Kiwi Jetpack to Hit US Market
It can travel at speeds of up to 80km/h, ascend to heights of more than 2km in the air and has enough juice to fly for 30 minutes – the much promised science fiction…
Tag Archives: Wall Street Journal (The)
Double-Edged NZ World First
Kiwi homeowners won’t like it but the Wall St Journal is predicting New Zealand will be the first developed nation in the world to raise interest rates since the Global Financial Crisis hit in…
Emirates Team New Zealand Win Four of First Five Races
Emirates Team New Zealand is dominating in the America’s Cup finals, trouncing defending champion Oracle in four of the first five races. Oracle was so defeated after race five on Wednesday (NZT) that the…
Waiheke Island’s World’s Oldest Dance Crew Performs at World Championship
New Zealand hip-hop dance crew, Hip Op-eration, have arrived in Las Vegas and performed as part of the World Hip Hop Championship. The world’s oldest hip-hip dance crew, Hip-Operation members range between the ages…
Manuka Honey Ingredient in Djokovic Success
In a new book, Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic reveals the diet that transformed his health and that he credits for his recent success, part of which includes a daily dose of New Zealand…
Mystery Making Process Paying off in US
Identified only as her stage name, Lorde, 16, the artist kept her true identity a mystery for months, Wall Street Journal correspondent Megan Buerger writes. The only available representation of her was a drawing…
Wellington CBD Closes Following Magnitude 6.5 Quake
Much of Wellington’s CBD was closed on Monday as engineers assessed building for structural damage following a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck on Sunday evening. While the New Zealand Parliament building and Beehive did sustain…
Skills Drain Reversal with More Work Options
New Zealand is currently experiencing its strongest immigration flows in four years, with returning citizens vying with foreign nationals for work, in a “nation whose economy is outperforming many of its developed peers”, writes…
NZ Hip-Operation Crew Set to take World Stage
New Zealand hip-hop crew ‘Hip-Operation’ are set to perform at the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in Las Vegas this August. What sets them apart from the competition? About 50 years. The Waiheke Island…
New Zealander Directs “Engrossing” Documentary
New Zealand documentary film maker Sally Rowe is continuing to make an impression with her documentary A Matter of Taste: Serving up Paul Liebrandt. The film is an “engrossing full-length documentary” that…
Classifying Brilliant Antipodean Pinot Noirs
New Zealand’s pinot noirs seduce The Wall Street Journal’s Will Lyons with “some Antipodean brilliance”. “Unlike other fine wine regions such as France’s Bordeaux and Burgundy, where the best and most expensive wines have…
Modern New Zealand Cuisine Hits New York
Auckland-born chef Matt Lambert’s new enterprise The Musket Room, is a “New Zealand-centric … upscale, casual neighborhood restaurant,” with “a wine list weighted to New Zealand selections beyond the usual…
Quantum Move with Australian Pharmaceutical Acquisition
New Zealand’s Ebos Group Ltd. has reached a $1.1 billion deal to buy Australian pharmaceutical supplier Zuellig Healthcare Holdings, in what would be the biggest acquisition by a New Zealand-based company in two years….
Reserve Bank’s Intervention Marks ‘New Direction’ in Currency War
The Wall Street Journal uses the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s recent action to bring down the NZ dollar as an example of the ‘new direction’ in what it calls the global currency…
Huawei Founder Choses NZ to Speak to Media for First Time
Huawei Technologies Founder Ren Zhengfei chose New Zealand for his first ever media briefing, The Wall Street Journal reports. ‘New Zealand may be a tiny market for most global companies, but for Chinese telecommunications…
Record Heights over Franz Josef
“With a 19,500-foot parachute jump over New Zealand’s scenic South Island … one of the highest commercial sky-dives in the world that doesn’t require customised planes and breathing equipment,” The Wall Street Journal’s Chris…
Keeping Track of North Korean News
Christchurch researcher Frank Feinstein has dedicated a website, to cataloguing dispatches from North Korea’s state media organization, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The website, called KCNA Watch, catalogues every KCNA English report on…
Mayfair Salon Opening for Designer
A brief internship with the jewellery department of Sotheby’s in London at the age of 25, has brought New Zealand fine jeweller Jessica McCormack to opening a 465-square-metre salon – The House –…
New Zealand Winemaker Leads in California Chardonnay Revival
‘California chardonnay is back- yet again’ says Lettie Teague, of The Wall Street Journal. ‘Lighter, brighter varieties untouched by oak,’ are leading the revival according to Teague. New Zealand’s Fintan du Fresne, winemaker for…
Home On The Range
A Queenstown detached home with “views of the mountains, deer roaming nearby, and hills that change colour with the seasons,” is the Wall Street Journal’s ‘House of the Day’. On the market for NZ$4.35…
Directing the Big Guns
Wellington-born director Andrew Dominik, 45, who has lived in Australia most of his life, said it took 45 minutes via text message to hammer out a deal with Brad Pitt to produce their latest…
Treasures Travel to Beijing
Te Papa is sending an exhibition of pounamu to China, where it expects a flurry of interest among museumgoers who haven’t seen how other cultures work with the precious stone. ‘Kura Pounamu: Treasured Stone…
This Country is Why
Bill Foley, American businessman and owner of Marlborough vineyards Clifford Bay and Vavasour, visited New Zealand more than 10 years ago and fell in love with the landscape. Foley also found some good…
Sunshine Helps the Zing
Head winemaker at Cloudy Bay winery Tim Heath, 36, explains how New Zealand’s viticultural environment has created its signature “vivid tastes”. The key to understanding the creation of these zingy, tropical and fruity aromas…
Oily Attractions Off Shore
Three New Zealand exploration blocks, owned by Anadarko Petroleum, could hold up to 150 million barrels of crude oil or trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, according to a company executive. “There’s significant…
Sheer Grit and Determination
New Zealand cyclist Alison Shanks, 29, is profiled in The Wall Street Journal, which introduces athletes from around the world competing in the 2012 London Olympics. “New Zealand’s world champion individual pursuit…
McKellen Show Just for New Zealand
“For the past decade he has been best known as the X-Men antihero Magneto or The Lord of the Rings wizard Gandalf, but in more than a dozen sold-out performances in New Zealand, where…
Lake Views To-die-for
A seven-bedroom home with unobstructed views of Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables features in the online property pages of the Wall Street Journal. “They’ve got quite a bit of land, a stream a…
Emergency Place of Worship
“Christchurch, New Zealand, where an earthquake last year killed 185 people, is still struggling with how to treat another of its casualties, the city’s Anglican cathedral,” Wall Street Journal reporter Eric Felten writes, beginning…
Pristine Property For Sale
A Queenstown “French-country-style” property on Franklin Road features in the Wall Street Journal’s ‘Open House’ section. Owners, American retired couple Gerald and Carolyne Johnson, are asking $4.5 million for the five-bedroom home. ‘It’s whistle-clean air, whistle-clean…
Attractive Investment
“A little bit of PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s wealth will help New Zealand technology businesses thanks to the launch of a new venture capital project,” Lucy Craymer writes for the Wall Street…
Talented Teen Enchants
Director Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary Maori Boy Genius, which premiered at this month’s Berlinale, tracks 16-year-old Tuhoe prodigy Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti as he attends summer school at Yale and applies to study there full-time. “Ngaa carries…
Big Investments In Little Bank
Kiwibank’s announcement it will purchase Gareth Morgan Investments for an undisclosed sum is expected to bring high-net-worth investors to the New Zealand government-owned bank and improve its margins. Kiwibank Group, with around $14 billion…
Documenting Recovery
While an exchange student in New Zealand, American Peter Hoffman, 27, discovered his passion for photography, and for the country. This year, Hoffman plans to return to Christchurch, where in February this year an…
New Zealand Least Corrupt
New Zealand is perceived as having the least corrupt government and public institutions in the world, topping the Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 survey. 178 countries were included in this year’s iteration of the annual survey,…
Stricken Ship Spills Contents
The Liberian-flagged container ship MV Rena, which struck the Astrolabe Reef 5 October on its way to Tauranga, continues to spill oil into the ocean. A total of 90 tons of oil have so…
Semi-Final of Brutal Beauty
“This was the All Blacks as they would love the world to see them: tough, mean, committed and ruthless in every department,” the Guardian’s Robert Kitson wrote after New Zealand smashed Australia with “brutal…
Soccer Challenges the Union
“You don’t have to follow rugby to know that the national team of New Zealand, the All Blacks, are the undisputed kings of this sport,” Wall Street Journal reporters Lucy Cramer and Jonathan Clegg…
Elevating Comfort Food
“In the global landscape of New York City dining, New Zealand is underrepresented,” The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Lancaster writes. “Chef Mark Simmons, best known for a stint on the fourth season of Top…
Big Doses of Epinephrine
“If careening downriver at 50 miles per hour in a boat that came within inches of jagged cliff walls hadn’t woken me up and floating backwards through a swirling rapid named Toilet hadn’t elicited…
From Heights in Heels
One of the most sought-after stuntwomen in Hollywood, New Zealander Zoe Bell crashes through glass, slams into book cases and leaps from tall buildings. She has done stunts on more than 2 films and…
Violent Realism
Wellington-born director Lee Tamahori insists that his scripts are already dripping with violence when he gets them. His latest movie, The Devil’s Double tells the story of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi military officer who…
Focus on Winning
Described as the world’s best number 1, All Black Dan Carter is focused on one thing: winning. And not just the William Webb Ellis Trophy at the Rugby World Cup, but also as part…
Bewildering Benevolence
Janet Frame’s novel Living in the Maniototo is included in a Wall Street Journal’s ‘Novel Approaches to Kindness’ ‘Five Best Books’ feature as one of the “oddest acts of kindness in fiction.” “It seems…
New World Struts its Stuff
A selection of New Zealand reds were pitted against those from Bordeaux at a recent blindtasting in Hong Kong at Club Lusitano with a New Zealand bottle taking third place, ahead of a bottle…
Hart’s Packaged Deal
New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart’s Reynolds Group Holdings Ltd has acquired Graham Packaging Co Inc (GRM.N) after raising its bid to $1.69 billion. Reynolds, a private-investment firm run by Hart, raised its…
Reverence for Heritage
A more “tranquil” New Zealand adventure is sought by the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Baylis, who takes a kayaking daytrip on Lake Taupo to see the Maori carvings in the rock face…
Board Made Bespoke
Wellington-based tailoring firm Working Style will make 1 bespoke suits for the management team of the International Rugby Board this year after winning a six-figure contract normally reserved for European companies….
Mother of all Mother Tongues
University of Auckland psychologist Quentin Atkinson has undertaken a first-of-its-kind linguistic analysis suggesting that human language arose only once. Atkinson traced language’s origin by breaking down 54 world languages into their smallest components, called…
Hobbit Production Rolls
Production has now begun on Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Hobbit, set in Middle-earth 6 years before The Lord of the Rings. Not an earthquake, a health scare, a labour conflict, financial concerns…
Century-Old Tradition To Go On
The All Blacks may continue to perform the haka at international matches after coming to an agreement with the tribe that created it, Ngati Toa Rangatira. There had been fears their chanting days were…
Dressing up Rugby
New Zealand International Sevens general manager Steve Walters estimates the competition, now in its 1th year, brought in close to $18 million for Wellington in February. And that doesn’t include the benefits to the…
On the Back of the Game
A general election has been called for November 26, after the Rugby World Cup 2011. Campaigning is expected to begin in the week of the final, which is to be held at Eden Park…
Dutton’s Digital Legacy
Arbiter of culture Denis Dutton was one of the most prominent patrons of the arts of the 21st century, writes Sam Sacks for the Wall Street Journal, reflecting on Dutton’s legacy. While being a…
And How Beautiful
“One stunning image outdoes another in the hurtling, circling, swooping cinematography of Ben Seresin, a New Zealander whose palette is restrained but never suppressed,” the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern writes in a review…
Formalised Relationship
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited New Zealand in November “formalising its progressively warm relationship with New Zealand,” writes Wall Street Journal blogger Lucy Craymer from Wellington. “With a strategic agreement that promises…
