Return of the Storm Petrel
DNA evidence has confirmed that the tiny New Zealand storm petrel bird, thought to be extinct for more than 150 years, is still alive, meaning its comeback eclipses that of other “extinct” birds like…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Comparing Notes in Casper
Aucklander Donna Thompson (right) has been writing to Wyoming woman Peg Scott since she was 12-years-old. The pen pals finally met 46 years later over breakfast at Sherrie’s Place in Casper, Wyoming. At school…
Dorsal Fin Encounters
“Kaikoura is not a name that trips off the tongue when you list those lucky places that offer encounters with nature and a touch of luxury,” The Independent’s Jonathan Lorie reports. “But this township…
Aim and Fire Over Canada
A sniper cell from New Zealand was one of 27 teams taking part in the annual Canadian International Sniper Concentration at Canadian Forces Base in Gagetown. Captain John Bourgeois, the officer in charge of…
Return to the Icy Wild
Happy Feet, the “lost” emperor penguin which washed up on the Kapiti Coast, has been returned to the ocean; a BBC article examines how he and other animals are released back into the wild….
Synthetic Highs Banned
A 12-month ban of 43 synthetic cannabis products has come into effect in New Zealand. Some retailers believe that other legal highs will continue to flood a very popular, and lucrative, market. Manager of…
Norwegian Inspiration
Helen Clark, the first woman to be elected prime minister of New Zealand and now an administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is included in an Intelligent Life special called ‘Inspiring Women’,…
Channelling Ancestral Paths
Sailors on the Pacific Voyagers project steered a fleet of seven ocean-voyaging traditional Polynesian sailing canoes or vaka moanas from New Zealand to San Francisco — guided only by the stars that once helped…
Sir Jerry Takes the Oath
Lieutenant General Sir Jerry Mateparae has been sworn in as the 2th Governor General of New Zealand. The 56-year-old was sworn-in to a five-year term in a formal ceremony in front of Parliament. Following…
Fed, Feisty and Homeward Bound
Some 1700 people turned up at Wellington Zoo to farewell Happy Feet, the emperor penguin who captured New Zealand’s heart after being washed up sick and starving on Kapiti Coast’s Peka Peka beach 3000km…
Improving What We Have
President of the Tertiary Education Union at Victoria University, senior lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy, Sandra Grey writes that calling for expatriate New Zealanders to put money into the tertiary sector is possibly…
Surf Lover and Journo
Highly respected veteran journalist Graeme Moody has died while surfing at New South Wale’s famed Angourie Point. He was 60. Wellington’s Newstalk ZB cancelled regular programming the day Moody died, such was the level…
Understanding Diversity
The Wellington Holocaust Research and Education Centre has won a national award from the Human Rights Commission. The Centre, founded in 26, received one of 12 New Zealand Diversity Awards, which recognize projects that…
A legacy in literature
Acclaimed journalist Dame Christine Cole Catley has passed away at age 88, leaving behind a legacy in New Zealand literature. After making a name for herself as one of the nation’s first prominent female…
Back to the Island of Crete
No guns were firing when the New Zealand Herald’s Jim Eagles assembled quietly at the bottom of the steep road to the hilltop village of Galatas on the storied island of Crete. “Seventy years…
Quake Expert Remembered
World-renowned earthquake engineer and inventor of the base isolation technique Dr Bill Robinson has died in Christchurch aged 73. The seismic protection and damping equipment developed by Dr Robinson is used in buildings located…
Luke Skywalker Island Minted
The tiny South Pacific nation of Niue, population 1311, will soon be accepting Star Wars coins as legal tender. Each coin will be minted with a fully colored image of Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker,…
New Zealand Blanketed in Snow
August saw freezing cold and snow blanketing virtually all of the country, even typically mild cities such as Wellington and Auckland, which last saw accumulated snow 45 and 72 years ago, respectively. “What began…
Kakapo Star in Rat Island
New Zealand’s Kakapo are the focus of a new book telling the stories of the world’s best cases of predator eradication. Written by William Stolzenburg, Rat Island tells the stories of two heroic rescues…
Mighty Tree Falls
Former Governor General Sir Paul Reeves has died in Auckland, aged 78. Prime Minister John Key said New Zealand has lost one of its greatest statesmen. “Sir Paul’s contribution to New Zealand did not…
Mt Cook Ridge Renamed
Mt Cook’s South Ridge will be renamed the Hillary Ridge in honour of Sir Edmund Hillary, the Everest conqueror. Announcing the change, Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson said: “Sir Edmund made an enormous contribution…
Farewell to the White Mouse
New Zealand heroine and NZEdge hero Nancy Wake has passed away in England, three weeks shy of her 99th birthday. Born in Wellington in 1912, Wake moved to Australia with…
Diplomatic to the End
Wellington-born Beryl Smedley — who was a prominent figure in the Diplomatic Service Wives’ Association over several decades, and author of Partners in Diplomacy, an account of the changing role of British diplomatic wives…
Making Our Roads Safer
New Zealand has increased its minimum driving age from 15 to 16 in an effort to make its roads safer, as well as banning those under 2 drinking any amount of alcohol and then…
Drilling for Silence
Seventy scientists from around the world will gather in Gisborne from 1-5 August to discuss proposals to study “silent” earthquakes by drilling into the seabed. Silent quakes, also known as slow slip events, occur…
Auckland’s Top Five
“ city’s charming, walkable neighbourhoods offer distinct architectural styles and settings, from the iconic clock tower at the University of Auckland, to the Victorian houses backing up to lush Albert Park, with its fig…
Return to Kapiti
Sixty-nine years after he survived a fatal landing exercise off Paekakariki Beach, former marine American Frank Zalot plans to travel to New Zealand in 212 for a commemoration of American servicemen stationed here in…
Pioneering MP
Whetu Trikatene-Sullivan, New Zealand’s longest serving female MP has died in Wellington, aged 79. Trikatene-Sullivan, of Ngai Tahu, was Labour MP for Southern Maori for 29 years, from 1967 till 1996. She famously travelled…
Ace Pilot and Farmer
Former Sergeant-Pilot Geoffrey Bryson Fisken, the British Commonwealth’s No. 1 fighter pilot in the Pacific during WW2, has died at age 96 in Rotorua. He had spent much of his postwar years as a…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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….
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Jones’ Cerebral Legacy
Upper Hutt-born neuroscientist Dr Edward “Ted” Jones, who was an expert on brain anatomy and the causes of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, has died in Los Angeles, aged 72. Jones retired in 29…
Vision for a Settled Ground
‘“Happy the country that never makes the front page’ we said recently of Australia,’” Auckland Banyan columnist writes for The Economist. “Even more apt for its smaller sibling across the Tasman Sea,…
Lit by the Might of Another
Mt Taranaki features in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ‘News of the World Pictures’ section, the snowy peak lit by a “warm glow” as the ash cloud from Chilean volcano Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle drifted across the Pacific, on…
Return of the Warrior
The 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior made the converted fishing trawler a campaigning icon. Now, in its 4th anniversary year, Greenpeace is launching its first purpose-built protest ship — one of…
Escaping the Clippers Forever
New Zealand’s celebrity merino Shrek — who evaded muster on Bendigo Station for six years and carried 27kg of fleece — has been put down at the age of 16. Shrek gained international fame…
KR’s Lancaster MBA
Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts helps nurture tomorrow’s business leaders with the course he teaches at Lancaster University Management School, “Strategy in the Making.” The course is part of the “Mindful…
Chew on This
Offering New Zealand prisoners carrots as a substitute for cigarettes is among measures aimed at helping inmates kick the tobacco habit before a controversial smoke-free prisons policy takes effect on July 1….
Extraordinarily Special Kiwi
A rare white kiwi chick has been born — the first to be hatched in captivity — at the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre, 24km north of Masterton. The chick, named…
Heart-to-Heart in Red Zone
Bob Parker is taking advice from former San Francisco mayor Art Agnos, who was mayor when the Californian city was struck by a devastating earthquake in 1989. Agnos has come to Christchurch to advise…
Home Away from Home
Canadian life coach Karen Miners has made a new home for herself just outside of New Plymouth with her New Zealand partner, Dave. Miners, a former Montrealer, describes her life living abroad….
Little Blues Find Help
At Christchurch’s International Antarctic Centre 24 Little Blue Penguins are being cared for having been found injured and with no chance of survival in the wild. “Most of them have broken or…
Trinity Opportunities
University of Canterbury student Bree Loverich is one of 42 from Christchurch studying free at Oxford University for its eight-week Trinity term, after the British university offered places to those affected by February’s earthquake….
