News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Sheryl Sandberg Deems Ardern a Political Prodigy

Sheryl Sandberg Deems Ardern a Political Prodigy

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gives her opinion on New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has been named in Time magazine’s list of 100 ‘Most Influential People’, alongside other leaders including London mayor Sadiq…

Autoportrait Wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

Autoportrait Wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

The 2018 Deutsche Börse photography prize has been awarded to the New Zealander Luke Willis Thompson, 30, for Autoportrait, a film installation about the partner of Philando Castile, who was shot dead by police…

Michael Long Wins PGA with Dream Course Round

Michael Long Wins PGA with Dream Course Round

New Zealander Michael Long, 49, has recorded a dream victory at the recent TX Civil & Logistics Western Australia PGA Championship after equalling the course record at Kalgoorlie Golf Course. Starting the final day five…

Eco-Friendly Startup Aims to Reduce Plastic Dumped Into Ocean

Eco-Friendly Startup Aims to Reduce Plastic Dumped Into Ocean

“80 billion plastic bottles from shampoo and conditioner alone enter our oceans every year,” writes Mara Leighton in an article for Business Insider. Ethique – a…

Photographer Launches Project to Prevent Bullying Against Redheads

Photographer Launches Project to Prevent Bullying Against Redheads

New Zealand photographer Bianca Duimel “is hoping to change the conversation around red hair with a powerful art project.” Sarah Young reports for The Independent. “I was looking for children for…

Moeraki Boulders Make for Ever-Changing Photo Op

Moeraki Boulders Make for Ever-Changing Photo Op

An image of Otago’s Moeraki Boulders has featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s online version. “Folklore is storied with mystical explanations, but it is believed the coast has been eroded…

Kim Chambers Swims Like No Other

Kim Chambers Swims Like No Other

Kim Chambers, a former ballerina who grew up on a sheep farm in the King Country has done what no other woman has yet achieved: swum the world’s most difficult ocean swim, from the…

New All Blacks Documentary “Looks Absolutely Breathtaking”

New All Blacks Documentary “Looks Absolutely Breathtaking”

“All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks is a new six-episode series and it promises to be a belter,” writes Paul Moore in an article for Joe.ie. Narrated by the “incredibly…

Brazil Readies for Connan Mockasin

Brazil Readies for Connan Mockasin

New Zealand singer-songwriter Connan Mockasin will head to Brazil in November after the release of two new albums in October. “There were some invitations to go, some almost came to fruition,…

Athlete’s Guide to New Zealand

Athlete’s Guide to New Zealand

Adventurer and now New Zealand-based athlete Luke Yates, “newly enamoured with the country”, explains why the Land of the Long White Cloud is perfectly suited for endurance adventures in an article for IRONMAN. “Mythical stories…

Irish Distillers Acquires Eight Degrees Brewing

Irish Distillers Acquires Eight Degrees Brewing

Pernod Ricard-subsidiary Irish Distillers has acquired Cork-based craft beer producer Eight Degrees Brewing for an undisclosed sum. Eight Degrees, whose brands include Sunburnt Irish Red Ale, is co-owned by New Zealander

Get Inspired by Brogan Kerrison as Glencoe

Get Inspired by Brogan Kerrison as Glencoe

After being surrounded by music from a young age, New Zealand-born Brogan Kerrison started writing his own at age 14. Years later, in the tail end of 2016, he finally realised his dream of…

Dairy Farmer Richard Watson Gets Help From Ida

Dairy Farmer Richard Watson Gets Help From Ida

Cow No. 14433 doesn’t stand out from the herd at Seven Oaks Dairy in Wisconsin. But New Zealand-born dairy owner Richard Watson knows everything about the brown Jersey heifer without…

Singer Stan Walker Overhauls His Lifestyle

Singer Stan Walker Overhauls His Lifestyle

In the powerful documentary Stan Walker: The Fight of His Life, the New Zealand soul singer reveals his lengthy battle to get his strength back after a stomach cancer operation, and how at one…

Scientist Richard Dawkins Considers Move to NZ

Scientist Richard Dawkins Considers Move to NZ

The British scientist Richard Dawkins has told current affairs programme The Project he would like to move to New Zealand as a refuge from the “madness” of a post-Trump, post-Brexit northern hemisphere. “I thought about…

Unique Sneak Preview for Effects Man Matt Aitken

Unique Sneak Preview for Effects Man Matt Aitken

New Zealand-born VFX supervisor Matt Aitken talks about Marvel’s “unusual” move that helped make the biggest superhero blockbuster ever, Avengers: Infinity War. Aitken’s credits included an Academy Award nomination for visual effects for 2009’s District…

Actor Julian Dennison is Firefist in Deadpool 2

Actor Julian Dennison is Firefist in Deadpool 2

Julian Dennison is living the dream. The 15-year-old actor from Lower Hutt was hand picked by Ryan Reynolds to star in Deadpool 2, which hits cinemas on 16 May. As Reynolds told the

Illustrator Andrew Archer’s Sci-Fi Vision

Illustrator Andrew Archer’s Sci-Fi Vision

Self-taught illustrator and art director New Zealander Andrew Archer was commissioned by London-based publisher The Folio Society to create the cover illustration and a series of internal artworks exploring the drug-infused, psychotic scenes and…

Freer NZ-China Trade Brings Fresh Milk to Shanghai

Freer NZ-China Trade Brings Fresh Milk to Shanghai

Jason Ji, a New Zealander working in Shanghai, is picky about fresh milk. Ji insists on drinking milk from New Zealand, even though he spends most of his time in China. “I can tell nuances…

NZ Photographer Explores Decline of Tokyo’s Ultramodern Dreams

NZ Photographer Explores Decline of Tokyo’s Ultramodern Dreams

“Japan is famed for its ultramodern cityscapes. But what happens when the ultramodern becomes old?” Photographer Cody Ellingham is using landscape photography skills developed in New Zealand to explore fading monolithic public housing projects…

New Zealand Women Footballers Get Same Pay As Men

New Zealand Women Footballers Get Same Pay As Men

“New Zealand’s football body announced a new deal May 8 that gives the national women’s team the same pay and conditions as the men’s side, becoming one of the world’s first countries to do…

New Zealand Makes Biggest Leap in A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index

New Zealand Makes Biggest Leap in A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index

New Zealand has made the biggest leap of any country – up seven spots to 16th – in this year’s A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index (FDI). The USA…

Wellington’s Paddy the Wanderer Forever Loved

Wellington’s Paddy the Wanderer Forever Loved

Wellington’s waterfront memorial to the “well-loved, well-travelled wharf dog” Paddy the Wanderer is included in online travel guide, Atlas Obscura. “Paddy the Wanderer was an Airedale Terrier who roamed the streets of Wellington,…

The Beths Look to the Future

The Beths Look to the Future

The Beths is an Auckland guitar pop group who recently signed to Washington DC-based Carpark Records for the release of their debut album Future Me Hates Me, due out 10 August. The band has…

Glass Artist Ruth Allen off to Float in Venice

Glass Artist Ruth Allen off to Float in Venice

A glass dress created by New Zealand multi-media artist Ruth Allen is one of among 30 designs to feature in the international Glass Art Society’s Fashion Show being held in the old glass capital of…

Emilia Wickstead on Dressing the Royal Family

Emilia Wickstead on Dressing the Royal Family

New Zealand-born fashion designer Emilia Wickstead, a favourite of Meghan Markle and the Duchess of Cambridge, is showing a collaboration with MATCHESFASHION.COM at Fashion Week Australia on 15 May. She…

Helen Clark Talks Global Health and Gender Equality

Helen Clark Talks Global Health and Gender Equality

In a joint opinion piece for Project Syndicate former New Zealand prime minister and UNDP administrator Helen Clark discusses gender equality and global public health. Organizations advocating for improved public health…

Piha Beach One of the Most Instagrammed Beaches

Piha Beach One of the Most Instagrammed Beaches

Piha Beach has been identified as one of the most Instagrammed beaches (#21) in the Asia Pacific Region in a list compiled by travel company Globehunters.

Take Stargazing to New Heights in New Zealand

Take Stargazing to New Heights in New Zealand

“The universe is back in fashion. Perhaps it’s because light pollution on the increase as white LED streetlights across ever-expanding cities, but there seems to be a growing interest in astro-tourism,” writes Jamie Carter…

Rochelle Canteen’s Margot Henderson Gets Serious

Rochelle Canteen’s Margot Henderson Gets Serious

In October 2017, New Zealander Margot Henderson and her British business partner Melanie Arnold, proprietors of Rochelle Canteen in the Shoreditch neighbourhood of East London, set up a second outpost on the ground floor…

Frances Schoemack’s Abel a Worthy Investment

Frances Schoemack’s Abel a Worthy Investment

Vegan perfume lovers must not only avoid fragrances made with extracts of milk, honey, leather and beeswax, but also secretions from animals used to mark their territories, which are often used as fixatives to…

Filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly Celebrates Guo Pei

Filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly Celebrates Guo Pei

“When I was little, I didn’t know what fashion was. The word didn’t exist,” Guo Pei tells Whakatane-born documentarian Pietra Brettkelly in Yellow Is Forbidden, a new film charting the Chinese designer’s fierce ambition…

You Should Be Following Mr Essentialist

You Should Be Following Mr Essentialist

New York-based New Zealander Alexander Atkins has been on the radar of online lifestyle magazine Opumo for sometime now as the fashion and grooming blogger, who operates under the pseudonym of Mr Essentialist, continues…

Spectacular Sinkhole Opens Up In New Zealand

Spectacular Sinkhole Opens Up In New Zealand

“A spectacular sinkhole the length of two football fields and the depth of a six-story building has opened up on a New Zealand farm” near the North Island town of Rotorua, writes Guy Birchall in…

Fire Spinner Hale Wilson Showcases Moves in Darwin

Fire Spinner Hale Wilson Showcases Moves in Darwin

For New Zealand-born Samoan Hale Wilson, the art of fire spinning honours his culture and family history at the same time as looking cool. Wilson has carried his Samoan fire knife to Auckland, Brisbane and…

World Famous Parris Goebel On Her Trip to the Top

World Famous Parris Goebel On Her Trip to the Top

She’s made her mark as a fierce and unstoppable choreographer but it’s New Zealander Parris Goebel’s work ethic and ability to overcome barriers that has allowed her to emerge as a true icon. Fiona…

What We Do in the Shadows Gets TV Reboot

What We Do in the Shadows Gets TV Reboot

A long-in-the-works half-hour television comedy based on the 2014 mockumentary horror film What We Do in the Shadows, co-written and co-directed by and starring Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, is slated to premiere in…

Andrew Niccol’s Latest Film Smart and Stylish

Andrew Niccol’s Latest Film Smart and Stylish

Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried star in Anon, a “timely Netflix-bound cyberthriller from The Truman Show and In Time creator New Zealander Andrew Niccol”. Stephen Dalton reviews the film for The Hollywood Reporter. “Owen looks…

How to Follow in the Royal Family’s Footsteps in NZ

How to Follow in the Royal Family’s Footsteps in NZ

“With the world’s latest royal nuptials almost upon us, we look at how normal folk can get a little regal in New Zealand – one place where they’re rumoured to be honeymooning,” Vogue Australia…

Jonelle Price Claims First Four-Star Title With Badminton Victory

Jonelle Price Claims First Four-Star Title With Badminton Victory

“Jonelle Price and her star mare Classic Moet have won the 2018 Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials,” writes Lucy Elder in an article for Horse & Hound. Price is the…

Dean Barker to Helm NY America’s Cup Bid

Dean Barker to Helm NY America’s Cup Bid

The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) has appointed Aucklander Dean Barker, 45, as helmsman of the US syndicate that will vie for the America’s Cup in Auckland in 2021. The NYYC held the Auld Mug…

Getting Close to Perfect on the North Island

Getting Close to Perfect on the North Island

“Countless travellers fantasise about New Zealand as a place untouched by much of the world’s bustle and strain,” Jim Farber writes for the New York Daily News. Farber tours the North Island to see…

John Cavill Wins Emmy for Scars of Nanking

John Cavill Wins Emmy for Scars of Nanking

New Zealand cinematographer John Cavill has won an Emmy – Outstanding Cinematography – for American/Chinese co-production Scars of Nanking at the Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. In

See the World’s Smallest Penguins in Oamaru

See the World’s Smallest Penguins in Oamaru

Life can be tough when you’re a blue penguin. For starters, you are no taller than a house cat and weigh less than a kilogram. That means many other creatures – rats, ferrets and…

North Island Home to World Class Golf Courses

North Island Home to World Class Golf Courses

New Zealand’s North Island is one of the most scenic destinations on the planet. And its rolling hills and clifftops have become home to some world-class golf courses. Golf Australia’s Michael Jones heads over…

Get Back To Nature with NZ Walking Tours

Get Back To Nature with NZ Walking Tours

“If you live in a concrete jungle inundated with constant noise, pollution, too many people and not enough trees, or are simply feeling the urge to get back to nature” –“a trip to New…

Titu’s Head Chef Jeff Tyler Impresses Reviewer

Titu’s Head Chef Jeff Tyler Impresses Reviewer

New Zealand-born Jeff Tyler, who is head chef at London’s new restaurant Titu, has just proved reviewer Tim Hayward of the Financial Times wrong. “I wasn’t really expecting Titu to be that good,” Hayward…

Zico O’Neill Captures Life off the Beaten Track

Zico O’Neill Captures Life off the Beaten Track

Photographer Zico O’Neill is known for his breathtaking, desaturated photography of little-visited locations far from his home in New Zealand. Since 2010, he’s made a point to spread his wings and travel, from four…

New Zealand Looks To Bridge Talent Gap

New Zealand Looks To Bridge Talent Gap

“New Zealand may be experiencing economic growth fuelled by both emerging home-grown innovations and FDI that represented 38% of that nation’s GDP in 2016 and totalled NZ$101bn ($72bn) in FDI stock in 2017, but…

Sam Rockwell, ScarJo Join Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit

Sam Rockwell, ScarJo Join Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit

After breaking out in a major way in Hollywood by directing the critically acclaimed action-comedy Thor: Ragnarok, New Zealander Taika Waititi’s next film is going to…

Celebrity Chefs Track Down NZ’s Ulster Scots

Celebrity Chefs Track Down NZ’s Ulster Scots

Michelin-starred chefs Paul Rankin and Nick Nairn from Ireland and Scotland respectively, take a visit to New Zealand for their popular television series Paul and Nick’s Big Food Trip. The pair embark on a culinary…

Gang of Youths’ Max Dunn Talks to Rolling Stone

Gang of Youths’ Max Dunn Talks to Rolling Stone

Founded in Sydney six years ago, Gang of Youths, which includes New Zealander Max Dunn on bass, are getting their share of attention in America after releasing two hit albums in Australia: 2015’s The…

Exhibition of Colliding Worlds on in London

Exhibition of Colliding Worlds on in London

Work by ill-fated illustrators aboard Captain James Cook’s first journey to the Pacific sit alongside revelatory images by a Polynesian high priest in a haunting exhibition on now at the British Library in London. “The…

Luke Willis Thompson in Running for Turner Prize

Luke Willis Thompson in Running for Turner Prize

Fijian-New Zealand artist Luke Willis Thompson, 30, is one of four candidates vying for this year’s Turner Prize, a shortlist, according to the Financial Times, focusing on conflict, crime and state-sponsored violence.

Zion Armstrong New Adidas North America President

Zion Armstrong New Adidas North America President

Adidas has appointed New Zealander Zion Armstrong, 43, as president of its North America arm. Armstrong’s successful career with the corporation spans many years and many countries. He first joined Adidas New Zealand as product manager…

Top Swim Coach and Olympic Medallist Jan Cameron

Top Swim Coach and Olympic Medallist Jan Cameron

“The death of long-serving Australian swimming coach Jan Cameron is being mourned on both sides of the Tasman.” The Sydney Morning Herald reports. “As Swimming Australia’s current para sport mentor coach,…