Cameo Contest Win
Hamilton-born singer Kimbra has won the AU$5, 211 Vanda and Young Songwriting Contest, receiving the honour for her song Cameo Lover ahead of 4 other entries. Now based in Melbourne, Kimbra — real name…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Fluffy Emblem of Hope
An expectant silence hangs over the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Sanctuary as hundreds of spectators await a glimpse of a rare white kiwi, a bird held sacred by Maori, describes The…
Petunia Precedent
A few years back, several New Zealand scientists began tinkering with petunia pigment genes developing biotech varieties with lush dark leaves. The scientists wondered if they could sell their flowers. They wrote to regulators…
Newspaper Man Takes Over
Since joining the Murdoch empire in 1991, native New Zealander Tom Mockridge — former economics editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and now Rebekah Brooks’s replacement as CEO at News International and in charge…
Getting Shirty
The New Zealand Rugby Union says it has no qualms with England wearing a black strip at this year’s Rugby World Cup. The Rugby Football Union said England will wear a black kit in…
Schools of Thought
Auckland’s Macleans College was “a world apart” from Westmont Hilltop High School in the US for trainee teacher Leah Fuller who spent seven weeks on an internship at the Bucklands Beach high school. Many…
Wide Awake and Charged
“It’s a tribute to the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s eclectic, open spirit that, once again, they visit the UK with a programme of work never seen here before,” Guardian reviewer Judith Mackrell writes. “In…
Dynamic Blair Now a Tiger
New Zealand test forward Whangarei-born Adam Blair, has signed a four-year deal with the West Tigers, to start in the next NRL season. The signing of the Melbourne back-rower/prop has been one of the…
Welcome to Limboland
“The once bustling central business district resembles a wasteland,” Jonathan Hutchison reports for The New York Times. “Office furniture can be seen sitting inside partially collapsed buildings. Piles of bricks and steel lie along…
Fattening Up for the Swim
Happy Feet, the lost emperor penguin who turned up alone on Kapiti Coast’s Peka Peka Beach a month ago, has been eating up to 2kg of high-grade salmon each day — funded through donations…
Finding Solitude in the North
New Zealand is American musician Moby’s favourite place on the planet to holiday. “My fear is that every person you talk to is going to give that answer, because New Zealand is so beautiful…
Raiding the Global Pantry
Martha Jeffries, producer/director of New Zealand-made food and travel series World Kitchen is a self-confessed foodie with wanderlust, who had a “very Hutt upbringing”, growing up in Pinehaven and attending Sacred Heart…
Jackson on Location
“Leave it to Peter Jackson to make a Facebook video as thrilling and breathtaking as any of his films,” Entertainment Weekly reporter Aly Semigran writes. “As the Oscar-winning director promised, and New…
Winning Ways in Edmonton
Taupo double Olympic medalist Bevan Docherty has won gold at the Edmonton ITU Triathlon World Cup. “This course seems to treat me well. I enjoy racing here,” Docherty said. “But the reality is I…
Countryside in Collage
Cruising through New Zealand, marvelling at the breathtaking natural environments that define this country, Savannah artist Laura Adams returned to the US and had an “explosion of creativity”. “I worked non-stop,” Adams said. “It…
Quitting his day job
New Zealand-born Stephen Daisley, winner of Australia’s 211 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, said the AU$8, tax-free prize would finally enable him to quit his weekend job selling second-hand clothes and focus exclusively…
Internationally Eclectic
“The Royal New Zealand Ballet may be based a long way from the main centres of ballet, but the repertory for its UK tour is as international as it is eclectic,” Judith Mackrell writes…
Spirituality Curved in Bone
A selection of “amazingly beautiful” hand-crafted bone carvings from Auckland-based gallery The Bone Art Place feature on American industrial design blog site Core77. “They are soft and warm to the touch yet the finish…
Maori Manuscripts Memorialised
A collection of 19th Century manuscripts written by Maori to record life before the arrival of Europeans has been officially listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World New Zealand register. The collection of 147…
Podium Regular
Classed as the world’s best freeskier, at just 19 Wanaka-born Jossi Wells has already jumped off more mountains and stood on more podiums than most other sportsmen of his age. Wells excels in slopestyle,…
Market Prevails
New Zealand’s stock market, worth a total of around only $48 billion, is one of the world’s best performing this year despite the effects of the Christchurch earthquake, a weak economy and a foreign…
Shot Putting Machine
Auckland 16-year-old Jacko Gill has smashed his own world youth shot put record by nearly half a metre with a throw of 24.35m at the world youth championships in Lille. Gill had three throws…
Sharks on Holidays
Scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Department of Conservation (DOC), and University of Auckland have discovered that the great white shark, can travel thousands of kilometres on seasonal migrations,…
D-Day Demons
New Zealand director Paul Campion’s debut feature film The Devil’s Rock is reviewed in the Guardian by Michael Hann. “ attempts to settle the type of question posed by bumptious schoolboys: which would be…
Juicy Japanese Deal Done
Former All Black and television personality Marc Ellis has sold his juice company Charlie’s to Japanese drinks giant Asahi for NZ$129 million. Ellis told the New Zealand Herald the deal would not change him…
Fantastic Mr Carter
“ is up to its knees in the slurry that oozes through the earth, a city of condemned houses and broken people,” Telegraph journalist Mark Reason writes. “But rugby goes on. This is New…
Talent Exported
Lead singer of The Naked and Famous, Thom Powers tells The Irish Independent’s Ed Power that he thought the band could pretend they were from some obscure part of Europe. “It must annoy you…
Cheeky Island Sentinels
The bohemian enclave of Waiheke Island has become a gallery-rich art destination; the Guardian’s Stephen Phelan’s first impressions are of bare bottoms, all brightly painted in tinges of lime green, lemon yellow, electric blue…
On V in LA Shoot
“Television’s hottest vampire bait” Anna Paquin features in the July issue of V Magazine. In the exclusive interview, Paquin explains her character, the mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse, and the fiends out to get her:…
Parking up at Home
Native Parks is an ingenious scheme that lets you park up at the home of a regular New Zealand family, free of charge. The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland writes: “The pitch might be…
Midwives Lead the World
New Zealand midwives provide the best care in the world for mothers and newborn babies, described international delegates attending the recent 29th Triennial Congress of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) in South Africa….
Delicious Synth-Pop
Christchurch three-piece Sleepy Age’s “synth-heavy, European disco-inspired single Décor” has been selected by the Music Alliance Pact (MAP) as one of July’s best tracks from around the globe. “In 29, Sleepy Age…
Austenland Role for Conchord
Wellington actor Bret McKenzie will star alongside Keri Russell in indie romantic comedy Austenland. In the film, Russell plays a woman with a secret obsession with Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in the BBC adaptation…
Ever-Changing Glacial Beauty
Franz Josef’s remote location on the wild West Coast of the South Island makes it the perfect place to hide away, and it’s one of the few places in the world where a glacier…
Lured by Indian Skies
A host of New Zealand companies are keen to enter the Indian aviation market enticed by the South Asian country’s booming economy and its burgeoning aviation sector growing at 19 per cent. Pacific Aerospace,…
Challenging the Purists
Wine producers from New Zealand, the United States and France are switching from glass to plastic wine bottles, saying they are lighter, good for the environment and not bad for the wine. “We see…
Focus on Winning
Described as the world’s best number 1, All Black Dan Carter is focused on one thing: winning. And not just the William Webb Ellis Trophy at the Rugby World Cup, but also as part…
Right Whale Returns to NZ
More than one hundred years after it was hunted to local extinction, the right whale is finally finding its way back to its ancestral calving grounds in New Zealand, with seven whales now migrating…
Revealing Familial Tales
“They didn’t know it at the time, but when New Zealand-born Chris and Peter O’Doherty lost their quietly spoken father 11 years ago, his story wasn’t over and theirs was about to take a…
Kirwan’s Japanese Goal
“It’s been five years since coach John Kirwan, an All Blacks hero from the rugby stronghold of New Zealand, took the helm of the Japanese team,” Shuhei Nomura writes for Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun….
Empire Covers Middle Earth
“In honour of Jackson’s long-awaited return to Middle-earth for two dragon-and-dwarf-laden prequels — as a “good luck charm” according to the director — Empire takes its symbolic and rightful place as the first…
Beats Nine-to-Five
Hamilton-born cyclist Brett Tivers has won the Fond du Lac Bicycling Gran Prix Men Pro ½ in Wisconsin, a 9-minute race around the city’s downtown streets. “It’s a good sport,” Tivers said about cycling….
Jumping the Gap
With New Zealand still reeling from the effects of the Christchurch earthquakes, and its economy struggling to shrug off the turmoil caused by the global financial crisis, many people are making the trip across…
Après-Ski in Queenstown
While New Zealand towns generally don’t have a reputation as nightlife hubs, the South Island’s adventure capital, Queenstown is a vibrant exception according to The Australian’s Susan Kurosawa. “My visit is just before the…
Living His Dream
At the age of 12, Wellingtonian Cole Peverley, who currently plays at midfield for Charleston Battery in South Carolina, travelled to Europe for a youth tournament in 2. He played so well that professional…
Bewildering Benevolence
Janet Frame’s novel Living in the Maniototo is included in a Wall Street Journal’s ‘Novel Approaches to Kindness’ ‘Five Best Books’ feature as one of the “oddest acts of kindness in fiction.” “It seems…
Naked at Glastonbury
Auckland band The Naked and Famous, together with Metronomy and Wu-Tang Clan, helped open this year’s Glastonbury music festival. Bass player David Beadle talked to NME ahead of the Pyramid Stage headliners U2. “I…
Enough Room for Everyone
The New Zealand company behind Toyota people-carriers Spaceships — in the UK now for 18 months — is recommended by the Guardian in a travel feature about campervanning in Britain and mainland Europe. “The…
Cheer Up, New Zealand
The population of New Zealand is convinced “the future looks bleak … yet by almost every possible metric New Zealand is a success,” says US economist Sebastian Edwards in a paper prepared for a…
Relief for Christchurch Residents
Thousands of Christchurch home owners are breathing a sigh of relief following John Key’s announcement on the future of their properties. Entire suburbs of Christchurch are to be abandoned due to unstable ground following…
New World Struts its Stuff
A selection of New Zealand reds were pitted against those from Bordeaux at a recent blindtasting in Hong Kong at Club Lusitano with a New Zealand bottle taking third place, ahead of a bottle…
Out of the Blue Accolades
Akaroa lodge Maison de la Mer has been named fourth-best bed and breakfast to stay in the world by leading online guide Tripadvisor. Owner Bruce Hyland said that after the award was announced, the…
Exploring Emperor Intrigues
For only the second time in recorded history, an Emperor Penguin has swum 3km from Antarctica to New Zealand, making landfall at Peka Peka beach on the Kapiti Coast. Program manager for biodiversity at…
On a Whole Other Level
“Getting to rub shoulders with world-class rugby stars like Richie McCaw and Dan Carter is just one of the many benefits young players from around the world are experiencing at the Canterbury and Crusaders…
Westenra Performs in Malta
Christchurch “music sensation” Hayley Westenra, will perform alongside Italian pop icon Lucio Dalla and Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja on July 9 at the annual Joseph Calleja concert at the Granaries in Malta. In a…
Wisconsin Look-Alikes
New Zealand father and son Michael and Mitchell Roberts are the winners of the Wisconsin Green Bay Press-Gazette’s father-son look-alike contest beating 3 other participants. You know it by their faces, but not by…
