News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Reviewing the Guard

Reviewing the Guard

Prime Minister Helen Clark reviews the honor guard as she is welcomed to Beijing.  

Oz Needs Women on Top

Oz Needs Women on Top

Australia needs to heed New Zealand’s example on female politicians, roping more talented women into mainstream parties. New Zealand’s current female dominated political scene is “light years away from Australia’s old-fashioned old boys’ game.”  

Get Talking

Get Talking

Foreign Minister Phil Goff will push for a new WTO round during a continental trip, as well encouraging continued European support for East Timor.

Kyoto Controversy

Kyoto Controversy

New Zealand will not give up on the Kyoto Protocol states Helen Clark. “New Zealand and Japan worked very hard to get it and we hope to find a way to bring the US back into…

Anti-Terror Laws

Anti-Terror Laws

New Zealand Parliament looks to pass new anti-terrorist laws, “strengthening New Zealand’s ability to deter and react decisively to international terrorist attacks”.  

Young Diplomats

Young Diplomats

Exchange student are young diplomats, Prime Minister Helen Clark told a high school in Osaka during a speech promoting youth exchanges between New Zealand and Japan.  

Peace Memorial Visit

Peace Memorial Visit

Helen Clark, noted in Japan as the leader of a “declared anti-nuclear country”, visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum during her official trip to Japan.

Trade Freed Up

Trade Freed Up

Bi-lateral trade between New Zealand and Singapore grew 35% from January to February, following a free trade pact which kicked off at the beginning of the year.  

Small Country with a Big Attitude

Small Country with a Big Attitude

“Recent history shows that the New Zealand government, especially with Clark’s own Labour Party at the helm, has not shied away from David and Goliath-like confrontations. The feisty nation arguably made its first proper international splash…

Into Left-field

Into Left-field

Labour hits 50%, Helen Clark does a pb of 36%. “The government is the only game in town,” says Clark.

Cabinet Re-maker

Cabinet Re-maker

New Zealand’s cabinet rulebook gets an overhaul to make it coalition compatible.  

Womanly Example

Womanly Example

Japanese society should look to New Zealand for kick-ass high-profile female role-models suggests PM Helen Clark.  

Public Interest

Public Interest

Once watched as the world’s greatest free-market experiment, New Zealand is leading the way in getting democracy out from under the corporate thumb says prominent intellectual Noreena Hertz.  

Head for Debate

Head for Debate

Commonwealth Sec-Gen and former New Zealand 2IC Don McKinnon indicates the next Leader of the Commonwealth might be up for debate after the Queen moves on.  

Big Money Beware

Big Money Beware

The Government seeks to implement a “code of conduct” for foreign investors, leading to “higher standards of investment”.

No Free Trade Free Lunch

No Free Trade Free Lunch

“There is no short cut, and we should not fool ourselves that some deal will come down from above. The only round we can launch is one that WTO members across the spectrum can identify with…

Groundbreaker Gov-Gen

Groundbreaker Gov-Gen

“As one of the few female law students of her generation,  Cartwright was barred from the Law Students association, denied access to textbooks and told she was only at university to find a husband.”…

Jumping Jackie Flash

Jumping Jackie Flash

Australia’s Sports Minister and Howard political protégé, New Zealand-born Jackie Kelly ducks the limelight after “a huge year”.

Mystified About Money

Mystified About Money

Don Brash, the world’s second-longest serving central banker, admits he finds current currency fluctuations as baffling as the next guy.  

Insiders Out

Insiders Out

The New Zealand Government is to tighten rules controlling insider trading on the stock market.  

Plenty to Go Around

Plenty to Go Around

New Zealand’s trade surplus widens on the back of a 2.2% rise in the value of New Zealand exports.

Relations Open

Relations Open

New Zealand to open diplomatic relations with North Korea.  

Economic Outlook

Economic Outlook

New Zealand’s economy continues on the up; will the edge buck the downward trend of trading partners and major players?

On the Defensive

On the Defensive

International interest in the Clark government’s announcement on defence plans to 2010 .

Hat Trick

Hat Trick

“I think it has become so normal in New Zealand that there are women in senior positions, that I was taken aback by this attention,” says Dame Silvia Cartwright. The new Gov-Gen completes the female trinity…

Green Edge

Green Edge

The Greens are a presence in parliaments around the world – the revolution started in Wellington.  

Canuck Farming Luck

Canuck Farming Luck

“In 1985, New Zealand stopped bailing out farmers. Today, its rural areas are thriving. It’s a ‘brutal process,’ experts say, but it would work in Canada.”  

Peaceful PM

Peaceful PM

PM Helen Clark sat on the selection committee for the Millennium Peace Prize for Women, alongside writer Alice Walker and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta.

In From the Cold

In From the Cold

Former New Zealand PM, now WTO-head Mike Moore plans to see China a WTO member in time for the November meeting in Qatar.

Rating Well

Rating Well

Standard and Poors lifts New Zealand’s long-term foreign currency credit rating to stable on the back of a government surplus and declining debt burden.  

Co-operation

Co-operation

The time is right for co-operation between India and New Zealand on food processing, IT and forestry, says Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Phil Goff.  

Ambassador Goes Nutty

Ambassador Goes Nutty

“I love New Zealand and New Zealand has been a warm and just an extraordinary experience,” says former US ambassador Carol Mosley-Braun, returning to the States to take up pecan farming.

Edge Unity

Edge Unity

“There are no two countries in the world that are closer historically, culturally and economically than Australia and New Zealand,” stated Australian PM John Howard on a friendship visit, claiming a “relationship that has substance and durability…

Judgement in Paradise

Judgement in Paradise

Retired New Zealand  Appeal Court judges Sir Maurice Casey and Sir Ian Barker lead the judicial charge for democracy in Fiji.  

Protest Flotilla

Protest Flotilla

“The people who live around the Japanese reactor that the plutonium is destined for don’t want it, Australians and New Zealanders don’t want their seas being used to transport it and Pacific Islanders are vehemently opposed,” says…

She’s Right

She’s Right

New Zealand business confidence hits two-year high.  

Making Waves

Making Waves

“Where once New Zealand seemed bent on shrinking the public sector to anorexic proportions, it is now pumping it full of new blood. New Zealand has a long record of setting global trends. It was first…

Bank On It

Bank On It

Here it comes – the People’s Bank. Lower fees, more branches, but there is a risk.  

Into the Black

Into the Black

New Zealand leads the pack in debt reduction, cutting government debt from 65% of GDP in 1993 to 31% in 1999.  

Seats of Power

Seats of Power

New Zealand backpackers unwittingly helped end apartheid, acting as bus-filling decoys for safari-organising gun-runners.  

Former Gov-Gen Dies

Former Gov-Gen Dies

Sir David Beattie, former Governor-General and Supreme Court Judge, died suddenly in his home, aged 76.  

Spy on Top

Spy on Top

Of the bestseller lists that is. New Zealander Richard Tomlinson’s account of his time with MI6, The Big Breach, proves popular despite legal wrangling over publishing and copyright.

Alas, No Elias

Alas, No Elias

It’s time Britain had a female judge a la New Zealand Chief Justice Sian Elias, the conspicuous lone woman on the Privy Council.

Earthquake Aid

Earthquake Aid

The New Zealand government has pledged $500,000 in earthquake aid for Gujerat, home state of many of New Zealand’s Indian immigrants.

Bonded Money

Bonded Money

A province of Ontario 2008 bond in New Zealand dollars creates a flurry among savvy Canadian investors.

Over the Back Fence

Over the Back Fence

“I think we should say this is not small-town New Zealand, it’s big town America. Whether we meet as neighbours is something for the future,” says Jim Bolger, asked about Bill and Hill, his ex-Presidential neighbours.

Anti-nuke Action

Anti-nuke Action

Rainbow Warrior survivor Chris Robinson and New Zealand-based Henk Haazen and his family form part of the flotilla prostesting the shipping of nuclear waste through the Tasman sea. Australian shipments also raise ire.  

Big Breach

Big Breach

Kiwi ex-MI6 operative Richard Tomlinson’s memoirs, The Big Breach hits Russian bookshops and are serialised in the Sunday Times, to the dismay of the secret service establishment in Britain.

Different Age

Different Age

Queen Victoria reigned over an age of adventure and conquest, innovation and development. She was Empress of the Empire on which the sun never set, including New Zealand, her furthest-flung domain.

Evidence Compelling

Evidence Compelling

“The economic evidence to support broadened and deepened negotiations is compelling,” states former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore, now trying to kick-start free-trade talks in his role as WTO chief.

Human Rights for All

Human Rights for All

New Zealand-born and educated John Fisher is Canada’s leading gay rights activist. “Human rights, for me, are universal and transcend national boundaries,” says Fisher. “Everyone knows someone who is gay or lesbian, and a society that affirms…

Big Job for McKinnon

Big Job for McKinnon

“Turbulence in Zimbabwe, civil war in Sierra Leone, the violent overthrow of prime ministers in Fiji and the Solomons; the Commonwealth’s programme of improving the quality of democracy ran into political setbacks in 2000. On the other…

Tax Miles

Tax Miles

Is the New Zealand system of an odometer-based tax on diesel vehicles the best option for funding roads?  

Youth Voice

Youth Voice

Wellington’s youth council is part of the international phenomenon of youth engagement, pushing youngsters into leadershipand decision making roles.  

Anzacs?

Anzacs?

New Zealand voice in Sydney Bernard Lagan dissects the question of Federation with Australia: “It is unlikely that what modern New Zealanders most define themselves as – a nation of Pacific peoples – could have come…

Never Say Die

Never Say Die

One of Briton’s most popular MPs before being expelled from the Labour party for communist sympathies, New Zealand-born John Platt-Mills is still a practicing lawyer at 94. “Is there anything else he wants to achieve? ‘Yes, I’d…