Leading negotiant
New Zealand’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Dr David Walker has been appointed as the new Chair of the WTO Doha Round Agriculture Negotiations. Walker replaces fellow New Zealander Crawford Falconer, who…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Embassy Glamour
New Zealand High Commissioner Rupert Holborow hosted a World of Wearable Art show for this year’s Indian contestants at his residence at Chanakyapuri. Blurring the boundaries between art and fashion, of the 10 sculptural…
Eskimo furore
The humble Eskimo lolly will remain on New Zealand shelves though lambasted by a Canadian visitor who claimed the confectionary’s shape and name was a racist slur against the Inuit. Seeka Lee Veevee…
Alternate landscapes
From next year, the North and South Islands could be renamed in Maori. A discovery by officials that the existing names had never been adopted in law has increased pressure from Maori nationalists for…
Up in the Trees
New Zealand directory company Yellow has built a Tree House Restaurant using only resources listed in its books. The restaurant, described by Lucy Gauntlett of the Los Angeles Times as “a graceful pod that…
Space traveller
Gisborne-born aeronautic engineer Lester Waugh has been presented with a New Zealand flag which has traveled 216 times around the earth in the space shuttle Discovery. The gift from Nasa was a “rare honour”,…
Balance in stone
Waitakere sculptor John Edgar’s ‘Ballast’ exhibition, which uses stone collected from various historic Scottish quarries, will be on show as part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival from August 5 through November 30 at the…
Bony buoyancy
Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel The Lovely Bones though “murderous is also optimistic”, headlines USA Today. For all the violence and grief of The Lovely Bones, Jackson believes the movie…
Symphony ire
New Zealand anti-apartheid activist John Minto recently flew to Capetown to lend his support to 127 families who for the past 14 months have lived in makeshift homes on Symphony Way pavement in the…
Bringing Back Bold
Artistic director of Lancôme Auckland-born Aaron de Mey, 35, “is one of the new breed of male creative directors shaking up the beauty” who “longs to halt the relentless tide of beige, to put…
Changing fiction
18 April 2009 – Auckland-based author Witi Ihimaera, 65, is in the process of reworking earlier fiction saying that “as the author grows, so should their stories.” “Writers should be able to transform their…
Paquin the heroine
On the back of recent success as Sookie Starkhouse in vampire series True Blood, New Zealand Golden Globe winner Anna Paquin turns her talents to a made for television film taking the lead role…
All Fenced in and Loving It
The South Island Tieke is making a protected return home after a 100-year hiatus, as the newest resident of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary. Forty tiekes, also known as saddlebacks, were released into the predator free…
Critical Condition
Three birds have joined ranks of the critically endangered, after an assessment by a panel of experts analysing data on 428 native birds. The grey duck, the eastern rock hopper penguin, and the grey-headed…
All that Jazz
The rapid growth of New Zealand’s premium new apple variety Jazz has reached another milestone this year with over 1.2 million cartons of apples forecast to be exported in 2009. Revered for its outstanding…
Ballroom blitz
Professional ballroom dancers Aucklander Erin Boag, 33, and her partner Briton Anton Du Beke who both starred in the successful UK television talent show Strictly Come Dancing, have just completed a documentary for Sky…
Truly popular
Creator of the 1999 New Zealand reality show Popstars Jonathan Dowling, 46, has changed the face of television sparking spinoff TV formats, such as The X Factor, American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent. Though…
Ratting Out the Weasels
Stoats, which were first introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century to combat the spread of the rabbit, have decimated the kiwi population reducing little spotted kiwi and Rowi or Okarito brown kiwi…
Professionally talking
The Flight of the Conchords are touring the United States donning “unwieldy” robot costumes and “playfully insulting” theirenthusiastic heckling audiences. At New York City’s Radio City Music Hall by the end of Too Many…
Moa Meals Uncovered
University of Otago postgraduate Jamie Wood collects moa dung, or coprolites, which he finds on tip-offs from hunters who report findings of moa bones. Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide, who specialises in…
Kakapo Comeback
The Kakapo, a flightless, nocturnal, critically threatened New Zealand parrot that was long thought extinct, has staged a tiny comeback. Scientists are hailing the arrival of 34 kakapo chicks this year, propelling the total…
On Slick for a First
Teenage jockey Samantha Collett — who in only three years has won more than 100 races — rode Sir Slick in the $AU2 million Emirates Doncaster Mile at Royal Randwick, the “biggest race” she’s…
Pro and ready for PGA
14 April 2009 – Eighteen-year-old New Zealand US Amateur Champion Danny Lee has turned pro, signing a deal believed to be worth $US10 million with IMG. Lee will make his professional debut at the…
Surprises from the Bay
Craggy Range winemaker Rod Easthope was up at London’s Penthouse Suite of New Zealand House promoting Gimblett Gravels varietals and astonishing the attending 30 or so UK Masters of Wine, sommeliers, wine buyers and…
Harlequins Hero
As Harlequins fly-half, Nick Evans “produced the greatest four minutes of controlled rugby I have been privileged to see against Stade Français” according to Times sports columnist Stuart Barnes. Evans next plays on Sunday…
Purple potato on the gravy train
Plant and Food Research, New Zealand’s sole potato breeder, has developed a new purple skinned potato as one of 16 new cultivars bred by the company. Purple Heart, as the potato is called, is…
Beautiful or Else
“In New Zealand some things are taken very seriously and some are not. Sport is serious. Politics is not. Lifestyle is serious; religion less so,” explains Joanna Norris for Abu Dhabi’s English-language newspaper The…
High Time for Cricket
Two teams consisting of 30 New Zealanders, Australians and Britons will play a Twenty20 cricket match at the foot of Mount Everest in Gorak Shep, which is at an altitude of 5165 metres on April 21…
Whisked Debate
Helen Leach, an academic at Otago University, is hoping to settle the origins of the pavlova with recipes found in a 1933 Mothers’ Union cookbook and in a 1929 rural magazine, both calling the…
Sports Refugee Remembered
Wanganui-born journalist Jock Veitch who as a student at Wanganui Collegiate was regarded as a slacker and told there was nothing wrong with him that a game of rugger or cricket couldn’t fix, has…
Home on the Pa
Leading member of the Nga Puhi iwi Hone Mihaka is an oral historian guiding tourists about the land of his ancestors and the Ruapekapeka pa, 14km south east of Kawakawa and one of the…
Hitched
For those looking to tie the perfect knot, New Zealand is worth the trip halfway across the world, according to Brit Marc Brierly and his fiancée, New Zealander Angie Watson. “Afterwards, everyone said what…
Hokitika’s Wild Side
The population quadrupled this autumn in Hokitika, as food enthusiasts from around the world flocked to get a taste of the 20th Wildfoods Festival, serving up a host of obscure, adventurous, and downright daring…
Reigniting the value of wool
As Chair of Wool Partners International, Theresa Gattung is at the forefront of a campaign to reignite the value of one of New Zealand’s oldest export commodities on the world stage. Gattung…
Parisian Hang-Ups
Phillipa ‘Pip’ Brown, 30, that’s Ladyhawke to her fans, is interviewed in Paris, where outside the French capital’s “cavernous Nouveau Casino venue, the line of ticketless opportunists snaking into the fading light speaks for…
To Save the Queen or Not
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, 59, who has given her valedictory speech to the House after 27 years as an MP, said the country’s institutions had “evolved a long way from our colonial heritage”….
Cheap sticks
Wellington-based percussion group Strike is in Singapore to play as part of a New Zealand festival. Strike met at Victoria University, when they were mostly playing chamber music, and now are a group of…
Sailing into the US
New Zealand global procurement company Unimarket is in the process of finalising a move to Annapolis, Maryland in the United States, where it plans to hire 100 new employees by 2011. Founder and chief…
Morrison’s future roles
The best example and a “notable exception” of a “Native … living in the future quite comfortably, particularly in sci-fi movies” would be Temuera Morrison, writes Peterborough Examiner columnist and award-winning Ojibwa author Drew…
Football Ambassador
6 April 2009 – Christchurch professional footballer Ryan Nelsen, 31, is a pivotal member of English Premier League side Blackburn Rovers, one of a number of teams fighting against relegation this season. Nelsen has…
Pride of place
According to the third national Quality of Life survey, nine out of ten New Zealanders rate their quality of life as good or better. Wellingtonians thought they had the best quality of life at…
Questioning change
New Zealander Bob Rigg has published an extensive analysis of the Obama administration’s initial approach to foreign policy in a paper for the South Asia Strategic Forum, a recently launched thinktank on global geo-political…
Time Well Spent
Lieutenant-Colonel John Darwin Maling, awarded an MC on the North-West Frontier and a DSO in Burma has died at the age of 94 in Waikanae. Born in Timaru in 1915 and educated at Christ’s…
Return to the Overlooked
Now Sydney-based, New Zealand photographer Rebecca Wiig, 27, has documented the city’s RSL clubs for an exhibition of 26 photographs called ‘If These Walls Could Talk’ held at Darlinghurst’s Tap Gallery. She began shooting…
Flattery Gets you Places
“Undoubtedly when God created the world He made two Edens. New Zealand is the second one,” writes Betty McCoy for Alabama newspaper The Gadsden Times, describing the country as “a pristine landscape drenched…
Memories of millions
Dame Silvia Cartwright, former New Zealand Governor-General and now serving as one of five international judges on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh, has recently criticized Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s disdain for…
Study With Leisure
A recent New Zealand Education Fair held in New Delhi attracted hundreds of Indian students eager to discover the merits of study in this country, many surprised to see New Zealand was more than…
In good company
US Amateur champion Rotorua-raised Danny Lee, 18, joins two other teenagers on the field at the US Masters in Augusta, Georgia prompting golfing great Tiger Woods to comment on the “new bloods” and the…
Next Stop: South Island
The Pangaea Expedition is making a welcome visit to the fjords of the South Island, heading straight over from a brief stop in South Africa. Eight New Zealand explorers will meet the crew of…
Potential Pro
Christchurch student James Meredith, 19, is a freshman at Boise State University and since joining the university’s tennis team in January, Meredith has been called “unbelievable” and “one of the best talents” the squad…
Wine’s a Winner
Marlborough, on New Zealand’s South Island, “doesn’t offer much to the nine or ten people on the planet who still smoke, but for cognoscenti of quality sauvignon blanc, it may well outrank King Bordeaux…
Educating Through Dance
Atamira Dance Collective’s production ‘Ngai Tahu 32’ has made its Australian debut, performing in Tasmania’s premier arts festival — Ten Days on the Island 2009 — and is reviewed by Kylie Eastley, writing for…
Vying for the ultimate
Radio host and television personality Clarke Gayford is one of 16 finalists for the ‘Best Job in the World’ organised by Tourism Queensland. Queensland Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor on Friday telephoned 15 finalists across…
Fish over sea
Eighty-four goldfish flew over the Tasman Sea on March 21 as part of the New Zealand-wide One Day Sculpture series of temporary public art works, this conceived by Italian artist Paola Pivi entitled…
Tours in Make Believe
“When Florida native Michele Maro became captivated by The Lord of the Rings movies, she never imagined she would one day be walking around in the Shire, touring Hobbiton and peeking into hobbit holes,”…
Dogs Sacked
British supermarket Tesco has ordered its largest suppliers in New Zealand, Silver Fern Farms in Fairton, Canterbury to stop using dogs to herd sheep into the abattoir. Tesco wants the shepherds to wave their…
