Lucky for Some
Whitianga-based vet Alex Elson, 58, has completed Britain’s 117km South West Coast Path 13-years after she began it in the coastal town of Minehead. Elson and her British friend Sandra Fairchild met about 17…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Mobile Learning
Students at Auckland’s Howick College are using free software to convert computer files into mobile phone study notes for a pilot study called ‘mLearning’ which is examining the result of using mobile phones as…
Snowy Did it All
“So remarkable was the sporting life of Eric Tindill, who has died in Wellington at 99 years and 226 days, that being the longest lived of all the 2600 men who have played test…
UN Confirms Palmer
With Israel agreeing to participate in a UN investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla earlier this year, former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer will chair the four-member panel inquiry made up…
Following Frodo
Fiordland’s Routeburn track may attract significantly fewer visitors to it than the Milford Sounds, but the “majestic, snowcapped peaks in every direction, along with waterfalls and hidden tarns” are well worth the hike says…
WW2 Pilot Laid to Rest
The puzzle of New Zealand pilot officer W. Stuart Beattie who was killed 69 years ago has finally been laid to rest. Torquay Royal British Legion secretary Ena Pethick turned supersleuth to find out…
Progress Continues
The New Zealand Government’s recent endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been welcomed by UN indigenous human rights expert Professor James Anaya, who says good progress is being…
Copper’s collection
The Public Trust Building on Dannevirke’s main street has been transformed by former Hamilton Senior Sergeant Bruce Lyon and wife Maureen from a brothel into The International Police Museum. The Museum also serves as…
Justice argued
Rob Hamill — whose 28-year-old brother Kerry fell into the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime when his yacht was captured in Cambodian waters in 1978 — was in Cambodia for the sentencing…
Educational Benefits
New Zealand is suggested as a good choice for international students by Nepalese newspaper República because the country has a Code of Practice that provides a framework for looking after foreign students. This system…
UAE presence strengthens
New Zealand will open an embassy in Abu Dhabi, its first in the UAE and second in the Gulf region, where it is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully…
Changing family units
Couple without children in New Zealand are expected to surpass two-parent families as the most common household formation by next year, according to Statistics New Zealand figures. National Family and Household Projections released on…
Kiwis Relocate to US
New Zealand Ambassador Roy Ferguson officially presented America’s National Zoo with a pair of rare kiwi. The handover took place in Front Royal, Virginia at the Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. The Zoo will…
Sedimentary Strata Studied
Waipaoa River was recently visited by a team of international scientists gathering data for research into how materials from land are moved through and accumulated in the ocean and, in particular, how floods carry…
Anniversary of sinking
Twenty-five years ago two French agents coordinated the bombing of the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior in Waitemata Harbour, a tragedy in which Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira drowned. The attack on the ship was remembered…
More than family
In an article entitled ‘In Praise of Whanau’, the Herald Scotland’s Catriona Stewart writes that “for someone who can count blood relations on her fingers and still have digits to spare, the whanau is…
Mellow and Beautiful
The South Island of New Zealand may appear insignificant on a globe for those who can find it at all,” Karen Baker writes for Oregon Live. “But the island boasts natural grandeur that leaves…
Mourning Moko
Tauranga’s favourite dolphin Moko has been found dead on an island off the coast of the port city. Department of Conservation area manager Andrew Baucke said Moko’s death was a sad loss. “The way…
Tokyo Strategies
Anti-whaling activist Pete Bethune, 45, has been convicted by a Tokyo court of assault and obstruction of Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, receiving a suspended two-year prison sentence. Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd…
Against the grain
“An act of real political courage by the National Party would be to increase its commitment in the dangerous areas of Afghanistan and to announce that New Zealand was rejoining the ANZUS Alliance, which…
Feathery Dilemmas
“For some insight as to why rapid development is important to nesting birds, especially small songbirds, visit New Zealand, where native birds have had some challenges,” suggests the Mail Tribune’s Stewart Janes. “New Zealand,…
Suitcase treasures
New Zealand descendants of a British officer stationed on St Helena, from 1815 to 1821, have sold a number of his collection of Napoleon Bonaparte mementoes at an auction in Auckland, including a lock…
Temple for Story
Prizewinning author Lloyd Jones — whose novel Mister Pip made the Booker shortlist in 27 — has established the Bougainville Library Trust in Arawa, Papua New Guinea, enabling locals to fundraise and build their…
Prison fag ban ahead
New Zealand is to ban smoking in prisons from 1 July 211. Corrections Minister Judith Collins said high levels of smoking were a risk to staff and prisoners. Opponents are concerned that violence in…
Mammoth Melt
The effects of a change in global wind patterns which helped to end the last major ice age were first seen on New Zealand glaciers, according to Columbia University scientists. Mountain glaciers in New…
Own your own town
Remote Southern Alps township Otira, population 44 is for sale. Selling for $1 million, the deal includes a hotel, fire station, town hall and 18 houses. The Otira Hotel, which started life as a…
Sublime Sale
A single brown and white feather from the extinct huia bird has sold for a record sum at Webb’s Auction House in Auckland for $8. Managing director of Webb’s Neil Campbell said that the…
Peak Design
En-route to Mount Aoraki, India’s Economic Times’ reporter Bidisha Bagchi stops off at Lake Pukaki and, “after admiring the majestic blue of the lake that came from the rock particles in the glaciers —…
Wwow What a Wwoof
From their wwoofing holiday in Northland, Californian couple Jacob and Kendall Madden describe their time spent working on five organic farms in the region in a guide about what it means to be a…
Maintaining meaning
Each year, Whakatane ta moko artist Rangi Kipa has some 2 clients fly into the country from the UK or Europe eager to make a statement with a unique Maori tattoo. Kipa says the…
Tracing her roots
Each year, New Zealand Genealogical Society head Aucklander Jan Gow, 7, travels to Salt Lake City to browse ribbons of microfilm and endless volumes of maps, cemetery and property records tucked inside the Utah…
Peace reigns supreme
New Zealand has been named the most peaceful nation for the second year running in the fourth annual Global Peace Index (GPI). Compiled by global think tank Institute for Economics and Peace, the report…
Working class knight
Wellington-born Peter Leitch, known to his fans as the “Mad Butcher”, has received a knighthood in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours. Leitch, a butcher, former gravedigger and avid rugby league fan, says…
Kaikoura Ethnohydrology
Writing from Blenheim, Arizona State University student Marie Manning, a global health major, describes her time spent on a Kaikoura wild dolphin encounter and the research she is undertaking in New Zealand for an…
Splitting Cells
“New Zealand has found a cheap and quick way to build its prisons by converting used shipping containers into cells to deal with a record high number of inmates,” writes Philippa McDonald for the…
Mucking In
The Olivenhain garden of New Zealanders Maury and Heather Callaghan in Southern Californian is an “expanse of lawn and beds of perennials” with a tall, fragrant banana shrub and burgundy-leaved smoke tree “creat a…
Commission Speculation
Former Labour Prime Minister and maritime law expert Sir Geoffrey Palmer, 68, is UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s preferred choice to head a planned international enquiry into Israel’s raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, according…
Realm of the Karearea
The documentary Karearea: The Pine Falcon, an audience favourite at the 29 Tallahassee Film Festival, is screening as part of the Tallahassee Film Society’s annual “bird movie” Saturday at the All Saints Cinema this…
Sizing Up Pacific Atolls
Professor Paul Kench of Auckland University’s environment school and coastal process expert Dr Arthur Webb of the Fiji-based South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission have found that despite rising sea levels some Pacific Island coral…
Industry Icon
Bay of Plenty-born director Merata Mita has died in Auckland. Broadcaster Joanna Paul told The New Zealand Herald that Mita was an icon and her death, a massive loss. Paul said she met her…
Shechita forbidden
New Zealand has banned kosher slaughter after a new animal welfare code mandated that all animals for commercial consumption be stunned prior to slaughter to ensure they are treated “humanely and in accordance with…
Loveable Dame
Dunedin-born actress Dame Pat Evison, who was best known for her Australian roles as Jessie Windom in Prisoner and Violet Carnegie in The Flying Doctors, has died aged 85. She also played Mrs Telford…
Positive pitfalls
According to a New Zealand 3-year study people from positive family backgrounds are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence and drug dependence, tending to suffer more seriously and need more treatment. Researchers…
Making a stand
The trial of anti-whaler Pete Bethune, 45, of the Sea Shepherd marine conservation group, who was arrested after clambering aboard a Japanese whaling ship in February, has begun in Tokyo. The trial opens as…
Wacky Winter Stunts
Queenstown’s Winter Festival hits the southern town for the 35th year this June with an estimated 6, revellers expected to attend the week-long festivities. While there are big-ticket items — free concerts (Dragon headline…
Peacekeepers halved
The New Zealand Defence Force is reducing the number of its military deployment in East Timor to six-monthly rotations of 74 personnel. Because of the improved security environment in East Timor, defence minister Dr…
Meeting of mooers
Auckland-based Bob Carpenter, 57, creator of Filipino social networking site MooPlace, says the name of the site came about because of the high ratio of cows to people in New Zealand. MooPlace members are…
All in Good Time
New Zealand switched to proportional representation in 1993 and since then no single political party has been able to command a majority. New Zealanders have come to regard elections as a two-phase affair: first,…
Under the Garden
New Zealand’s $30 million pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is expecting 400,000 visitors through its doors over the next six months. New Zealand Commissioner-General Phillip Gibson said that, even before the…
Controversial Precision
“New Zealand is joining the global race to meet a surging demand for energy and minerals, with a plan to open up highly protected conservation areas to mining,” writes Paul Cleary for The Australian. The…
Police Found Culpable
The death of New Zealand anti-fascist protestor, Blair Peach, in a London demonstration against the National Front in April 1979, “marked one of the most controversial events in modern policing history”, writes the Guardian’s…
Philanthropist Awarded
Owner of Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnapper’s golf courses Julian Robertson Jnr., 77, named New Zealand first honorary knight in January this year, has been awarded the recipient of the Hedge Fund Industry’s Lifetime…
Widow’s Wish
Jan Arnold, the widow of legendary mountain guide Rob Hall, who was one of eight people to lose their lives on Mt Everest during a severe storm in 1996, has asked that his body…
Happy Birthday
“New Zealand has marked the Queen’s 84th birthday by rejecting an attempt to abolish the monarchy,” writes Paul Chapman for The Telegraph. A bill that would have set up a referendum on the country becoming…
Shared Heritage
“Canada and New Zealand may lie at opposite ends of the earth, but we are bound together by a common history,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared during John Key’s visit to the capital…
Not Humpty Dumpty
Should the New Zealand-bred champion horse Phar Lap be “put back together again” asks The Sydney Morning Herald. Victorian Racing Minister Rob Hulls is seeking to “re-unify” the skeleton (from Wellington) and the heart (now…
