Space Man Saluted
New Zealand space scientist Sir Ian Axford, who worked on American and European space probes, such as the Voyager and Giotto designing robot craft and calculating orbits, has died at his home in Napier,…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Rehearsal makes list
Cantabrian author Eleanor Catton’s debut novel The Rehearsal, has been longlisted for this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction, to be announced on June 9. Catton, 24, began writing The Rehearsal, about teenage life, when…
Maori Across the Tasman
More Maori live in Australia than in New Zealand according to leading population expert Australian Professor Peter McDonald. Studies show there are about 110,000 Maori in Australia, representing about one in four of all…
Heart-stopping Gold
Wanaka-based Adam Hall, 22, paralympian gold medallist alpine skier, never had any special treatment says his father dairy farmer Lindsay Hall upon Adam’s win in Vancouver at the 2010 Winter Games. “He never got…
Texan challenges
James Milne, who goes by the performance name of Lawrence Arabia, is one of a number of New Zealand acts playing at the SXSW in Texas this month. He talks to the Austinist about…
Gender Balanced
New Zealand women are the most promiscuous in the world, according to a global survey on market research website onepoll.com which found that women in this country had an average of 20.4 sexual partners…
Part of the corps
Actors Temuera Morrison and Taika Waititi both star in the Martin Campbell-directed 3D film Green Lantern which began production in New Orleans in mid-March. Morrison is playing Abin Sur – a member of the interplanetary…
Jammin’ in the Air
The 2010 Farm Jam, New Zealand’s premiere bike jumping event, was recently held on Dan Frew’s land near Winton and included FMX, MX, BMX and MTB (mountain bike riding) spectacles. Riders were split into…
Guava Crumble Please
Gisborne-born, London-based chef Peter Gordon writes in The Independent on Sunday that he has “a sense of a growing tide of culinary xenophobia” and that the British “love affair with home-grown ingredients is killing…
Moa Eggshells Tell All
Scientists in New Zealand and Australia have extracted the DNA from the fossil eggshells of 3000-year-old moa. It is the first time that scientists have succeeded in extracting ancient DNA from the fossilised eggshells…
Quincey Does it Solo
Tasman rower Shaun Quincey, 24, has become the second person to successfully paddle across the stretch of water since his father did the same, though in the opposite direction, in 1977. Hundreds of family…
Funding the Flagship
“The turf in Auckland’s Eden Park stadium is freshly laid and verdant green, but three floors up, the corporate hospitality suite remains unfinished,” writes the Financial Times’ David Fickling. “Martin Snedden, chief executive of New Zealand’s…
Making her mark in LA
New Plymouth-born actress Melanie Lynskey, 32, talks to the Wall Street Journal about being a working actor in Hollywood, her big break in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures and about Up in the Air co-star…
Developing football
Wellington property developer Terry Serepisos, “who decided three years ago to save professional football in New Zealand, is the talk of his home town” writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Cockerill. “Wellington Phoenix are…
Strange Dealings
The “ghosts” of a man and a woman exorcised from a Christchurch woman’s home have been sold in phials of holy water on Trade Me for $2830. The auction attracted more than 200,000 page…
Top of their game
The Kathryn Bigelow film The Hurt Locker, which earned her a best director and best film Oscars, featured Auckland Isaac Hamon, 33; the scene depicting Hamon running away from an…
Courtesy code a model
In an article entitled, ‘New Zealanders’ code would help health debate’, Ron Eachus for the Oregon-based publication Statesman Journal ponders why this country, with its “way of treating people with respect … and common courtesy, untainted…
Oscar for Kim Sinclair
Auckland production designer Kim Sinclair won the Academy Award for Art Direction on Avatar with American colleagues Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg. “Each virtual set had trees and plants that were moveable, like real…
Like it or loathe it
Wellington Airport-owned land on the hills of Miramar Peninsula could soon sport a Hollywood-style sign with the word ‘Wellywood’ erected in 3.5m high letters, that is, if it isn’t in violation of Hollywood’s trademark….
Hartley Locks Ears
New Zealand-born English hooker Dylan Hartley, 23, talks to The Independent on Sunday ahead of the team’s biennial trip to Edinburgh to play Scotland, which England meets once more before a “supremely crucial” World Cup pool…
Qatar seeks NZ company
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) recently held an advisory board meeting under its Beachheads programme in Qatar. Through this two-year programme New Zealand companies are provided with faster access to better international networks….
Adrift on Lush Rakiura
“It’s from the air that Stewart Island reveals itself,” describes The Independent’s Ben Ross on a trip to Rakiura, or ‘Glowing Skies’. “All but one-sixth of the land is protected by national park statues,…
Taste for Trout
New Zealand’s trophy trout fishing is popular with anglers from all over the world who travel to the North Island for lake fishing and to the South Island for sight fishing, and for often…
Birthday at Broward
In late February, Soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performed works by Handel, Debussy, Vivaldi and others at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts, her first performance in the state of Florida in…
Relaxed and Recumbent
Creator of Rotorua’s human-powered monorail, the Schweeb, Geoffrey Barnett, “combined a laid-back, recumbent bicycle with monorail technology” and came up with the idea while living in Tokyo. Barnett worked on the design for six…
Twomey triumphs
Artistic director of the New Zealand International Arts Festival Lissa Twomey has “put together a triumphant programme of calculated risk-taking”. Guided by her long experience with the Sydney Festival and her now shrewd understanding of…
With a Hiss and a Roar
Nelson hovercraft inventor Rudy Heeman is auctioning his unconventional vehicle on TradeMe for a reserve price of $20,000. Heeman’s machine is a hovercraft in the conventional sense, but with the addition of detachable wings,…
Kauri Acoustics
Bay of Islands-based luthier Christian Druery makes guitars from ancient swamp kauri and last year created two instruments commissioned for the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona. “Essentially, I was asked to design and build two…
Win for NZ in Napier
New Zealand outran Australia by two wickets to win the opening Chappell-Hadlee one-day international at Napier’s Maclean Park. Scott Styris and Shane Bond were the unlikely heroes for New Zealand; chasing 275 for eight,…
Hooligan comes clean
Otara MC Karlos Diamond, aka Mr Sicc, who performs at SXSW 2010 in Austin, Texas on March 19, talked to US music site Spinner about his musical influences — including Marvin Gaye, Prince and…
Solid selection
Porirua-born sculptor Michael Parekowhai has been selected to represent New Zealand at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Parekowhai, 42, received the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award in 2001 and works as an associate…
Sculptured Meaning
At Timaru’s Phar Lap Raceway, a bronze statue of the famed Big Red and his regular jockey, Jim Pike takes pride of place. Today, the South Island city is making full use of the…
Designer royalty
Prestigious industry magazine Architectural Digest has named New Zealander Sandra Nunnerley in its annual AD 100 directory which represents a “selection of the top architects and interior designers whose work has featured in Architectural…
Albert Lit Up
Auckland’s 11th annual three-day Chinese Lantern Festival was held in February at Albert Park and featured performances by one of Shanghai’s top music ensembles Moon, Beijing-based Mongolian folk rock group Hanggai and rolling lantern…
Kerretta play SXSW
Auckland three-piece Kerretta make their US debut in March with a show at this year’s SXSW, the festival also marking the release of their debut album, Vilayer. Drawing from influences that seem to…
Missing the Boat
“New Zealand was a 1980s-era beacon of economic reform and rising prosperity,” writes Luke Malpass, an analyst in the New Zealand policy unit of the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney. In an article…
Seriously moving
Choreographer Neil Ieremia’s contemporary dance group Black Grace’s Gathering Clouds performance in February at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre is reviewed in the New Jersey State Ledger. Reviewer Robert Johnson writes: “Black Grace takes its dancing…
Thinking Outside the Ball
“As I tumbled down the mountainside in a gigantic beach ball filled with water, feeling somewhat like I was in a washing machine, it occurred to me that there had to be…
Referendum in Sight
New Zealand is due to hold an election referendum in 2011 to enable the population to decide between using AV or the current ‘first-past-the-post’ system. Ken Ritchie, the chief executive of Britain’s Electoral Reform…
Get Your Jet Pack Now
Inventor Glenn Martin’s jet pack will soon be commercially produced at an undisclosed site in New Zealand having finally secured sufficient investment. The 200 horsepower dual-propeller packs are the brainchild of Martin who unveiled his…
Outsider Made Happy
New Zealand-raised Louise Chunn, Psychologies magazine’s new editor, “is an outsider who made it” according to the Guardian’s Stephen Brook. After stints at, among others, Elle, the Guardian, Vogue, InStyle and Good…
Queenstown’s Quiet Side
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sarah Maguire visits “adrenalin-central”, but goes against-the-grain with a laid-back luxurious holiday. “Being a full-time working mother puts adrenalin into the system daily, so I don’t need that…
Science for a change
Kumeu neuroscientist and author of The Winner’s Bible Dr Kerry Spackman shares his day, and his work, as part of the Guardian’s Nine to Five series, beginning with a run, which for Spackman is…
Short film revolution
“Could 2010 be the year that New Zealand short filmmakers take over the world?” asks Indie Wire’s Kim Adelman. “The year began promisingly as Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland’s The Six Dollar Fifty Man…
Seeking an Identity
New Zealand pinot noir has come a long way over the past 10 years, continuing to improve each year, but because the grape is a newcomer to this country, a group of New York-based…
Lending a Hand
Former New Zealand All Black Wellington-born Filo Tiatia, 38, now a back-row forward and coach with the Ospreys rugby region in Wales, is backing a campaign to save Swansea’s Tennis Centre from closure. He…
Debut in Dayton
Pianist Justin Bird, 25, New Zealand’s young musician of the year in 2002, recently played a solo concert at Shiloh Church in Dayton, Ohio as part of the city’s final Soirees Musicales Piano Series….
For the In-crowd in NY
“It’s rare to see people walk out of a fashion show, but that is indeed what happened at Rebecca Taylor — but only because the Salon tent in Bryant Park [at New…
Graceful turns with clouds
Contemporary dance company Black Grace is touring the US making their debut at Princeton University’s McCarter Theatre in late February, performing their signature work “Minoi” and their latest work “Gathering Clouds”. One…
Delightfully Relaxing
On board Russell’s new 46m-long catamaran Ipipiri, which offers overnight cruises around the Bay of Islands, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rob McFarland learns about the town’s colourful past. “If you’d visited the…
Way of life applauded
Hawkes Bay couple Tom and Barbara Burstyn’s documentary This Way of Life about a Maori family living a subsistence lifestyle has screened at the Berlin Film Festival to full houses and a Jury…
Memories of plasma
The Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson “should forswear sugar next time and reintroduce himself to plasma, brain matter, puke, shit and intestines; all the elements that gave his earlier, sicker, funnier films their kick”,…
Attention to Change
Former prime minister Helen Clark, now head of the United Nation’s Development Agency, was recently at Sydney’s Lowy Institute calling for climate change to be put at the centre of international development strategies. In…
Cattle by Numbers
New Zealanders are now outnumbered by 5.8 million dairy cattle according to Statistics New Zealand’s latest agricultural production survey. New Zealand has a human population of 4.3 million. The number of sheep in the…
Walker’s inspiration
Karen Walker combined The Sound of Music with Bob Dylan and then threw in a snazzy sunglasses to create a collection dubbed “Sun Gods” at this year’s New York Fashion Week. Whether it’s…
Lauded for a lifetime
Soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at the 11th annual Classical Brits to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on May 13. Dame Kiri joins a…
