NZEDGE Society — New Zealand through the eyes of the world's media

Justice Reserved For

Justice is the name most often refused by New Zealand registrars in the past ten years, with 49 sets of parents prevented from doing so according to the department for internal affairs. Next on…

Friendliest Place On The Planet

New Zealand is the world’s friendliest place according to the results of HSBC’s Expat Explorer Survey. “New Zealanders as a whole seem like happy people, and that translates into friendly, helpful and kind people,”…

Region Of Potheads

“New Zealand and Australia have a proud history of co-operation, but now it seems the nations have achieved a more dubious honour: the world’s biggest pot-heads,” The Sydney Morning Herald’s Amy Corderoy writes. “Together the countries…

Low On Brands, High On Beauty

For the first time, New Zealand is included in Monocle’s index of the top 30 soft power nations, coming in at number 17 and introduced as: “Low on brands, high on beauty and in between on…

Henry Receives Knighthood

Rugby World Cup-winning All Blacks coach Graham Henry, 65, has been awarded a knighthood in New Zealand’s annual New Year Honours List. Henry, a former school teacher, who resigned the All Blacks coaching job…

Orca vs Shark vs Dog

On Boxing Day at Blue Cliffs Beach near Tuatapere, residents witnessed a group of orca whales attacking a shoal of sharks. One shark desperate to escape from the enormous beasts even beached itself on…

Taste For The Finer Things

The intestinal transplant New Zealander Matisse Reid, 11, received a year ago at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh came with an unexpected surprise. The fifth-grader (Year 6) developed a sophisticated palate: a taste for…

Mining Australian Opportunities

A record number of New Zealanders has crossed the Tasman lured by high salaries in mining and agriculture, breaking the 50,000 barrier for the first time, with 50,115 people making the trip to Australia…

Frighteningly Festive

Auckland’s Whitcoulls Santa statue, which was built in 1960, is the world’s most unintentionally creepy Christmas ornament according to American humour website Cracked. Before a 2009 makeover, the statue had a sly winking left…

Courageous Man To The End

Nelson-born Jason Richards, V8 Supercar champion “to the last”, has died in Melbourne. He was 35. Peter Kogoy writes Richards’ obituary for The Australian: “His duel at the wheel of the Team BOC Commodore with…

Pupils Staying Strong

Students from Fendalton Open-Air School in Christchurch are the first group members — calling themselves Faultline Fiction — of the Guardian site to vividly recount what happened when earthquakes struck their city, changing their…

One Legendary Queen

Transgender icon Taumaranui-born Carmen Rupe has died in Sydney, aged 75. Carmen was born into a family of 13 and was known as Trevor Rupe for about the first 20 years of her life….

Festive Season Realities

A billboard outside Auckland’s Anglican St Matthew’s in the City of the Virgin Mary gasping as she examines a pregnancy testing kit has sparked fiery debate. Defending the poster, the vicar, the Rev Glynn…

After A Hard Day’s Travels

A Tauranga woman thought she was hallucinating when a clattering noise prompted her to run downstairs to the kitchen and check on the cats, where she found a baby seal, who then waddled into…

Unreal Festive Spirit

“After 14 attempts I am still unable to reconcile Christmas Day with the hot sunshine of the north-east New Zealand city of Gisborne,” Guardian reader John Darkin writes for the publication’s weekly series ‘Letter from.’ “The…

Planning Christmas Capers

Now living in Rotorua, Canadian Jill Campbell, from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, is looking for other Capers so they can to get together for a céilidh or a drink at the pub over Christmas….

Alleged Fraudster Arrested

A New Zealander has been arrested in Australia for alleged embezzling $16 million from Queensland Health. 36-year-old Hohepa Morehu-Barlow — also known as Joel Barlow — had been evading police since Thursday afternoon when…

Hope Yet For Happy Feet

New Zealand author and entrepreneur Gareth Morgan will join 12 scientists on a 30-day voyage to Antarctica early next year to raise awareness of the importance of the region, and as an “add-on” to…

More Penguins Return Home

A photograph of a blue penguin moving toward the sea after being released by wildlife workers in Tauranga is included in theGuardian’s ‘24 hours in pictures’ series for 9 December. The penguins were among those…

Streaking Star Trails

A long-exposure image of star trails streaking over Lake Tekapo features on the National Geographic website. The lake was one of the first sites designated as a Starlight Reserve as part of a UN-supported initiative to…

Observing Oceanic Responsibilities

New Zealand and Australia have signed a marine observation agreement, which is expected to result in improved knowledge of regional climate systems. New Zealand’s high commissioner Major-General Martyn Dunne and Australia’s Science Minister Kim…

Reporting From New Zealand

“For a small place, New Zealand generates a lot of news,” ABC New Zealand correspondent Dominque Schwartz tells Elizabeth Jackson. “Its population is less than that of Sydney, but this year alone there’ve been…

Great Barrier Phenomenon

American entomologist Mark Moffett, 53, claimed he discovered the largest weta of the species ever found. International publications, such as the Daily Mail, The Huffington Post and Telegraph, have declared Moffett’s find the world’s biggest insect in terms…

Challenging Classroom Prejudice

New Zealand-born teacher Suran Dickson, 34, felt moved enough to leave her job and launch Diversity Role Models, a charity which tackles the worrying incidence of homophobic bullying in British schools, where terms…

Magical Parrot Meetings

The rangers and scientists of the Kakapo Recovery program on Codfish Island are slowly but surely succeeding in their mission to “make more kakapo” by micromanaging the birds’ diet, mating, births, and fledging —…

New Zealand Least Corrupt

New Zealand is perceived as having the least corrupt government and public institutions in the world, topping the Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 survey. 178 countries were included in this year’s iteration of the annual survey,…

Alien Disappearance

Without any human intervention, the Argentine ant — the world’s most invasive species — is disappearing from New Zealand. The alien ant arrived in New Zealand in 1990 and has since marched across our…

Calling Australia Home

Almost one in five Maori — or 151,000 of the total population of 815,000 — now live outside New Zealand, with most — 140,000 — calling Australia home. An increasing number were born in…

Birds In Paradise

About an hour from downtown Wellington is Kapiti Island, one of New Zealand’s most successful nature reserves and a model for wildlife and flora conservation. Award-winning journalist Jill Robinson takes a day-trip there. “On…

Spellbound On Tiritiri Matangi

New Zealand bellbird, Anthornis melanura was the Guardian’s ‘Mystery Bird’ on 24 November. “This bird is named for its gorgeous song, which consists of three distinct sounds that resemble the chiming of distant bells,” evolutionary…

Man Of Masterpieces

Kerikeri resident Russell Garcia, an California-born arranger, composer and conductor who was an influential figure in the West Coast music scene during the 1950s and ‘60s and whose work in Hollywood included writing the…

Freedom For Little Blues

Forty-nine little blue penguins rescued from the Rena oil spill that occurred in October off the coast of Tauranga have been returned to the wild at Mt Maunganui beach. Most of them immediately ran…

Horse Whispering

An image of Hurricanes assistant coach Alama Ieremia working with his horse during a leadership programme run by Talkinghorses in Te Horo, is included in the Globe and Mail’s ‘Day in Photos’. The publication…

Rats Not Such Pests After All

Invasive rats are compensating for the loss of native pollinators in New Zealand, scientists report in a paper published in a Royal Society journal. “New Zealand offers a really interesting and rare opportunity to…

By Heck It’s Back

One of the world’s smallest and rarest marine dolphins, the Hector’s Dolphin, has been seen in Wellington Harbour, more than two years after the last sighting. The person who spotted the dolphin said it…

Warriors Rewarded

New Zealand intelligence expert Upper Hutt resident Major Rory McGregor was among 25 New Zealand Defence Force personnel to receive US military medals from visiting Major General Peter Talleri, the Okinawa, Japan-based commander of…

Competition and Camaraderie

New Zealand firefighters Rob Holah and Donny Butters recently travelled to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to compete in the 20th annual Firefighter Combat Challenge World Challenge. Holah said camaraderie is one of the biggest…

Home Is Where The Boom Is

New Zealanders and Australians once flocked to the UK for the opportunity to gain experience and return home with some valuable pounds, but the booming Australian economy and a sharp appreciation in the New…

Investing for Prosperity

A new study undertaken by global network Kea claims that encouraging expatriate New Zealanders to invest in their home country is the best way to “achieve improved prosperity.” The research was based on interviews…

Shy Morning Feeling

An ethereal South Island landscape is captured by German photographer Steffen Schrägle for an Intelligent Life photo essay called, ‘A World of Mist’. Schrägle, who took the photograph in June 2009, said…

Why Kiwis Get Stroppy

Manukura the six-month-old white kiwi “appears to have regained her mojo after a heart scare during surgery to remove a stone from her gizzard.” “You try to grab her and she kind of karate…

Building on Solid Ground

“Newly uncovered details about the earthquake that rocked Christchurch in February may offer grim lessons regarding the potential threat of fault lines running through urban centres,” Our Amazing Planet contributor Charles Choi writes. “Much…

Kerr’s Final Fight

New Zealand Business Roundtable leader Roger Kerr, once described by Sir Douglas Myers as a “national treasure”, has died. He was 66. Kerr was born in Nelson in 1945 and spent his childhood on…

Deconsecrating Deconstruction

Christchurch’s most famous landmark, the 19th-century ChristChurch Cathedral, is to be deconsecrated and partially demolished after February’s devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake toppled the steeple. Church and government representatives have announced that sections of the…

Living Fossil Bewitches

Te Papa scientist Vincent Zintzen and colleagues have been studying the hunting behaviour of the hagfish — or snot-eel — a blind sea creature partway between fish and worm, with a spinal cord but…

Good Kids Making Bad Choices

A New Zealand Transport Authority advertisement, created by Clemenger BBDO Wellington, is using humour to get the drink-driving message across to its young audience. Rather than rely on the shock tactics and graphic images…

Open-minded Visionary

New Zealand-born psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall, who made significant contributions to the understanding of perversions, psychosomatic symptoms, female sexuality, creativity and addictions, has died aged 91. Her clinical insights, theoretical originality, open-mindedness and lack of…