News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Acing It

Acing It

Wellington hair maestro Constantin Harach played his cards right to win the Moscow International Poker Tournament Pot Limit Omaha: “Aram rolls over 8K510 and Constantin 6QJA. Constantin’s up and down straight is made with a K…

Choice Joyce

Choice Joyce

Leilani Joyce, New Zealand #1 since ’97, didn’t drop a game on the way to becoming British Open Champion and World Squash #1. “The plan was quite simple,” says Joyce of her final game against England’s…

His Way

His Way

Road cyclists usually compete in teams for strategy and support. North Hastings 18-year-old Jeremy Yates, the new Junior Men’s Road Cycling World Champion. Yates beat 166 international riders, sprinting the last 4kms of the 127km race in…

What Goes Around Comes Around

What Goes Around Comes Around

Hans Schwarz, an Austrian now living in NZ, sailed to Melbourne in 1956, to attend the Olympic Games. He threw a bottle into the ocean, with a note for a “dusky Pacific maiden”. Now, in a typically…

E-e-e-e-readiness

E-e-e-e-readiness

Kiwis are on to it online. This has been confirmed by a Vic University study that lists NZ among the top four countries in the world for e-commerce and connectivity. The edge has the world’s fastest…

Cullen a Keeper

Cullen a Keeper

Christian Cullen has resisted overseas contracts to concentrate on winning the World Cup for New Zealand in 2003 (which will be held in Australia and New Zealand). “The World Cup is the only thing I haven’t won…

Motor Masala hot fave

Motor Masala hot fave

Peter Riordan is in contention for the Asia-Pacific Travel writers’ prize. His book, Motorcycle Masala is the story of a journey around India on-you guessed it-a motorcycle. The award will be announced at the…

Dr MacDiarmid and His Fantastic Electric Plastic

Dr MacDiarmid and His Fantastic Electric Plastic

New Zealand’s Nobel duo becomes a trio; Masterton-born and Wellington-educated chemist Alan MacDiarmid has joined Ernest Rutherford and Maurice Wilkins as a Nobel Prize (chemistry) laureate. MacDiarmid and his two colleagues discovere conductive plastics which have been…

Repair Bill

Repair Bill

New Zealand vet Deborah Saunders describes the revolutioary bill-binding putty she used on Deidre the duck: “it’s nice and hard and keeps the two parts of the bill together and well supported”.

MurderBall

MurderBall

Wheelchair rugby, “Murderball” as it’s known by the players, is the only full contact wheelchair sport at the Paralympics. New Zealand is ranked second, behind the USA.  

Speed + Power = KO

Speed + Power = KO

That’s the equation chalked on Kiwi David Tua’s wall as the build up to the Tua-Lewis fight continues. In this interview Tua promises to put that equation into practice. He also talks about the importance of…

Fine Vintage

Fine Vintage

1978 was a good year for wine in New Zealand. That’s when John Simes, now winemaker at Mission Hill in Okanagan, Canada, began his career. The Kiwi is one of the “trained and experienced winemakers” imported to…

Multiple murders

Multiple murders

Anne Perry, formerly Juliet Hulme of the Parker/Hulme case, tours her latest novel Slaves of Obsession in the States. Perry has authored over thirty best-selling murder mysteries.

Guy Pearce’s Kiwi Dad

Guy Pearce’s Kiwi Dad

Yes, Guy is an Australian (he spent fours years on Neighbours to prove it), but his father was a New Zealander who tested planes for the Royal Air Force. Pearce, also Russell Crowe’s side-kick…

Kava Kafuffle

Kava Kafuffle

Unusual intoxicant attracts international notice. A Wellington man was picked up for driving erratically after consuming kava, a ceremonial drink in many Pacific Island communities.

High Stakes

High Stakes

Christchurch Casinos Limited and international affiliate CryptoLogic have debuted Kiwi Casino on the net. Punters drop their dollars surrounded by “the exotic sub-tropical rainforests of New Zealand”.

Edge into Growth

Edge into Growth

Canadian design guru Bruce Mau created “An incomplete Manifesto for Growth” in 1998. “The oddest thing I heard was that a New Zealand company had used the manifesto on its website,” says Mau.

The Gravy Train Will Now Depart …

The Gravy Train Will Now Depart …

Some members of the Penang Municipal Council enjoyed a recent trip to Adelaide, but not everyone got to go. Those who missed out launched a protest campaign, ending in a working paper being prepared on the…

Phar Lap Not Spiked

Phar Lap Not Spiked

A mystery finally solved. Phar Lap, the new bio of the legend concludes that he was not poisoned as previously suspected. His death in America was due to duodenitis proximal jejunitis, a disease not identified until 1983.

Sia in America

Sia in America

Samoan New Zealander Sia Figiel reads from her second book, They Who Do Not Grieve (US edition forthcoming). Figiel won the Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Book Prize for Where We Once Belonged.

Golden Deeds

Golden Deeds

Catherine Chidgey, novelist and editor, won the Pacific Commonwealth Best First Book award for In a Fishbone Church. Golden Deeds, her second novel has been published by Picador, leading publishers of contemporary fiction world-wide.

Perfect Pinot

Perfect Pinot

An ever-increasing variety of New Zealand wines are being enjoyed and celebrated throughout the world. Al Bassano recommends our Pinot Noir.

Wright for the Job

Wright for the Job

John Wright has secured the national cricket coaching spot in India. Wright’s command begins just before Zimbabwe tour India later this month.

V Good

V Good

New Zealand company Frucor, dominant in the NZ and Australian energy drinks market, feels V ready to compete with international behemoth Coca-Cola. “We believe we can grow the market fivefold in Australia,” says CEO Mark Cowsill.

TAPping into Productivity

TAPping into Productivity

Synapse TAP, the alternative computer input system designed by Kiwi Neil Scott of Stanford, doesn’t just allow disabled workers to perform jobs: TAP’s voice and gesture-guided system gives users a edge over their able-bodied counterparts.

Election Blues

Election Blues

American academics laud MMP: “When New Zealand had its first PR election in 1996, the first Asian citizen was elected, and Pacific Islanders and indigenous Maoris tripled their representation.”

LA Love

LA Love

The LA Times runs a triumvirate of New Zealand travel features: Compact New Zealand, Wellington and comment from Fabio, King of Hearts: “They have the most amazing lakes. They’re huge and as deep as the mountains are high”.

Moa Manipulation

Moa Manipulation

Digital manipulation is an example of Stephen Jay Gould’s ‘Great Asymmetry’: creation takes much longer than destruction or consumption. “It takes millions or billions of years for evolution to produce a species well-adapted to its environment, while…

See You Latte

See You Latte

Once you’re safely at the cafe, you can order an extra frothy latte, courtesy of a herd of cows deep in the heart of New Zealand. The milk of these cows has been found…

Kiwi Water Winner

Kiwi Water Winner

The gold medal in women’s 470 sailing class at Sydney went to Australia – with a Kiwi doing the work. New Zealander Jenny Armstrong teamed up with Barbara Stowell, originally from Zimbabwe, to win Australia’s 50th medal.

Miracle Flightless

Miracle Flightless

Since 1984, New Zealand has undergone “the most comprehensive economic reform programme undertaken by any OECD country in recent decades”. Not all the results have been bright: “Looking back over the past 15 years, you would have…

Fishy Dispute

Fishy Dispute

The science of salmon conservation is muddy, but, as New Zealand’s introduced salmon show, the king of fish is an adaptable beast.

Elegy in Utah

Elegy in Utah

Chris Graves present’s Douglas Wright’s AIDS-lament, Elegy, in Salt Lake City.

Dogs of Auckland

Dogs of Auckland

Robert Creeley’s Dogs of Auckland sequence grew from the poet’s extended stay in his wife’s native New Zealand: “Isolation seduces and terrorizes” him. But at times, as toward the end of Edges, Creeley rediscovers…

Truman to Simone

Truman to Simone

Oscar-nominated Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, The Truman Show) has scripted and will helm Simone. Al Pacino stars alongside a mysterious actress who may or may not be real.

That’s Not a Camera Flash

That’s Not a Camera Flash

PM Clark ventured on a guided tour of the Sydney Harbour Bridge super-structure. Was that an admirer taking a picture? Was it an apparition of Roger Kerr? No, the sudden illumination was lightening striking the bridge, narrowly…

Jumpin’ Jai

Jumpin’ Jai

With a name like Taurima, he must be one of us. Jai Taurima, the Queensland-born son of a Maori father, just missed the gold in the long-jump, but a personal best of 8.49 metres was enough…

Aria noms for Shihad

Aria noms for Shihad

Shihad, hard edge rockers of Wellington, now Melbourne, have three nominations for the Australian Recording Industry Awards, the Arias: best group, best album and best rock album.

NZ Economy Surged

NZ Economy Surged

New Zealand’s economy surged two percent for the June quarter, Statistics New Zealand has revealed.

Menace Knox in Chicago

Menace Knox in Chicago

Truly edgey Chris Knox described as “an acerbic, forceful wit, accomplished tunesmith and almost menacingly extroverted showman.”

Purapurawhetu: Shining Stars

Purapurawhetu: Shining Stars

Purapurawhetu, Briar Grace-Smith’s 1997 award-winning play, has completed a successful tour of  Canada and is now on its way to Delphi in Greece. This has been a mega year for Grace-Smith, who received an…

Framing the truth

Framing the truth

Wrestling with the Angel, Michael King’s bio of Janet Frame, has generated acclaim, column inches and voluminous sales in New Zealand and overseas. Stephanie Dowrick describes Frame as “(one of) the two great 20th-century…

Through Now

Through Now

Seepower, global/ Wellington IT company Compudigm’s data visualisation software, delivered smooth connection of more than 500,000 calls from Stadium Australia on the opening day of the Olympics.

Kissin Pad Goodbye

Kissin Pad Goodbye

New York-based New Zealander, restaurateur and business partner of Sir Terence Conran, Joel Kissin, sold his four-storey townhouse at 53 West 68th Street for US$7million. His new home is “is opposite the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is…

Kiwi Coach Conquers in Rowing Eights

Kiwi Coach Conquers in Rowing Eights

The Olympic eights were taken out by the British for the time in 88 years and it was a Kiwi who pushed them to their win. The team cited Harry Mahon, their assistant coach, as a…

Dunkin’ Dream

Dunkin’ Dream

Kiwi Kirk Penney describes 2000 as “just dream after dream” after playing in the NCAA final four and the Olympics in one year.

Jonah Joins the Kids

Jonah Joins the Kids

Eighty school children from around the world joined in the “Forever Sports Challenge” during the Olympics. Some major sporting metal flew in to assist with the challenge, including Jonah Lomu as specialist warm-up coach.

Reading Edge in US

Reading Edge in US

Over the last twenty years, many young New Zealanders have benefited from “Reading Recovery”, the revolutionary learn-to-read programme created by Dame Marie Clay. Now the programme is spreading into American schools.

Why do it yourself when you can play a CD?

Why do it yourself when you can play a CD?

Wellington coffee czar Geoff Marsland has issued a CD aimed at the neighbours – at annoying them that is. The CD features the noise of a lawnmower and runs for 64 minutes. “If your neighbours have…

NZ 3-D LCD

NZ 3-D LCD

Images on your monitor create the illusion of depth, but remain flat. Now a Kiwi company, Deep Video Imaging, has created a new kind of double-skinned monitor which delivers true depth of field and allows the display…

Crushing Cushing

Crushing Cushing

Ansett International is looking to expand into Asian and European routes, challenging Australian giant Qantas. Asked how worried Qantas executives should be about the new competition, Air New Zealand executive chairman Selwyn Cushing advised them to “take…

Ski Bunny Finds Roads Funny

Ski Bunny Finds Roads Funny

Amy Chavez of Japan visited the NZ recently to ski. She found some of the mountain roads a little too close to the edge for comfort.

Dame Kiri Star Attraction at Arts Fundraiser

Dame Kiri Star Attraction at Arts Fundraiser

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and her “velvet voice” joined Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, raising $200,000 for the NAC. The Ottawa Citizen describes her as “one of the world’s great opera stars”.

Ultra Careful

Ultra Careful

Sarah Buckley, a New Zealand-trained family doctor looking into pre-natal care, has produced research that challenges the safety of ultra-sound scans routinely performed on pregnant women.  

A Long Way to Deliver a Letter

A Long Way to Deliver a Letter

Jules Brown from The Observer takes a scenic trip up the stunning Whanganui river on some rather usual transport – a mail bus.

Mr Parsons’ mystery

Mr Parsons’ mystery

New Zealand-born thriller writer Julie Parsons featured in a British TV series, True Lives. She was filmed returning to New Zealand, the scene of her father’s mysterious disappearance all those years before…