Secret History
An Italian monk’s stinging criticism of British mistreatment of Maori has been published in New Zealand for the first time – more than 100 years after it was written. Written by Benedictine monk Dom Felice Vaggioli,…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
NZ-born Leader of Australian Welfare Reform
New Zealand-born Stuart McClure, an ex-Franciscan priest from Mission Australia is chairman of Australia’s Welfare Reform Reference Group, charged with leading improvements to the Aussie Welfare system that was once widely believed to be…
The Gould Standard
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waikato and former British Labour spokesman Bryan Gould offers his perspective on one of the most heated debates in British politics – the integration of European currency and urges Blair’s government to…
Hitting Sex Criminals Where it Hurts
Maori activist Titewhai Harawira has recommended a traditional Maori punishment for sex criminals to ensure that they don’t re-offend: Her solution: tying flax around the offender’s penis and pulling until the penis drops off. “I’m sick of…
More Marie Clay Pedagogue Innovation
Marie Clay’s “running records” reading assessment programme proved the hit of Howard County’s reading summer institute. “Running records were developed in the 1970s by the same New Zealand psychologist and educator who introduced the…
Te Rangi Hiroa/Sir Peter Buck Remembered
The Sunday Times remembers the birthday of Sir Peter Buck – a pioneering and internationally renowned anthropologist, the first Maori medical doctor, a politician, administrator, soldier, and leader of the Maori people. Born in…
Twin Poi: Fire Play With Me
Ultimate frisbee and hackeysack just don’t cut it anymore for the young and birkenstocked. Young Americans looking for the latest hip zen vibe have been inspired by Maori ritual: “Poi, an energetic twirling of a pair…
Maori Mystique
The Washington Post’s Kid’s Section “Web@tlas” spotlights Australia and New Zealand, inviting readers to “take a peek into the world of the Maori – including the intricate tattoos that “they’re known for” by linking…
Edge Affirmation from Elaine Showalter
The Princeton University feminist icon and scholar writes on effect of globalisation on national identity: “If one is an expatriate from, say, New Zealand”, as American Political scientist Daniel Bell notes, “one can click…
Cyber-policing
In Porirua, New Zealand, the thin blue line has turned into the thin blue URL in the fight against crime. Police have decided to enlist the use of a website as a way to…
All Black Diplomacy
Kiwi Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Don McKinnon, is “a New Zealander in the traditional mould … he’s a refreshing antidote to the blandness of his three predecessors, who knew that if they stopped being boring they were…
Just Add Soap and Hey Presto: 20m Geyser!
In the notes and queries section of the Guardian a reader enquires about the practice of putting soap down geyser spouts to stimulate eruption. Leo Pyle elaborates on the science of the practice by refering to…
Holy Boy! From Nintendo to Nepal
A Kiwi kid is giving up his game-boy, chicken nuggets, cricket, pokemon, and other typical Kiwi 7year-old delights to study Buddhist philosophy and rituals at a monastry in India for the next 15 years….
A Leftist Free-trader: Oxymoore-onic?
Kiwi WTO chief Mike Moore, speaking to an audience of young socialists in Sweden responds to criticism of the World Trade Organisation “It is odd that some on the left have sometimes opposed free trade. If…
Edge Theory from Miami
A Kiwi in Miami offers a defence of the urge to retain national identity and pushes the New Zealand edge: “I met my American husband in my homeland where he lived many years and gained citizenship……
“They Kiss With Their Noses in New Zealand”
In an exploration of social climbing etiquette the Philippine Star explores the kissing conventions around the globe, from the Latin influenced beso-beso, to hand kissing in France, to bowing in Japan to Maori hongi in New…
NZ Victim of Black May Massacre
An official inquiry has only just been launched into the infamous Thai massacre where Kiwi Brendan Mahoney was almost killed eight years ago. He was staring up towards Bangkok’s democracy monument on a balmy…
Silence is Regulated Golden
Not doing a great deal to dispel the stereotype of the loud-mouthed ocker, an article on the art and science of noise in the Sydney Morning Herald looks at the menace of noise pollution,…
Immunising Roadkill to Protect Livestock?
Imagine a countryside filled with possum traps, not designed to kill, but to entice the pesky pest in for a quick facial spray to vaccinate them against bovine TB. Hailing some edge thinking the Guardian writes: “It…
Pass the Budder
The Guardian explores the new linguistic imperialism and the effects of media on language: a New Zealand researcher has found that, under the influence of programmes like Eastenders, increased glottalisation of the dialect has occured….
Satellite Spies: Big Brother is Watching.
‘Echelon’, a mysterious spy network between the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, has come under fire from the European Union, as well as defenders of civil liberty. The station at Wahopai, in the South…
Kiwi Metric Model
Well, hardly on the edge, but a Canadian tourist bicycling through New Zealand has managed to tear his eyes away from the scenery long enough to notice the benefits of the firm application of the metric…
Organic Expert Export
Organic farmer Evelyn Eng-Lim is introducing the organic lifestyle to Singapore and hopes to set an example for other farmers to follow, “If other farmers see that it is commercially viable, then they will be convinced…
The Art of Selling Nothing: Cashing in on Kiwi Fresh Air
New Zealand’s tourism campaigns play on the myth of its clean, green image, but soon the truth may be stranger than fiction. A proposal for clean air producers, such as New Zealand, to sell “carbon sinks”…
The Man Who Saved Britain
“If ever one man won the Battle of Britain, he did.” On the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Britain TheTimes remembers the New Zealander who was the key man in defending Britain and Malta during…
God Save Thee, Ancient Mariner!
The mariner soon learnt his lesson, but it doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on today’s fishermen, with one of the world’s most majestic seabirds threatened with extinction from long-line fishing, and environmental and habitat pollution. The…
Ray the Negotiator
Accused of taking illegal photos from the roof of her truck, Englishwoman abroad Lindsay Hawdon found herself at the mercy of the Ugandan Army while touring Africa. It took the calm thinking of her Kiwi driver…
Fcuk Judge Graffiti
Singapore is in uproar over an advertising campaign for a British clothing company that uses a certain four-letter word, yet as the Straitstimes reports, judges in New Zealand have been scribbling it on their folders for…
Sign of the Times
A Transit New Zealand road sign in the South island, linking the towns of Clinton and Gore, is attracting the attention of the White House.
Japan Harpoons ANZAC Conservation Efforts
Japan has gestured towards restarting ‘scientific’ whale-killing, despite stern objection form New Zealand and Australia and environmental groups. New Zealand IWC Commissioner Jim McLay, who is seen as a key anti-whaling speaker inside the commission, said the…
Sheep Joke
Alliance MP Grant Gillon faces being baa-ed from parliament after making a wise-crack (more commonly used by Australians) about the relationship between sheep and opposition politicians. The remark was made during a debate on the experimental use…
New Zealand Seeks New Relationship with Korea
New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Phil Goff said his country will seek to support the process for peace on the Korean peninsula “through a developing dialogue and new relationship” with the Democratic People’s Republic…
Kiwi Killer Lady of Kingairloch
In a shooting career from 1930 to 1999 the huntress of the highlands Patricia Strutt shot more than 2000 stags. With her death, aged 89, the Scottish highlands lost one of its most formidable…
New Zealand Not Giving Up on South Pacific Whale Sanctuary
A bid by New Zealand and Australia to establish an ocean sanctuary to protect whale breeding grounds failed at the International Whaling Commission Meeting in Adelaide. Despite securing two-thirds of the vote, they were blocked by the hard-lobbying…
The Edge Beckons
The Financial Times ponders years of reform, New Zealand’s loss of confidence in its ability to survive in an era of globalisation and evaluates the context: what is the role of a small western economy on the…
War and Peace: Kiwi UN Official Warns of Half-job Solutions
As the United Nations administration in Kosovo prepares to shut down, its job of emergency relief deemed to be over, Kiwi UN special envoy Dennis McNamara has some advice for the next great international mission to rebuild…
Frozen Tomb of Kiwi War Pilot Uncovered
The RAF has never forgotten a Kiwi pilot, flight officer Arthur Round, and his crew who died when their aircraft crashed in a glacier in northern Iceland during a World War Two mission. An…
Delightful Dowderwell’s Delphiniums
The Scotsman’s gardening writer Carolyn Spray recommends an esoteric Wanganui website: “If you’re as passionate about delphiniums as I am, you’ll love this site … All about growing, pests and diseases likely to occur, it also has…
Piecing Together the WTO After Seattle
Kiwi World Trade Organisation head Mike Moore urges resolve and ponders the failure to launch a new round of trade talks in protest-ridden Seattle. “The WTO is at the heart of a passionate debate about the defining…
Kiwi Bomb Victim Determined to Rebuild His Life
Gary Reid, whose body was devastated by a nail bomb explosion at the Admiral Duncan Pub (London) last year, vows to recover fully and without malice, “I am looking forward to getting an artificial…
New Zealand Edges into the Top-twenty, but Gives Women a Fair Go
For the seventh consecutive year, Canada ranks overall as the best place in the world to live according to the UN Human Development Report 2000. New Zealand is in twentieth place behind Austria, Ireland…
Bryan Gould: Best Belletrist on the Left
The New Statesman’s literary editor uses his position to weigh up the relative literary merits of the Tory MPs compared to their Labour counterparts, and finds that the Tories are up at halftime, “with the exception…
New Zealand Versus the Mother Country: A Titanic Struggle
We’re obviously not talking rugby, but earthworms. Visitors to the University of Dundee’s Botany Department got to see a titanic struggle of earthly proportions, with the New Zealand flatworm attacking and overwhelming its British cousin – the…
University of Canterbury, (Kuala Lumpur)
The University of Canterbury, New Zealand, held its inaugural overseas graduation and degree presentation in Kuala Lumpur with officials, 60 alumni and 200 guests attending. The universities strong ties with Malaysia stretch back 50…
Maori Culture Previewed on USA Today
“The indigenous people of New Zealand are spotlighted at Maori Culture including historical background, portraits and even a cookbook.”
Helen Clark: Good Bloke
“Good bloke” politics is playing well in “reform-fatigued” Australian electorates. The new model is not gender-specific. Prime Minister Helen Clark in New Zealand may like to imply that it is, but she has profited from the same…
ANZACS Cautious in South Pacific
New Zealand and Australia in recent years have turned their attention away from the South Pacific, and increasingly cast it towards Asia. Two coups in as many weeks, in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, have re-focused attention,…
Mike Moore Wants to Give Globalisation a Human Face
The cherubic WTO head Moore, readily likened to a panda in caricutures, admitted that the free-traders were losing the PR battle after the “Seattle Debacle” and failed consensus, but vowed to do what it takes to convince…
Oceania Merge the Edges With Log Drums and Electro Beats
Former leader of Killing Joke Jaz Coleman joins Maori singer Hinewehi Mohi in a high-tech fusion on their eponymous debut. “This isn’t a fashion record for me, or a passing flirtation with another culture,” says Coleman, recently…
Save Our Sea-mammals : Pacific Plan for Whale Sanctuary
New Zealand and Australian governments are set to pressure the International Whaling Commission into creating a whale sanctuary in the South Pacific, believing that a plan must be implemented to protect stocks already severely depleted by whaling.
Oui Fumer
A political party in New zealand is to hand out free cigarettes in protest at the countires recent increase in tobacco taxes. The Libertarianz Party will hand out free cigarette’s in the city of Roturua, a geothermal…
Reading Recovery Gets Thumbs Up in Baltimore
Maryland: the innovative system, started by New Zealand educator Marie Clay over 20 years ago, is a remedial program targeted to young children struggling with reading. Threatened with loss of funding parents made passionate…
Edge Explorer Revised and Revisited by Aussie Historian
Tony Horwitz revisits the James Cook legend and Cook’s Star-Trek echoing logbook, “I have gone farther than any man has been before me, as far as I think it is possible for a man…
McKinnon and the End of the World
“No sooner had former New Zealand foreign minister Don McKinnon stepped across the threshold of London’s Marlborough House to take over as Secretary-General than all hell broke loose across the Commonwealth. It was a coincidence, of course…
Touring Scots Experience Hongi and Other Quirks of New Zealand Culture
Such as this unique local solution to the Fijian Crisis, on observing the Scots training an onlooker reportedly said: “what you should do is use that big fellar as ram on the door of the Parliament…
Innovative Computer Mapping to Curb Crime
New Zealand police are, introducing a high-tech solution to beat burglaries. They are using a NZ$6million computer-mapping programme to allow police to zero in on burglars’ homes as well as break-in hot spots, said…
