News of New Zealanders via Global Media

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.”  

Fairy tale ending

Fairy tale ending

Xena meets her doom in the finale of the wrapped series that turned Lucy Lawless stellar.

August Florist

August Florist

A flowering of beauty takes place under the hands of top international florist, New Zealander Maurice August.

Cisco of the South

Cisco of the South

Funky Wellington’s natural glories make the city “a superior urban roost with a view, a mini-San Francisco”.

Buzz of It’s Own

Buzz of It’s Own

And, “Auckland has a buzz of its own, with enviable dance music, fashion and restaurant scenes and the largest Polynesian and Maori populations in the South Pacific.”

Dubai Catwalk

Dubai Catwalk

New Zealand Wearable Arts headline Dubai Fashion Week.

Best Oscar Hunter

Best Oscar Hunter

The greatest winners of all time. For best actress: Vivien Leigh, Joan Crawford, Audrey Hepburn, Simone Signoret and Holly Hunter in The Piano.

Cross-course Appeal

Cross-course Appeal

“Sunline, a huge bay five-year-old, is one of those rare beasts to have jumped the fence between her sport and the wider public. She has her own website, an official fan-club and a range of merchandise.”…

Hot Lodge!

Hot Lodge!

Old-world charm is losing out to “far-flung destinations favoured by the elite such as game lodges in South Africa, Caribbean idylls, palatial hotels in India and New Zealand lodges.

Dolly, the Next Generation

Dolly, the Next Generation

PPL Therapeutic, the company behind Dolly and the cloned piglets, seeks backing to buy a farm in New Zealand. If all goes to plan, Dolly#2 will be a good kiwi girl.

The Legend of Steve Williams

The Legend of Steve Williams

Tiger’s clubs net the “amiable Kiwi” over $1 million – making Williams an international top-dollar caddy. Also, will Williams bring Tiger down under?  

Edge Vista

Edge Vista

Search engine Alta Vista opens an Edge-portal devoted to New Zealand content on the web.

Cup Buzz

Cup Buzz

The City of Sails is still high on the America’s Cup – and not showing any signs of slowing down before the next one.

Bye-bye Brierley

Bye-bye Brierley

New Zealand business legend Sir Ron Brierley steps down as director of the eponymous Brierley Investments.

Spotte-y Research

Spotte-y Research

Prolific writer Stephen Spotte’s latest collection ranges from “academia to the Maori cannibals of New Zealand and everywhere in between”.

Fashioning the Seams

Fashioning the Seams

“My work always tends to be about throwing extremes together,” says edge-designer Karen Walker. “I always find that the most exciting thing is when you take a $5 T-shirt and elevate it into something…

Everywhere you go…

Everywhere you go…

Neil Finn, international star and “nice guy” of New Zealand pop, has invited a few friends to perform his “unmistakable” sound in Auckland.

Musical extravaganza

Musical extravaganza

“The concept for these shows is to invite friends whose music I admire to collaborate with me in presenting a week-long musical extravaganza which I optimistically expect to be a blast.”  

Kidnappers couldn’t take me

Kidnappers couldn’t take me

Russell Crowe laughs off kidnap threat: “Quite frankly, if they had to spend that much time in a small room with me… one of them might end up saying, ‘Look, pass the hat around,…

Dishy

Dishy

Sam Neill transmits tension in The Dish, the story of how Neill Armstrong came to be broadcast from a giant dish in the middle of the Australian desert.

ATC in Manila

ATC in Manila

German-based lolli-pop group ATC, including Kiwi member Joe, hit Manila with their Europop/R&B blend.

Directory of Excellence

Directory of Excellence

Every entry in a New Zealand winery guide has one thing in common: “passion for excellence in their field”.

Breaking in Privacy?

Breaking in Privacy?

Will new anti-hacking laws breach the bill of rights? Parliament tries to walk the tightrope between security and invasion.

Whey Better

Whey Better

New Zealand investment and technology turns Israeli cheese run-off from environmental hazard to valuable protein supplement.

Mega-Catch

Mega-Catch

New Zealand Envirosafe Technologies’ mega-catch mosquito trap looks like a “harmless, black plastic birdcage”, but, to a mosquito, it looks and smells exactly like a juicy human target.

Clean Fingers

Clean Fingers

European consumers can’t wait to get their hands on sustainably fished New Zealand hoki fish-fingers, but some groups strongly dispute the fishery’s right to the “sustainable” label.

Reel Pianos

Reel Pianos

The Piano, Jane Campion’s “hard to ignore” and “genuinely strange” masterpiece is the star in Jerusalem’s Festival of piano-films – celebrating the filmic attraction of tormented pianists.

Topp Twins

Topp Twins

The yodeling Topp Twins rock 25th Port Fairy Folk Festival in Melbourne.

Sock it to Him

Sock it to Him

Returning from Britain, Agricultural Minister Jim Sutton handed in his shoes for decontamination – accidentally also handing in a pair of dirty socks. These were also “decontaminated” by customs, returning to the minister freshly washed.

Singing High

Singing High

New Zealand soprano soloist Rebecca Ryan sings world premier of  re-discovered Handel work.

Gourmet high

Gourmet high

“Air New Zealand announces a culinary partnership with Chef Katsuo “Suki” Sugiura of the legendary Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel.”

Garageland USA

Garageland USA

Jeremy Eade, lead singer of New Zealand peppy-punkers Garageland, tours the US doing acoustic from latest release Do What You Want.  

Kiwi Burger?

Kiwi Burger?

“If you were in a position where every family could eat kiwi for lunch, then you would have solved the problem, wouldn’t you,” says John Wamsley, head of the private Environmental Sanctuaries group. But, “our aim…

Restitution Advance

Restitution Advance

The New Zealand Maori Council became the executors of the estate of a long-dead ancestor, enabling them to regain his head for burial, and opening a legal channel for other groups to claim remains from museums…

Rock Face

Rock Face

“New Zealand is one of the few places on earth where a novice can partake in the wild and woolly sport known as canyoning: an odd combination of hiking and rock climbing.”

Right on NZ

Right on NZ

Come to New Zealand, one American’s all-huntin’, no (school) shootin’ right-wing paradise.

Writer’s birthday

Writer’s birthday

The 13 of March is the birthday of novelist, Sir Hugh Walpole, born in Auckland in 1884.

Strenuous Endeavour

Strenuous Endeavour

“How a poor Yorkshire farm boy became a saltwater giant is an incredible tale. Formally speaking, 4-year-old Cook wasn’t even a captain when, over considerable objection, he was appointed master of a naval ship…

Elegant Astelia

Elegant Astelia

A New Zealand silver astelia adds elegance to Irish garden designer Dominick Murphy’s small garden.

Trek Milford

Trek Milford

The Milford Track is one of the world’s top ten walks – up there with Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and Snow Lake, Pakistan.

Sexy Collette

Sexy Collette

Wellington-trained Aus-based designer Collette Dinnigan’s international reputation makes her Australasia’s most prolific fashion designer, conjuring for all shapes and sizes “unashamedly feminine, decorative and sexy creations that hug your body and delight your spirit”…

…you take Finn with you

…you take Finn with you

One Nil  is the result of a musician “looking for collaborative work, where someone else is bringing something to the table”, but it’s still vintage Finn: still “rooted in the form and structure of…

Properly Done

Properly Done

New Zealand designers Ashley and Wende Fogel know how to get it right for this season’s “lean and proper” look.

Edge Eden

Edge Eden

Cornwall’s bio-dome Eden Project houses vegetation from every part of the planet – including the edge.

Rower Cola

Rower Cola

University of Otago scientists says caffeine consumption prior to exercise boosts output, making you rower faster, run further and jump higher without even realising it.

Cold Daring

Cold Daring

What better guide through the frozen continent that “a New Zealander who, in younger days, had driven motorcycles across the ice pack and sampled the 80-year-old cocoa from the stores left in the hut of the…

Double life

Double life

UK Poet Charles Boyle’s The Age of Cardboard and String features “a poet who leads a double life in England and New Zealand”.

Les of Arabia

Les of Arabia

Crusading fitness guru Les Mills takes his gyms to the Middle East.  

Wahine Remembered

Wahine Remembered

March 10 was the thirty-third anniversary of the day the ferry Wahine ran aground on Barrett’s reef.

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.

“Foreign Britain”

“Foreign Britain”

“And then there is my ridiculous fantasy that if we are to become a foreign land it might be New Zealand, where, unlike our own benighted Scotland, they know how to play rugby. (Big Hint to…

“I Will Herd Sheep”

“I Will Herd Sheep”

“Never doubt you can accomplish the task given to you,” says Canadian film-maker Sean Buckley. “I had barely been on a horse before, but there I was in New Zealand, needing a job. I…

High Brag Value

High Brag Value

New Zealand’s rise in popularity with Indian tourists has two sources: massive exposure as background in Bollywood films and exclusivity: New Zealand has “high brag value” once you’re back home.

Furry Good Idea

Furry Good Idea

The fur is soft, warm and stylish. The leather feels so good you can wear it as underwear; Tiger Woods refuses to play with a glove made of anything else. It’s true: the best…