News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Barbara Rae-Venter’s Revolutionary Cold Case Crime Breakthrough

Barbara Rae-Venter’s Revolutionary Cold Case Crime Breakthrough

Auckland-born genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter has become the go-to expert for law enforcement agencies hoping to crack the cases that defy traditional investigative methods, according to a profile in the San Francisco Chronicle by…

“The Maori Model” Hailed As Investment Blueprint For Reconciliation

“The Maori Model” Hailed As Investment Blueprint For Reconciliation

Bloomberg reports from Wellington on the investment record of South Island Maori tribe Ngai Tahu https://www.ngaitahuholdings.co.nz/, turning a $170 million government compensation payment into a $2 billion asset base with an average annual…

Drilling Down Into Mine Culture With Simon Denny

Drilling Down Into Mine Culture With Simon Denny

What does a tiny, nearly extinct bird with a sweet song have to do with the labour practices of a monolithic global corporation? Everything, New Zealand artist Simon Denny tells Stephanie Convery who writes…

Triple Crown for Penske Driver Scott McLaughlin

Triple Crown for Penske Driver Scott McLaughlin

Christchurch-born Scott McLaughlin has ended a 13-year wait with a thumping win to become the first Supercars driver to win the Triple Crown in Darwin. ESPN’s Eamonn Tiernan reports that DJR Team Penske star…

Taika Waititi Gives Vampire Film New Life

Taika Waititi Gives Vampire Film New Life

In-demand director Taika Waititi reveals to The Hollywood Reporter what it took for him and fellow New Zealander, Jemaine Clement to develop a TV show based on their 2014 film, What We Do in…

How an American Became a Central Otago Winemaker

How an American Became a Central Otago Winemaker

Jen Parr was recently nominated by Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine as one of 6 finalists for New Zealand Winemaker of the Year in 2019. How did she end up on that list? A former…

Cabaret Performer Sophie Koh at Centre Stage

Cabaret Performer Sophie Koh at Centre Stage

Profoundly inclusive and spectacularly eclectic, cabaret is what ‘theatre could have been if it hadn’t started building walls’. “Growing up, I never saw anyone who looked like me in the arts industry,” New Zealand-born…

Hilton Boss Alan Watts Sets His Sights on India

Hilton Boss Alan Watts Sets His Sights on India

Alan Watts, Asia-Pacific president of iconic hotel brand Hilton, which turns 100 this month, is bullish on India, Ashish Gupta writes for Fortune. New Zealand-born Watts joined Hilton in January 2018 after a 20-year…

Jordan Rakei’s Third Album Shifts Focus

Jordan Rakei’s Third Album Shifts Focus

“Jordan Rakei, the New Zealand-born, Australia-raised collaborator who quickly made a name for himself within London’s varied music scene, has shifted his focus on Origin,” according to Exclaim! reviewer Anna Alger. “Rakei’s third record…

Artist Jono Rotman On Guns, Mongrelism, San Francisco

Artist Jono Rotman On Guns, Mongrelism, San Francisco

Newly published on online art platform Contemporary HUM, artist and arts writer Emil McAvoy interviews US-based, New Zealand photographer Jono Rotman on his new work ‘Matériel’ which depicts a series of privately owned…

Berlin-Based Simon Denny Opens Show in Hobart

Berlin-Based Simon Denny Opens Show in Hobart

New Zealand artist Simon Denny, who lives in Berlin, talks to The Art Newspaper’s Tim Stone about his latest exhibition, Mine, which has just opened at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona). The…

National Geographic On An Epic Drive Through New Zealand

National Geographic On An Epic Drive Through New Zealand

“A nation of warmth and color” is revealed to National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Carrie Miller after an epic road trip from Bluff to Cape Reinga. The National Geographic Traveler feature runs 15 pages…

Alan Wendt on Job as PM’s Sign Language Interpreter

Alan Wendt on Job as PM’s Sign Language Interpreter

Alan Wendt is the first interpreter to be regularly employed by a New Zealand prime minister – and he has had a busy year, according to Dunedin-based journalist Eleanor Ainge Roy, who interviews Wendt…

Ten Things You Need to Know About Benee

Ten Things You Need to Know About Benee

This 19-year-old Kiwi rules, according to i-D writer Alim Kheraj in a profile of Auckland pop star Benee (formerly Bene) for the British magazine. Pop is amazing when it kind of confuses you, when songs…

Latest Alan Broadbent Trio Album Well-Received

Latest Alan Broadbent Trio Album Well-Received

“When listening to , you may imagine that your ears have become just a little sharper. That’s how hearing Alan Broadbent’s piano playing often strikes me anyway,” UK jazz critic Dave Gelly…

Winemaker of the Year is Richard Batchelor

Winemaker of the Year is Richard Batchelor

New Zealand-born winemaker Richard Batchelor of Washington’s Maryhill Winery earned the 2019 Winemaker of the Year trophy at the annual Indy International Wine Competition, held in late May. Yahoo reports on the industry win. The…

Serenely Sustainable Architecture in the Rangitikei

Serenely Sustainable Architecture in the Rangitikei

American design website, Inhabitat features a sustainable Taihape property. Auckland firm Copeland Associates Architects have unveiled “a gorgeous prefab timber cabin designed to provide a soothing off grid escape for those…

New Zealand in Throes of a Basketball Revolution

New Zealand in Throes of a Basketball Revolution

An ESPN article reports that the School Sport New Zealand Census, which has been conducted annually since 2000, revealed earlier this year that basketball had gone past rugby and was only trailing netball as…

New Zealand’s Best Coaches All Have One Unheralded Skill In Common

New Zealand’s Best Coaches All Have One Unheralded Skill In Common

Exceptional technical skills, an in-depth understanding of the sport and astute strategic knowledge are table-stakes for New Zealand rugby coaches at all levels of the game. What sets the truly accomplished coaches apart from…

Simon Crafar on the Latest Tyre Specs

Simon Crafar on the Latest Tyre Specs

Former Grand Prix winner, WorldSBK racer and now respected TV commentator and reporter New Zealander Simon Crafar is in a sound position to offer some perspective on motorcycle tyre technology. Adam Wheeler interviews Crafar as…

1905 All Blacks Shirt to be Auctioned in UK

1905 All Blacks Shirt to be Auctioned in UK

An historic 114-year-old All Blacks shirt worth tens of thousands of pounds is being sold by Falmouth Rugby Club, writes Marco Ferrari for The Falmouth Packet.  The All Blacks top was swapped for Falmouth’s Edward…

Inside Peter Jackson’s Personal Memorabilia Vault

Inside Peter Jackson’s Personal Memorabilia Vault

Like many directors, New Zealander Peter Jackson isn’t just a movie-maker, according to Empire magazine correspondent Ben Travis. Like the dragon Smaug, Jackson has his own stash of gold – a collection of some…

High Hopes for the Town of Ruatoria

High Hopes for the Town of Ruatoria

New Zealand medicinal business, Hikurangi Cannabis is looking to secure its slice of the “cannabusiness”, all while empowering the marginalised community of Ruatoria and allowing it to create wealth from within. Anna Watanabe reports…

Sculptor Neil Dawson Reflects on Public Art

Sculptor Neil Dawson Reflects on Public Art

Noted New Zealand sculptor Neil Dawson has been a force in contemporary sculpture for over 30 years, Jessica Stewart writes for American art site, My Modern Met. Most well-known for his large-scale public sculptures,…

Edmund Hillary Fellows Encourage Bold and Humble Leaders

Edmund Hillary Fellows Encourage Bold and Humble Leaders

“A verdant Burning Man with lots more global utopianism” is how American business columnist and Elon Musk biographer Ashlee Vance describes on Bloomberg.com the experimental New Zealand Global Impact Visa. Helmed by Illinois…

Malcolm Black: We Remember Your Smile (1961-2019)

Malcolm Black: We Remember Your Smile (1961-2019)

Malcolm Black ONZM, leader singer of the early 1980s anthemic band Netherworld Dancing Toys from Dunedin, died in Auckland on May 10, 2019, aged 58, of cancer diagnosed 18 months previously. NDT’s signature song…

Pua Magasiva, Actor (1980-2019)

Pua Magasiva, Actor (1980-2019)

Popular television actor Pua Magasiva died on May 11, 2019 aged 38. Born in Samoa but raised in New Zealand, Magasiva played the Red Ranger in 2003’s Power Rangers Ninja Storm as well…

Quentin Pongia, Kiwi Hardman (1970-2019)

Quentin Pongia, Kiwi Hardman (1970-2019)

Kiwi rugby league legend Quentin Pongia died on May 18, 2019 aged 48, in Greymouth. “Q” represented the Kiwis 35 times and played for the Raiders, Warriors, Roosters and Dragons in Australia between…

Perfectly Preserved Moa Prints Discovered

Perfectly Preserved Moa Prints Discovered

Michael Johnston was out taking his boss’s dog for a dip in a nearby river in Ranfurly, when he stumbled across some unusual markings in the waterbed. Jonathan Ore writes about the discovery for a…

Have Car Will Travel the North Island

Have Car Will Travel the North Island

“Let me be clear: so long as you are in a car, there’s no wrong way to see New Zealand,” Erin Florio writes in a feature on the North Island for Condé Nast Traveler. “Every…

On the Anniversary of Ernest Rutherford’s Find

On the Anniversary of Ernest Rutherford’s Find

“In 1907, a New Zealander named Ernest Rutherford moved from McGill University in Canada to the University of Manchester. There, he conducted a series of experiments where he fired alpha particles at different materials,”…

Sydney’s Carriageworks Hires Blair French

Sydney’s Carriageworks Hires Blair French

The international search for the next leader of Carriageworks in Sydney has ended with the appointment of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s New Zealand-born Blair French as the inner city arts precinct’s new chief…

At the Organ with Sarah Mary Chadwick

At the Organ with Sarah Mary Chadwick

Sarah Mary Chadwick’s artistic output has been an ideal combination of quality and quantity, according to Robert Ham who Skype interviews the New Zealand musician for monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, Paste. Chadwick…

New Zealand Responds to Alternative Protein Threat

New Zealand Responds to Alternative Protein Threat

In a report for The Japan Times, journalist Charlotte Greenfield talks to Dave Harper, a farmer in the scenic Canterbury region, where his painstakingly bred flock of lambs is grazing not on grass, but…

Sake Expert Rebekah Wilson-Lye on Sake Culture

Sake Expert Rebekah Wilson-Lye on Sake Culture

International PR and marketing manager at Japan Craft Sake Company, New Zealander Rebekah Wilson-Lye, 44, is profiled in The Japan Times. Wilson-Lye tells the Times that she discovered sake 14 years ago at the welcoming…

Taika Waititi Explains Our Sense of Humour

Taika Waititi Explains Our Sense of Humour

New Zealander Taika Waititi is now one of Hollywood’s hardest working filmmakers with a slew of projects in development, writes Joe Utichi, who interviews the director for entertainment news site, Deadline. Wherever he goes…

Aldous Harding Entices with Taunts and Teases

Aldous Harding Entices with Taunts and Teases

In an article for Singapore’s The Straits Times, Yeow Kai Chai reviews Auckland-born singer-songwriter Aldous Harding’s latest album, Designer. “Any attempt to pin down Harding is a foolhardy venture, especially when the songstress is not predisposed to…

On a Road Trip about the North Island

On a Road Trip about the North Island

A journalist for Canada’s Calgary Herald spent several weeks traipsing across New Zealand. In the first of two stories about the country, Will Ferguson details what he found on the North Island. “New Zealand is…

Te Papa’s Te Taiao Nature an Urgent Call to Action

Te Papa’s Te Taiao Nature an Urgent Call to Action

Dunedin-based Guardian journalist Eleanor Ainge Roy writes on Te Papa’s biggest development since its inception 21 years ago, the result of the largest ever investment in a museum exhibition in the country. Te Taiao…

Allbirds Is Just Flat out Busy

Allbirds Is Just Flat out Busy

Allbirds’ first distinctly feminine silhouette has just been released. Shannon Fitzgerald reports on the new line, a brightly-hued ballet flat called The Tree Breezer, for Fortune magazine. The flat is constructed from an extremely light…

Review: Marilyn Waring The Political Years

Review: Marilyn Waring The Political Years

Marilyn Waring’s forensic record of her Parliamentary career (Marilyn Waring: The Political Years Bridget Williams Books) is a layered work, a primer in the travails of Aotearoa’s parliamentary democracy. It…

Climate Change A Critical Issue – NZ US Ambassador

Climate Change A Critical Issue – NZ US Ambassador

Climate change is a critical issue for New Zealand and the Pacific island region as a whole given its exposure to extreme weather events, says New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States Rosemary Banks,…

Kimbra Hits Mexico on World Tour

Kimbra Hits Mexico on World Tour

New Zealand-born Kimbra was in Mexico recently performing as part of her worldwide Primal Hearts tour. Alejandro Mancilla interviewed the singer for GQ México. A resident of New York City for the past three years,…

Kowtow’s Gosia Piatek Doing Things Differently

Kowtow’s Gosia Piatek Doing Things Differently

Some designers are doing things differently: rethinking the business model and coming up with better ways of doing things, like Kowtow founder, New Zealander Gosia Piatek, who The Guardian’s Alexandra Spring features in an…

Pioneering Facial Reconstruction Work Of Harold Gillies Carries Graphic Warning

Pioneering Facial Reconstruction Work Of Harold Gillies Carries Graphic Warning

The pioneering work of Dunedin-born surgeon Dr Harold Gillies is graphically displayed in a Daily Mail spread featuring the facial reconstructions of soldiers wounded in WWI. Under the headline “The rebuilt faces of war:…

Jane Campion Casts Cumberbatch and Moss

Jane Campion Casts Cumberbatch and Moss

After a decade of being absent from the big screen, Academy Award-winner New Zealander Jane Campion is readying her first feature since 2009’s Bright Star. Campion will next direct her own adaptation of Thomas…

Mancunians Queue for Brunch at Federal

Mancunians Queue for Brunch at Federal

Five years ago, New Zealander Jon Perry and Portuguese Claudio Ribeiro co-founded the Antipodean coffee bar, Federal in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. A second café has recently opened in the city’s Deansgate area. Daisy Jackson…

Brand Australia Glances Eye At NZ

Brand Australia Glances Eye At NZ

A high-level group of Australian business leaders charged with formulating a “unified and strategic representation of Australia’s capabilities” has referenced New Zealand’s international performance and perception. According to AFR Boss Deputy Editor Patrick Durkin in…

Mental Health Means Business for Hannah Hardy-Jones

Mental Health Means Business for Hannah Hardy-Jones

A new wave of female entrepreneurs who are using their own experiences of mental health to help others feature in Forbes, including New Zealander Hannah Hardy-Jones, founder of The Kite Program, “the world’s first…

Coffin Clubs Take Sting out of Death

Coffin Clubs Take Sting out of Death

Across New Zealand, a country of almost 5 million, five major groups like the one Judith Aitken joined in Hastings have sprung up in recent years for people wanting to build and customise their…

Hidden Tattoos: Bradley’s Puaki Portraits Conceal Maori Markings

Hidden Tattoos: Bradley’s Puaki Portraits Conceal Maori Markings

New Zealand photographer Michael Bradley’s Puaki exhibition shows what Maori people would look like without their facial tattoos. Daily Mail reporter Ben Hill explains how Bradley used a digital camera to take photos of…

Jacinda Ardern: How To Stop The Next Christchurch Massacre

Jacinda Ardern: How To Stop The Next Christchurch Massacre

In a New York Times op-ed, PM Jacinda Ardern calls for the reform of social media, saying that the right to freedom of expression “does not include the freedom to broadcast mass murder.” The full…

Jacinda Ardern Popular In Australia

Jacinda Ardern Popular In Australia

Jacinda Arden’s “empathy and grace” in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings has been applauded in a recent New York Times opinion piece by Sisonke Msimang, an author who divides her time between Australia…

Rachel Carrell Fixing Broken UK Childcare System

Rachel Carrell Fixing Broken UK Childcare System

There are a dozen different words that Rachel Carrell can think of to describe the challenges of finding childcare for parents in the UK. None of them are positive. “It’s exhausting, expensive, overwhelming, stressful…

Virgin CEO Josh Bayliss Reflects on Climate Action

Virgin CEO Josh Bayliss Reflects on Climate Action

New Zealand-born Josh Bayliss, CEO of multi-billion-pound brand the Virgin Group, which holds a stake in Virgin Atlantic, discusses with BusinessGreen journalist Michael Holder how corporates should respond to consumer outcry over climate change. There…

Then & Now: NZ’s Natural Beauty on Display in Turn-of-the-Century Photos

Then & Now: NZ’s Natural Beauty on Display in Turn-of-the-Century Photos

A series of turn-of-the-century photocroms, published by MailOnline’s Tim Stickings, reveal the beauty of the New Zealand landscape a hundred years ago. The colour photographs of the country’s mountains, lakes and fjords “were reproduced…