News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Billion dollar Bevan

Billion dollar Bevan

Bridget Jones producer Kiwi Tim Bevan nudges the billion dollar mark with Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and now Bridget Jones, due to be Britain’s biggest hit this year.

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.  

Creamy romance

Creamy romance

“In New Zealand we mostly make quite brutal social-realist films. I think American audience are stunned to see something that romanticizes New Zealand…I want to make films that no one else is making.” Harry…

Doubtful Honour

Doubtful Honour

Big Norm Hewitt’s in-yer-face  rendition of the All Black haka and English hooker Richard ‘Cocky’ Cockerill’s gracious eyeball-to-eyeball acceptance makes the Guardian’s list of the “top-ten sporting feuds”.

Thief With an Eye for Quality

Thief With an Eye for Quality

Canterbury man Stuart McPherson doesn’t just steal video players – he rings their owners to complain if they’re not top-of-the-line.

Strange Happenings in Rugby

Strange Happenings in Rugby

“Somewhere in the depths of the very European Six Nations Championship, two New Zealanders have been having some pretty bizarre experiences.”  

Dream Catcher

Dream Catcher

New Zealand-born psychotherapist Helen McLean turns dreams into reality writing multiple books and creating work-place training based on what your brain does at night.

Just the ticket

Just the ticket

mticket – (London-based kiwi entrepreneurs Tony Coyle, Nick Howard and Jason Cooper) is a revolutionary service taking advantage of the popularity of text messaging to help punters beat the rope into the club…

Memoirs from the Edge

Memoirs from the Edge

NZ-edged novelist Fay Weldon sits down to write her memoirs – “All they do is make you self-centered,” she says.

Vine Delights

Vine Delights

Check out “petroleum-charged, aromatic, oily” Villa Maria Reserve Riesling.  

It Won’t Hurt a Bit

It Won’t Hurt a Bit

New Zealand Cancer Society prostate awareness star, John Hopoate, takes legal action.

Runner’s Trots

Runner’s Trots

An urgent need for the toilet is the most common reason long-distance runners pull out mid-race, according to a New Zealand Medical Journal study.  

Inside the Frame

Inside the Frame

Michael King’s biography of Janet Frame, “laureate of the musing inner-self,” is “elegantly written, densely researched and remorselessly long” – but does it over-expose its subject?

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.  

Climate Change Challenge

Climate Change Challenge

“The climate models are only useful if the science is correct, and so far they have simply not been validated. They predict far more temperature increase in the lower atmosphere than satellites are measuring,” says Auckland University…

Upside-down Edge

Upside-down Edge

A photograph of the New Zealand sky projected onto a mirror on the floor of the Glasgow School of Art “allows people to look down to see the sky, as if the earth were…

Vege Contraceptive

Vege Contraceptive

Scientists at Canterbury’s Lincoln University are trialling GE carrots as possum birth control.  

Serve Up Sam

Serve Up Sam

Sam Neill, currently showing in The Dish, is major star material: “Like Harrison Ford, he’s an Everyman with gravitas. Like Tom Hanks, he engages our sympathy innately. He’s masculine without being macho, handsome without…

Big Money Beware

Big Money Beware

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

Along came Lee

Along came Lee

Along Came a Spider, edge-director Lee Tamahori’s Kiss the Girls follow-up “skillfully builds the action” and “gives sequels a good name”.

Knox them out

Knox them out

The Vintner’s Luck takes the Tasmanian Pacific Region Prize, Australasia’s richest literary prize. “There’s all this stuff in Vintner about anxiety and authenticity that’s very New Zealand,” says author Elizabeth Knox, noting that, like…

Pohutukawa Brouhaha

Pohutukawa Brouhaha

“New Zealand Christmas tree” defended by Cape Town fans.

Tiger’s Edge

Tiger’s Edge

“Stevie has been in my ear about it and he has definitely told me about his auto racing … I would maybe like to possibly catch one of his races,” says Tiger Woods, commenting on a…

Baby Steps

Baby Steps

“The best place I ever visited was probably Australia and New Zealand in 1983 with Prince Charles and Princess Diana when they took William. In Auckland where the tour ended the pictures of Diana and Charles…

Vets’ Rights

Vets’ Rights

New Zealand’s Vietnam vets are to gain more recognition for their service.  

Future Drink

Future Drink

“Fast-forward to the year 21. You shop eBay, toy with the PlayStation 2, drink wines from New Zealand and Texas and watch NYPD Blue on a flat-screen TV.”  

Fast and Blur

Fast and Blur

New Zealand Olympic playmaker Mark Dickel, shooting it up for Australian NBL team the Victoria Titans moves at two speeds – “fast and blur”.

Try the venison, deer

Try the venison, deer

New Zealand venison is among the top choices at Atlanta’s Buckhead Brewery and Grille. Also, New Zealand venison fills the red meat gap in Europe.

Finn in Review

Finn in Review

“One Nil grows in stature with each listening.”  

Never a Softie

Never a Softie

Colin Meads played 55 games for New Zealand, with “not a soft match in his entire 14 years at the pit face. No wonder the legend lives on”.  

Finn-cast

Finn-cast

The Finn and Friends concert goes live over the web.  

Majors Story (Almost)

Majors Story (Almost)

The amazing story of Travis Wilson: “A New Zealander needing only four years to reach the highest level of America’s national pastime? That would have been a made-for-TV movie.” Also, Wilson has a “huge future,” says 

Smokin’ Gun

Smokin’ Gun

New Zealand anti-smoking study reveals passive smoking’s deadly aim and gives Massachusetts legislation breath of life.

Kind of Milk

Kind of Milk

New Zealand Milk (Malaysia) looks to introduce “non-dairy formats” into the local market, following extensive R and D.  

Good Background for Conciliation

Good Background for Conciliation

South African immigrant Gregory Fortuin, New Zealand’s new race relations conciliator, has his experience of “ugly and oppressive racism” under apartheid to motivate him in his new job.

Flamin’ Right?

Flamin’ Right?

Fire poi are “trendy, hypnotizing and arty”, if a little confused: “The toys draw their name from the Maori people of New Zealand. Barred from speaking around men, Maori women invented poi dancing as a way…

Perfect Pitch

Perfect Pitch

Need good grass? Call in the experts from the New Zealand Institute of Turf.

Thin Red Tape

Thin Red Tape

A significant part of setting up a new business is time and money required to negotiate government red tape. New Zealand has the world’s cheapest procedures, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurs.

Designer Fruit

Designer Fruit

With the lifting of import restrictions, labelled and polished New Zealand apples have Hyderabad’s prestige fruit market cornered.  

Still The Best

Still The Best

Leilani Joyce remains squash #1, trailed by New Zealand-based world champion Carol Owens.  

Angst in Oz

Angst in Oz

Australian business needs a hurry-up: “…even the New Zealanders are giving us a spanking in certain areas. Even the New Zealanders! Well I never…”  

What the Hell is That Smell?

What the Hell is That Smell?

Touring Canadian Chris Atchison notes Rotorua’s characteristic odour, but finds “the sheer wonder of the natural show makes the stench a bit easier to tolerate”.

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…

Kyoto Outcry

Kyoto Outcry

Phil Goff, Minister for Foreign Affairs and trade, voiced New Zealand’s condemnation of the Bush back-down on Kyoto after a meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Pre-natal Aerobics

Pre-natal Aerobics

“Aim for a flet tummy,” says the kiwi instructor.

Young Crusader

Young Crusader

New Zealander Ruby Haazen, 13, sails the high seas fighting for a cleaner earth.

Take a Break

Take a Break

Lunch breaks are best – eating at your desk makes the office “sound like the boiling muds of New Zealand”.

Netjetters in New Zealand

Netjetters in New Zealand

Two of the Guardian’s globe-trotting “Netjetters” are lassoed by Aotearoa’s lures and both have trouble getting back on the plane. Sue jetboats in Queenstown, visits her first rodeo and is “very sorry to leave” and Milly finds…

Phone Re-conversion

Phone Re-conversion

New Zealand MP and respected pillar of the Samoan community, Philip Field, retrieved a stolen car – by ringing the car phone and demanding the thieves return the vehicle.

Must do Today: Production, Script, Light

Must do Today: Production, Script, Light

Wellington-born Richard Curtis penned the Bridget screen adaptation: one of Britain’s “cleverest screenwriters” in LA Times and “a virtuoso at devising horrific embarrassments for his protagonists,” in Slate. Rounding out the kiwi trio, Stuart…

First in Sevens

First in Sevens

The sevens boys had the Hong Kong final all wrapped up, taking them to the top spot in overall series standings.  

Galloping gourmet still in the saddle

Galloping gourmet still in the saddle

Graham Kerr cooks up a storm on his new programme, Swiftly Seasoned.

Eiffel? non. Blobby? oui!

Eiffel? non. Blobby? oui!

Brendan MacFarlane, Kiwi half of design duo Jakob and MacFarlane continues to dazzle the Parisian architecture scene: “The only work of architecture raising Parisians’ eyebrows was Jakob and MacFarlane’s “blobby” rooftop restaurant, crowning the…

Still Flying High

Still Flying High

Air New Zealand continues its good run, ranking in the top ten international airlines in a Zagat survey covering 31 500 flyers.

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”.