minting Hobbits
New Zealand Post is minting coins and printing stamps featuring characters from Middle-earth to commemorate the upcoming film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The coins feature Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, dwarf king Thorin…
Big Name from a Small Place
“Growing up in a small country on the other side of the world, a young girl named Kimbra Lee Johnson did what she said almost every New Zealander does – dream big,” Michael Bialas…
Big and Small Comparisons
In an appearance at the Mipcom conference in Cannes, New Zealand director Jane Campion explained that she was attracted by the creative freedom in television, in comparison to film. Campion was at Mipcom to…
Storytellers Converge
In an image from the Guardians’ “best news pictures of the day”, New Zealander Metini Mitai Ngatai poses prior to the official opening of the book fair in Frankfurt. The world’s largest book…
Sunshine Helps the Zing
Head winemaker at Cloudy Bay winery Tim Heath, 36, explains how New Zealand’s viticultural environment has created its signature “vivid tastes”. The key to understanding the creation of these zingy, tropical and fruity aromas…
Wilkommen in Frankfurt
With New Zealand the Guest of Honour at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel showcased the country in its Sunday magazine section. “Whenever one thinks of New Zealand, one thinks about kiwis, sheep,…
Rubberman Prevails
Palmerston North 21-year-old freestyle motorcross champion Levi Sherwood has become the youngest-ever winner of the Red Bull X-Fighters tour championship beating French rider Thomas Pagès on Cockatoo Island in Sydney. “All I came here…
Decades of Aisle Style
With Air New Zealand celebrating its 30th anniversary of flights between London and Los Angeles, British lifestyle magazine Female First looks at the fashion of the airline over the decades. “Air New Zealand’s heritage can be…
Through a Pacific Lens
Auckland poet Courtney Meredith, 26, was at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week for the launch of her debut book Brown Girls In Bright Red Lipstick. Meredith has been described as leading a generation…
Challenging Perceptions
Academic and literary biographer Joanne Drayton who spent many of her formative years in Christchurch in the shadow of the infamous Parker/Hulme 1954 murder case, recounts the story in The Search for Anne Perry. Bestselling…
Is This Place for Real?
“The hill is perfect – steep, shaggy and as green as a radioactive shamrock, like the matching hills around it,” The New York Times describes. “The sheep seem pretty idyllic themselves: polite little nibblers who only…
Women Enter Sevens Fold
The success of New Zealand’s rugby teams will create high expectations on the country’s women as they embark on the first International Rugby Board (IRB) women’s sevens world series in November, coach Sean Horan…
Anti-corruption Pioneer Remembered
Wellington-born activist and writer Jeremy Pope, who has died aged 73, “was one of the pioneers in what is now a global movement to curb corruption and improve integrity in government,” friend and colleague…
Sharing New Methods
Early childhood care and education expert Professor Linda Mitchell from the University of Waikato has been in Dublin discussing New Zealand’s fully integrated, and bicultural, early childhood education services. In 1986, New Zealand became…
Linking Bilingual Minds
Four teachers from New Zealand are spending two weeks in Wales, visiting schools in Cardiff, Swansea, Llandudno and Wrexham, to learn more about bilingual education. The teachers, Piata Allen (left), Nichola McCall (right), Stacey…
No More Allergies
AgResearch scientists have genetically engineered a cow to produce anti-allergy milk. They hope the technique, which uses a process called RNA interference that reduces the activity of certain genes without eliminating it completely, can…
Open to Experiment
For one year, New Zealand-born filmmaker Sam Muirhead, 28, is to abandon all copyrighted products and instead make use of only open source products. Muirhead’s goal is to raise awareness outside the world of…
Jackson a Digital Mandarin
Director Peter Jackson, 50, features at No. 22 on Vanity Fair’s 2012 ‘The Powers that Be’ List, which names the “top 25 mandarins” in the digital world. “A decade removed from his $3 billion Lord…
Entrepreneurs in the Making
“Many third world countries have incubators, often to try and utilize and preserve local skills” like weaving, dying and sewing, says Tracy Kennedy, (right) manager of the Dunedin Fashion Incubator, started in 2001. Like…
Dubrovnik Standout
War Photo Limited is a gallery in Dubrovnik, Croatia curated by New Zealand-bred photojournalist Wade Goddard, who covered the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s. The gallery, which features images of “the city’s fraught…
Cycling Through History
The 317km Mountain to Sea Trail begins on the slopes of Mt Ruapehu, passes through two national parks (Tongariro and Whanganui), includes a jet-boat ride down the Whanganui River, and ends at the Tasman…
Southern Hemisphere Champs
The world champion All Blacks routed Argentina 54-15 to secure the southern hemisphere’s inaugural Rugby Championship with a game to spare. New Zealand outscored the Pumas by seven tries in La Plata, all coming…
Pleased to Meet Him
“Flying Nun is as synonymous with indie rock in New Zealand as Chemikal Underground is in Glasgow or Creation Records is in London,” John Everhart writes in a web exclusive for American magazine Under the…
Heaven on Earth
“In the northwest corner of New Zealand – where craggy Pacific Ocean bluffs offer a panoramic view of the Cavalli Islands, sheep and cattle roam freely, and gently rolling hills are blanketed with thick…
New Zealand Has a Choice
Greenpeace New Zealand’s chief political analyst and strategist Nathan Argent argues that New Zealand’s “clean, green values” and its “history of progressive reform” are being undermined by the current government. “New Zealand, once considered…
Making the Right Moves
Now a veteran globe-trotting performer at the ripe old age of 22, Kimbra seems to be making all the right moves, Bill Locey writes for the Ventura County Star. “Lurkers, assorted geeks a gawkin’ and editors…
Other Side of Paradise
“New Zealand, a country that routinely tops international lifestyle indexes, may not be the first place you would associate with gang culture – but violent gangs have deep roots in society,” Rebecca Kesby writes…
Charming Mixture
Lonely Planet’s 16th New Zealand edition praises Wellington’s “compact and vibrant” CBD for its artsy mix of theatres, galleries, boutiques, museums and a “cocktail- and caffeine-fuelled hospitality scene” that fairly “fizzes and pops among…
Mapping Our Souls
Titahi Bay-based tattoo artist Mark Kopua, 52, explains the meaning of t? moko in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allegemeine. “I don’t have to say who I am … you can read it in…
Call It an Evocative Scowl
Joe Dredd, played by New Zealand actor Karl Urban, 40, “is meant to be the most fearsome judge – but we don’t get to see many more of his kind around,” USA Today’s Claudia Puig writes…
Possums Take Tennessee
New Zealand string band the Johnny Possum Band will perform at the Music on the Square festival in downtown Jonesborough, Tennessee on 28 September. Kingsport Times-News describes the band: “The roots of bluegrass music may lie…
Taia o Moko
Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, author of Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo and essayist and commentator on Maori and feminist issues in New Zealand, memorialized the Maori Queens’s death by taking a traditional facial tattoo….
Hitting ‘Em With Enthusiasm
“Kimbra throws every angle of modern fem-pop at the wall with such ball-lightning enthusiasm that all of it sticks,” the Guardian’s Mark Beaumont writes in a review of the New Zealand singer’s London performance at…
Made in New Zealand
“Visiting New Zealand with my 1-year-old daughter, and with nephews at home in America, I became obsessed with finding them something actually made in the country,” Meg Nesterov writes for Gadling. “I was impressed…
In Transit Amongst Spies
Auckland singer Gin Wigmore, 26, stars alongside James Bond star Daniel Craig in a new interactive television and digital ad campaign for Heineken and the latest 007 film, Skyfall. Wigmore wrote the ad’s theme song…
Benefits of Security
The first Pentagon chief to visit New Zealand in three decades, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, announced that the Obama administration had modified United States policy so that, in the future, the defense secretary can…
Oily Attractions Off Shore
Three New Zealand exploration blocks, owned by Anadarko Petroleum, could hold up to 150 million barrels of crude oil or trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, according to a company executive. “There’s significant…
Bevin’s Got Great Legs
New Zealand cyclists Patrick Bevin and Logan Hutchins have taken first and second places respectively in the inaugural Thompson Bucks County Classic professional bicycle race in Pennsylvania. Finishing 1-2 with Hutchins was a special…
Paddling Out in Raglan
Raglan, 50 kilometres west of Hamilton, “is your archetypal surf town, with annual surf contests, a busy surf school and a bohemian buzz reminiscent of the 1960s,” Kerry van der Jagt writes for The Age….
Profiting From Here On In
Chief executive of Virgin Media New Zealander Neil Berkett, 56, is at No. 51 in the Guardian’s annual Media 100 list which ranks the industry’s most powerful people. It has been a landmark year for…
Art of Rugby
Examining the All Blacks 21-11 win against his national team, the Springboks, Brumbies coach Jake White writes in The Citizen’s sports column: “The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands,…
Deservedly Great Painter
New Zealand artist Don Binney, best known for his striking emblematic paintings of birds, has died in Auckland aged 72. Binney worked in oil, acrylic, charcoal, ink and carbon pencil. Many public collections feature…
Wonderful Piece of Theatre
New Zealand playwright Catherine Downes’ The Case of Katherine Mansfield, which was on in Glebe as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival, “is a simply wonderful piece of theatre — the kind that makes you…
Memories of New York
Wellington-born artist and actor Susana Lei’atua’s exhibition Wall of Light, on at New York University’s Kimmel Center through 28 September, is a “memorial for the everyday nature” of New York showcasing how the city…
Talent Gets On With It
“The golf prodigy Lydia Ko was asked how she would cope with being the youngest competitor this week at the Women’s British Open, which was like asking Sean Lennon how he deals with being…
Looking Out For Archey
Archey’s frog, which is found on the Coromandel peninsula and in Whareorino Forest, finds itself on the full list of the planet’s 100 most endangered animals, as compiled by the International Union for Conservation…
Walker Goes Dotty in NY
New Zealand fashion designer Karen Walker “gets next summer spot-on with a fun polka dot-filled collection at New York Fashion Week,” the Daily Mail’s Olivia Fleming reported from the runway. “Walker went completely spotty for spring/summer…
Talking of The Small Screen
Palme d’Or and Oscar-winning New Zealand director Jane Campion will attend the international television market MIPCOM next month in Cannes, France to talk about her first small-screen foray, the new series Top of the Lake….
Actually Rocking The Bowery
“ gorgeous, sweeping power ballad ‘Cellophane,’ had it been released 25 years ago, would have moved entire rooms to slow dance, and I’ve got to assume only unfamiliarity held Bowery Ballroom’s crowd back,” Katherine…
Work in Progress
West of Memphis was produced by the Oscar-winning team of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who enlisted filmmaker Amy Berg, herself an Oscar nominee for the documentary Deliver Us From Evil, to make their own film…
Mister Pip Premieres
New Zealand-born writer-director Adam Adamson’s film adaption of Lloyd Jones’ prize-winning novel Mister Pip, starring Hugh Laurie, has premiered at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto as part of the city’s annual film festival. Laurie…
