Rings Cleans Up Awards

Lord of the Rings wins Best Film, Best Debut, and Best Actor at the Empire Awards 2001. “It was the greatest experience of our professional lives, going to New Zealand…

Royal Chill

Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Worldwide Kevin Roberts, accompanies Britain’s Princess Anne to Antarctica to celebrate the centenary of Scott and Shackleton’s discovery expeditions, and to launch the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust’s…

The B-list of Baaad Has an Axis to Grind

International relations satire: bitter after being snubbed for membership in the “Axis of Evil”, peer-conscious nations rush to gain triumvirate status in what becomes a game of geopolitical chairs: “Spain, Scotland…

Speaking in tongues

Applauded young Aotearoa actress Madeleine Sami, dodges questions about her involvement with Rings star Elijah Woods (“we kind of hung out and went to the movies a bit”), a…

Xena tackles Vagina Monlogues

Warrior Princess Lucy Lawless learns “new respect for the vagina, for the power and sacredness of it”, as she stars alongside Madeline Sami and Danielle Cormack in Auckland Theatre…

Supermarket nirvana: Gisborne Woolworths

Street-Porter lauds fusion master Peter Gordon, bemoans some antipodean executions of the theory, but finds solace in Woolworths: “I purchased sun-dried tomatoes, olive and rosemary focaccia bread, and locally…

“Names Will Never Hurt Me?”

Deputy PM Jim Anderton tells the Australian Government to stop its “insults”, after Aussie Defence Minister Robert Hill dubs New Zealand  “Tasmania”. “For God’s sake”, Anderton says,”we’re the closest neighbours to each…

These Limbs Were Made for Climbing

Kiwi mountaineer Mark Inglis successfully completes the journey to NZ’s highest peak, Mt Cook, without a piece of kit he’d come to take for granted on all previous expeditions – his…

Rugby Great

Grant Fox is named by The Guardian’s Eddie Butler as one of the ten greatest fly-halves in the history of rugby union.  

I Can See Your Heart Beat

Auckland University’s Bioengineering Institute  leads ground-breaking new research into heart and lung modeling and software development. Led by Dr Peter Hunter, the team of in silico biologists translate human organs “into thousands…

This Sporting Life

Ben Willis, ex-King’s College and NZ Academy player, is carving out a career as a rugby pro playing off the bench at half back for Leinster, as well as turning out…

Stand and Deliver

NZ Post held up as successful post-liberalisation model which British Post could try to emulate. As a “beacon of public service in a privatised world”, NZ Post has remained…

Love Trolley Champ

Competing on an indoor erg (affectionately known as the ‘love trolley) Georgina Evers-Swindell wins the Crash-B World Indoor Rowing Championship with a time 0.6 sec off her world record. The win…

Hem Femme

“She may be the most successful designer New Zealand has ever produced”. NYNZer Rebecca Taylor featured in extensive portrait in Vogue (Australia). Click here. And acclaimed in an…

Man with the Hook

NZ-born Sam Chisholm, the man who spent more time in the boxing ring than class room at King’s College, who then went on to become deal maker and right hand man…

NZ Schoolboys Take England to the Wall

“No one can decide who is the best rugby team in the world at present, largely because the two main contenders, England and NZ, circle each other without actually engaging …

East to the Edge

A book exploring the distinctly Japanese art of Kabuki has been “beautifully translated into English” by New Zealander Kirsten McIvor. Kabuki Today throws open the door to the mysterious…

Bollywood or bust

Lush locations, talent and technology make NZ an ideal shooting location for Bollywood. Its almost monsoon season down under with the production schedules over-flowing, “the total number of song…

Middle Earth homestay

“I just want to stay in NZ making my stuff.” PJ interviewed by PBS’s Charlie Rose. Listen to the interview here for a fascinating conversation as Peter Jackson…

Record Tourism Numbers

“Despite the global downturn New Zealand still welcomed a record number of international visitors for the 2010 1,909,391 people visited, a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year”.

Art for Masses

LATimes cover story on art for the people in Chinatown, LA, features NZ artists and curators, including an exhibition at the Lord Mori Gallery, curated by Tessa Laird…

NZ Biologist Battles in Spice Wars

Michael Pearson, a biologist at the University of Auckland, has isolated six different viruses threatening to destroy the world’s second most lucrative spice – vanilla planifolia. “We are the world experts…

Wading into a Globalisation Debate

Prospect (“Britain’s intelligent conversation”) hosts a debate between prominent LSE economist NZer Robert Wade and Martin Wolf over whether global inequality and poverty are actually getting worse. Wade: “At the heart…

Taste Sensation

Award winning vineyard – Goldwater Estate – Praised for its 2001 Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc: “This impeccably crafted wine offers a complexity and excitement equal to the finest Sancerre of the Loire…

Chopper

Jason Wynyard, New Zealand’s World Champion Axeman, along side countryman and defending champion Dave Bolstad, is featured in an article previewing the STIHL Timbersports Series. “Lumberjacking: the epitome of…

Diabetes Breakthrough

Diatranz of Auckland claims it has conducted a successful trial that could eventually provide a cure for 15 million people around the world with type 1 diabetes who currently need daily…

Crowe: Edgy Actor

Front-running for repeat Oscar victory Crowe would rather have a beer according to this excellent Independent profile that plays on Rus’s ANZAC roots, “Like the classic guy from Down…

Dead chuffed

The A-list from the cinematic, corporate and consulate worlds turned out for a deliciously irreverent Sam Neil tribute honouring his 25 years in film and his contribution to New…

Down-underwear

New Zealand-edged designer Collette Dinnigan (trained at Massey University Design School, formerly Wellington Polytechnic) enlists Dane Helena Christensen to model her new ‘supersexy’ collection of underwear, ‘Wild Hearts’ for…

I See Red

A New Zealand company, Knights of NZ, wins the contract to make the Australian Olympic team’s opening ceremony coats for the upcoming Winter Olympics. Worth more than $3000 each, the coats…

Gilding the Director

Peter Jackson is nominated for the Best Director award as judged by the Directors Guild Association. Jackson, however, doesn’t seem very interested in taking home any coveted gold trophies:…

Strutting in their genes

New Zealand’s “young kid band with famous fathers”, otherwise known as Betchadupa, tours Australia for the Big Day Out series. Frontman Liam Finn bears the iconic surname of…

South Sea’s Start-up

Stephen “Warehouse” Tindall, (Forbes: “the Sam  Walton of the South Pacific”) backs NZ technology innovation in Red Herring. Citing do-it-yourself Kiwi advances in biotech, multimedia and software (the world’s leading…

Coach Blackadder

Former All Black captain, Todd Blackadder, takes his first step into international coaching with the announcement that he will be joining the Scotland Under 21 set-up.  

Values Party – BYO

Don’t miss Marlborough’s “tangy, medium-bodied, cranberry-dried” Saint Clair 2000 Doctor’s Creek Pinot Noir.  “Perfect with poultry or perhaps salmon, it epitomizes the remarkable values coming out of New Zealand”.

A Beautiful Mind

Wellington-born Russell Crowe, who last year won an Oscar for his lead role in Gladiator, pulls off the second biggest win of his career – a Golden Globe for…

Master Blasters

Explosive all-rounder Chris Cairns plays “one of the great one-day international innings in the 22-year history of the game When he is on song, no oval in the world is…

“All the world’s a stage”

24-year-old Aucklander, Miles Lattimer-Gregory, hits the big time in London’s West End, with the company he founded, the British Touring Shakespeare Company opening its season of Hamlet and the…

School of Hard Knocks

Jonah Lomu talks to The Independent about growing up on South Auckland’s mean streets. “I lost an uncle; decapitated in a shopping centre, and a cousin who was stabbed. That’s…

Heckler Good-humoured

500 e-mails, several severed subscriptions, and a visitation by one J.Lomu later, Graham offers an open apology. Planting tongue firmly in cheek, he concedes amongst other things that Split…

The Peoples’ Choice

“New Zealand’s most revered sportsman”, Michael Campbell, finishes a gallant second at the NZ Golf Open, five strokes ahead of world No 1 Tiger Woods. Back in the clubhouse, Campbell announces…

Asian Free Trade Zone

Japan is keen to envelop New Zealand and Australia into its vision for an Asian free-trade zone in both trade and investment, and beyond into technology, education and tourism.  

The Crowe Road to Oscar Success?

Russell Crowe is named Actor of the Year by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for his lead role in A Beautiful Mind. Crowe has won the award for the…

“Fair-dinkum” Kiwi tops the pops

NZ-born musician Daniel Bedingfield, 21, tops the UK pop charts with Gotta Get Thru This – recorded on rudimentary equipment and a computer in his south London bedroom. “The…

Lessons From the Kiwi Experience

The Scotsman praises “small, proud” New Zealand – “the more the government intervenes in industry the less enterprise and boldness there is. By rolling back the frontiers of the state New…

Truly, madly, deeply explicit

New Zealand actor Kerry Fox visits Sydney to promote her controversial new film, Intimacy and offers this boyfriend-friendly pronouncement on her method: “Its not sex. It’s not lovemaking. It’s…

Tiger Tamer

13-year-old New Zealander, Jae An, becomes the youngest ever male to play a professional golf tournament, and then the youngest golfer ever to make the cut, when he lines up alongside…

“Cook Me Some Eggs James”

NZ-born Lee Tamahori, is charged with the license to uphold pop-cultural iconography, as he undertakes the directorship of the 20th James Bond installment, taking over from another Kiwi Martin Campbell. “To…

One Love

Anna Kournikova, “the tennis temptress whose courtships tend to garner more attention than her shot selection”, completes her 99th WTA tour singles event – the Auckland Classic – in the same…

Commanding Performance

Grant Dalton and his crew hold second place in the Volvo Ocean Race, as the event “reaches its spiritual home”, Auckland. “The World’s premier yachting capital”. according to the Volvo…

Global Chief

Heineken names New Zealander Alan Gourdie its global brand chief.

Fans Flock to Tolkien Trail

“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third….

Front line truck stop

War correspondent Margaret Moth heads to another of the world’s trouble spots, this time Kabul, Afghanistan. Along the way, while searching for a truck waylaid picking them up at Bagram…

Madcap Pamela bestselling biographer

New Zealand-born Pamela Stephenson, practicing psychotherapist and ex-comedian (part of the anarchic foursome who made the seminal and career launching comedy Not the Nine o’clock News – along…

Great Escape

The Times lists New Zealand a hot destination, due to scenery witnessed in Lord of the Rings. United Kingdom travel companies report 20 per cent increases in travel bookings since…

Counting Down and Counting Up

The 31st America’s Cup is 13 months away, but the Hauraki Gulf is already a hive of activity as 1 syndicates prepare to battle for the Auld Mug. And Government puffs…