News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Pacific Edge To Pennsylvania

Pacific Edge To Pennsylvania

Dunedin-based biomedical company Pacific Edge, which has developed an easy and accurate method for detecting bladder cancer, plans to open a facility in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Pacific Edge Diagnostics should open by the end…

Teenage Dream Come True

Teenage Dream Come True

Fourteen-year-old North Harbour amateur Lydia Ko has become the youngest winner of a professional golf tour event, taking the women’s New South Wales Open by four strokes. South Korean-born Ko, the world’s top amateur,…

Globally Pumped

Globally Pumped

Les Mills International, which exports its exercise-to-music classes to 80 countries around the globe, is a finalist in the New Zealand International Business Awards for best business with revenue in the $10m to $50m…

Canterbury Gardens Enchant

Canterbury Gardens Enchant

From the grand estate of Otahuna Lodge, which was built in 1895 as the home of parliamentarian and horticulturist Sir Heaton, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Julietta Jameson views the heritage gardens of the Canterbury region. “Americans…

Debating Foreign Investment

Debating Foreign Investment

New Zealand Federated Farmers chief executive Conor English speaks from Wellington with Rishaad Salamat on Bloomberg Television’s “On the Move Asia” about Shanghai Pengxin Group Co.’s plan to buy 16 New Zealand dairy farms….

Caps Bowl Mammoth Victory

Caps Bowl Mammoth Victory

The Black Caps bowled out Zimbabwe for 51 and 143 at Napier’s McLean Park to win the one-off Test by an innings and 301 runs — New Zealand’s biggest-ever victory margin. Pacers Chris Martin…

Roadmap For Understanding

Roadmap For Understanding

Mt Eden’s private Ficino School has a Sanskrit Language Studies program and claims that learning one of the world’s oldest languages accelerates a child’s reading ability. Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has applauded the school…

Uncompromised Magic

Uncompromised Magic

The Royal New Zealand Ballet performed Angelina Ballerina’s Big Audition, which featured ballet, hip hop, contemporary dance, tap dancing and “a little bit of magic”, at Sydney’s State Theatre in January. “Children know…

Beats Picking Tomatoes

Beats Picking Tomatoes

Wellington-based filmmaker Tusi Tumasese, 35, director of Oscar-nominated feature The Orator, explains to The West Australian why he left Samoa at the age of 18. “My mum sent me over to New Zealand because I was getting…

Seaside Serenity

Seaside Serenity

The historical naval village of Devonport, just across the harbour from the centre of Auckland, is the place to be for a gentle pace according to Julia Kirchner writing for Monsters & Critics. “While…

It’s Gone To His Head

It’s Gone To His Head

Bret McKenzie celebrated his Oscar nomination for best song with some Vegemite and toast. McKenzie, who wrote the meta-power ballad ‘Man or Muppet’ for The Muppets, is up against ‘Real in Rio’ from Rio: The Movie,…

Lucretia Is Back For More

Lucretia Is Back For More

Auckland-born actress Lucy Lawless, 43, returns to the American small screen as Lucretia in Spartacus: Vengeance, and the writers were “really rude” to her this season she says. “They were really rude. Usually, they are…

Sami And Fraser Play Canada

Sami And Fraser Play Canada

Auckland-born actress Madeline Sami stars in Toa Fraser’s award-winning No. 2, a play the pair first collaborated on in 1999 and which is currently touring Canada. When No. 2 opened in Calgary’s Epcor Centre’s Engineered Theatre in…

Taking Back History

Taking Back History

New Zealand ambassador Rosemary Banks and French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand presided over a solemn ceremony at Quai Branly museum in Paris where 20 Maori ancestral heads and bones were given back to New…

Emphatic Win For Talented Teen

Emphatic Win For Talented Teen

Auckland golf prodigy Lydia Ko has reinforced her ranking as the world’s best female amateur with an emphatic win in the Australian amateur championship at Woodlands in Melbourne. Ko, a gifted 14-year-old, beat Australian…

Documenting Innocence

Documenting Innocence

Director Peter Jackson believes former Death Row inmate Damien Echols would be dead now if not for 1996 documentary, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, that cast doubt on the man’s guilt…

Maiden Into Milford

Maiden Into Milford

“My first sighting of New Zealand is from the balcony of my cabin as Sun Princess sidles up to the rugged cliffs of Fiordland,” The Australian’s Helen McKenzie describes from aboard the ship for her maiden…

Good For American Cinemas

Good For American Cinemas

Dunedin director Mike Wallis’ budget western Good for Nothing will become the first self-funded New Zealand film to be released in United States cinemas from next month. Wallis used the landscapes of Central Otago…

Mega Auckland Police Sting

Mega Auckland Police Sting

New Zealand police arrested four of seven file-sharing firm Megaupload executives, including founder Kim Dotcom, 37, in an early morning sting at his $30 million rented mansion in Coatesville, 30km north of Auckland. The…

Fully-Booked And Beautiful

Fully-Booked And Beautiful

“Why if the is so fully-booked, expensive, and logistically unfriendly, would so many people choose to trek it?” asks Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison. “Because, to put it simply, it might actually be…

Pale Ale Goes Digital

Pale Ale Goes Digital

When you purchase a bottle of New Zealand’s Yeastie Boys Digital IPA you can scan in a code from the bottle onto your smartphone, and it will immediately send you to a website where…

National Treasure On Tour

National Treasure On Tour

“Beloved at home but never exactly part of the mainstream, McGlashan has maintained a level of consistency over both group and solo releases, which has earned him great respect within his peer group…

These Cats Kick A**

These Cats Kick A**

New Zealand heavy metal band Legacy of Disorder are an “exception” to the “formulaic” and “pointless growls” of the last decade or so according to the Examiner’s David Garlow. “This band has parts Pantera,…

Big Investments In Little Bank

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…

Scouted And Signed

Scouted And Signed

Seventeen-year-old first baseman Pita Rona is the first New Zealander to sign with an American Major League Baseball team. Auckland-born Rona has signed a seven-year deal with the Baltimore Orioles. Rona, who has played…

Investing Big In Hotspots

Investing Big In Hotspots

New Zealand-born Renaissance Group founder Stephen Jennings is betting big on Africa becoming the next global investment hotspot. Having fought through a number of corporate close shaves to amass a fortune worth an estimated…

Sticks And Stones

Sticks And Stones

On tour in “the luscious land of New Zealand,” British comedian Ed Byrne writes his weekly column for Metro. “They’re a bit fed-up at the moment over here: earthquake-ravaged Christchurch continues to be a drain…

Wooly Olympic Potential

Wooly Olympic Potential

New Zealand Federated Farmers says sheep shearing has the potential to become an Olympic demonstration sport. The “time has come to elevate shearing’s sporting status to the ultimate world stage,” the organisation said. New…

With A Cryptic Brusqueness

With A Cryptic Brusqueness

New Zealand actor Sam Neill, 64, stars in Lost creator J. J. Abrams’ drama series Alcatraz, which premiered on American channel Fox this month. “The premise: The orderly closing of the prison on Alcatraz in 1963 was…

Hi There To The United States

Hi There To The United States

Fashion designer Karen Walker’s Hi There clothing range will sell in up to 164 Anthropologie stores in the United States from February. Landing in stores for the American summer, the deal has a retail value…

Twin Imaginings

Twin Imaginings

As well as remembering things differently, siblings often fight over ownership of the same memory writes the Guardian’s Charles Fernyhough in an article about shared memories and the problems they cause. “A study by Mercedes Sheen…

Latham Takes Gold

Latham Takes Gold

Te Awamutu-born Peter Latham, 28, has won the men’s 4000m individual pursuit race at the UCI World Cup event in Beijing. Latham produced a time of 4:25.964 to beat Mitchell Mulhern (4:26.267) from Australia…

Small, Green And Phenomenal

Small, Green And Phenomenal

“What’s small, green, comes from New Zealand and is incredibly popular with Britain’s brewers?” The Independent’s Will Hawkes asks. “No, not Kiwi fruits, although someone will surely make a beer with them sooner or later. The…

Lads On Film Make Festival

Lads On Film Make Festival

Duncan Sarkies’ film Two Little Boys, featuring Bret McKenzie and Australian actor Hamish Blake, will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, screening in the Generation section, in February. The film is described as an irreverent…

Innovation Nets Branson Time

Innovation Nets Branson Time

Takapuna business FaceMe has won time with billionaire Sir Richard Branson after winning top entrepreneurial competition, BNZ Presents: The Virgin Business Challenge. FaceMe has developed a video conference system that is compatible with any…

Critic’s Choose McKenzie

Critic’s Choose McKenzie

Wellington-born comedian Bret McKenzie, 35, has trumped Elton John and Mary J. Blige to win the Critics’ Choice best song award for ‘Life’s a Happy Song’, which he penned for the recently-released The Muppets movie as…

Ribboned Rakaia From Space

Ribboned Rakaia From Space

An image of the braided Rakaia River has won an online vote through Facebook for best satellite image of 2011. The image was captured by American commercial satellite imaging firm DigitalGlobe. The river, shown…

International Cluster Deal

International Cluster Deal

University of Waikato computer science doctoral student Paul Hunkin’s software has been picked up by Google and NASA. Hunkin created ClusterGL to connect multiple screens to form one huge image for the university’s display…

Spinning For Sixes

Spinning For Sixes

Dunedin-born Black Cap right-arm spinner, and “more than handy batsman,” Nathan McCullum, 31, has signed with the Sydney Sixers for the remainder of the Big Bash League as a replacement for West Indian import…

Hungry Lion Fascinates Toddler

Hungry Lion Fascinates Toddler

A video of three-year-old Sofia Walker coming face to face with Wellington Zoo’s lion, Malik, has captivated international news media. The Daily Mail described her encounter: “Brave Sofia Walker refuses to back down and instead stares…

Inspiring A City’s Renaissance

Inspiring A City’s Renaissance

Christchurch, “New Zealand’s bravest and most resilient communities … is re-emerging as one of most exciting cities,” according to Lonely Planet author Brett Atkinson. “If you’re heading to the South Island, definitely…

Ship Splits In The Rough

Ship Splits In The Rough

A Maritime New Zealand image of the stricken container ship Rena split in two features in the Seattle Post Intelligencer ‘News of the world in photos’ series. The Greek-owned ship ran aground on Astrolabe Reef off…

Blogging About Bollywood

Blogging About Bollywood

New Zealand-based Vanessa Barnes, who comes from an un-named “small provincial town”, loves Indian film, so she writes about it on her blog ‘Shahrukh is Love’, which includes reviews of over 130 Bollywood…

Carterton’s Hot Air Balloon Tragedy

Carterton’s Hot Air Balloon Tragedy

New Zealand is in mourning following a fiery hot air balloon crash in the Wairarapa that left eleven people dead. The tragedy occurred when the balloon came entangled in power lines, causing the basket…

Justice Reserved For

Justice Reserved For

Justice is the name most often refused by New Zealand registrars in the past ten years, with 49 sets of parents prevented from doing so according to the department for internal affairs. Next on…

Friendliest Place On The Planet

Friendliest Place On The Planet

New Zealand is the world’s friendliest place according to the results of HSBC’s Expat Explorer Survey. “New Zealanders as a whole seem like happy people, and that translates into friendly, helpful and kind people,”…

Dreaming Of A Bach Life

Dreaming Of A Bach Life

New Zealanders and Australians could easily develop hospitality schools that would give Lausanne and Cornell a thumping reflects Monocle editor-in-chief Tyler Brûlé after his “most wonderful eight-day holiday.” “ are good at hosting, selling, serving…

Region Of Potheads

Region Of Potheads

“New Zealand and Australia have a proud history of co-operation, but now it seems the nations have achieved a more dubious honour: the world’s biggest pot-heads,” The Sydney Morning Herald’s Amy Corderoy writes. “Together the countries…

Kawa Kawa Infused

Kawa Kawa Infused

Fine-dining Mokoia Restaurant at Rotorua’s award-winning Wai Ora Spa is reviewed by Australia’s favourite food blogger, Not Quite Nigella for Business Spectator. She begins with rewana, served with whipped garlic butter and a mango and…

Secret Poi Swinging In NY

Secret Poi Swinging In NY

New York fire poi dancers are flouting fire restrictions and meeting stealthily on top of city rooftops to attend secret classes, where students are careful to remove any traces of their activity afterward….

Electrifying In The Tropics

Electrifying In The Tropics

The Naked and Famous play Bangkok’s Moonstar Studio on 17 January and are “set to electrify Thai audiences with alternative pop and rock songs, including Young Blood and Punching in a Dream.” “The quintet…

Real Life Evil On Wheels

Real Life Evil On Wheels

The other half of comedy duo Flight of the Conchords Jemaine Clement’s “delightfully bizarre taste in costumes carries on,” Huffington Post correspondent Jordan Zakarin writes, describing Clement’s latest get-up for his role as the evil Boris…

Kindness Donated By Strangers

Kindness Donated By Strangers

Donors from across the globe have helped fund a New Zealand English teacher’s life-saving liver transplant, which was carried out at Pusan National University Hospital in Yangsan, South Korea. Mick Milne, 47, who has…

Sheffield Gets Real Coffee

Sheffield Gets Real Coffee

New Zealander Jonathan Perry has recently opened a coffee shop, called Tamper Coffee, in Sheffield. At 16, Perry moved to South Yorkshire with dreams of a football career but after five years of…

Auckland’s Movie Coup

Auckland’s Movie Coup

Filming begins in Auckland on Hollywood blockbuster, WWII political-thriller Emperor this month at Henderson’s Auckland Film Studios. Lost heartthrob Matthew Fox, 45, stars. Inspired by true events, Emperor is an epic story of love and understanding set amidst the uncertainties…

Thank You New Zealand

Thank You New Zealand

“Once again I am pleased to thank New Zealand. No country, outside of my native United States, has treated me better than New Zealand. New Zealand has added me to a list of many…