Nuke Free
New Zealand continues to play a key role in the call for a New Agenda, successfully co-sponsoring wider acceptance of Non-Proliferation Treaty commitments at the UN.
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
£40m free mag
TNT and Southern Cross, Britain’s free mags for antipodean expats, have been sold for £40m. The buyer, Trader Media Group, plans to launch a complementary website.
Vagana Captured
The Bradford Bulls League team have extra muscle in the form of 18-stone Joe Vagana, ex-Warriors. “Joe’s capture will send ripples across the game,” says Bradford coach Brian Noble.
Edge Jet
“Created in New Zealand, Jet Sprint Racing places over-powered engines into undersized boats and blasts racers through swampy, shallow and tight cornered courses.”
Barker on Pace
Team NZ skipper Dean Barker tops the November World Match Race Rankings, beating his lieutenant Bertrand Pace into second place.
Power Dressing
The Powerhouse Museum’s Fashion of 2000 features New Zealand designer Karen Walker’s “it” broken pearl dress, alongside work by Stella McCartney, Galliano and Versace.
Muscling In
Wellington will host the 2002 World Bodybuilding Championships. The influx of talent should put paid to the brain-drain hysteria.
Lazarus
New Zealand First’s annual conference saw leader Winston Peters returning to traditional themes of nationalism, battling on behalf of the battler, equal rights for all New Zealanders and anti-political correctness. He also mentioned that NZF is still…
PM Groucho re TV
“I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set I go and read a book.” Helen Clark is in perfect agreement with Groucho Marx’s thoughts on the box.
Godzone/Godawful?
Australian-based Kiwi Bernard Lagan trashes New Zealand’s health, wealth and spirit. Helen Clark exercises the right of reply.
O’Donnell’s limit
“As star of the (Kiwi-directed) mountain-climbing epic Vertical Limit Chris O’Donnell had been helicoptered to the edge of a jagged rock formation in New Zealand’s rugged Southern Alps and deposited to “hang out” for…
Location location
New Zealand is hot property, drawing location scouts who scour the planet looking for the perfect waterfall or mountain stream.
Woolly Coincidence
Was it morphic resonance that caused New Zealand sheep to start rolling across cattle girds at the same time as their Welsh cousins? Could a similar force be affecting sisterly novelists?
Milk Flows South
Kiwi Milk, one of New Zealand’s big dairy players, has swallowed Kaikoura Co-operative Dairy Co. The merger will “assist with increased milk flows”.
Tuna Tussle
How much is too much? New Zealand, Australia and Japan have brought in independent scientific experts to settle the row over tuna quotas.
Maine Marine
The US Conservation Law Foundation calls for marine sanctuaries, citing New Zealand’s flexible marine conservation scheme.
Leia Skyjumper
Carrie Fisher on drugs, Thai food and going stratospheric: ‘I was in New Zealand recently, on one of those bungee catapults, which I was far too old to go on, and just as we were about…
Tumeke Te Nana
Karl Te Nana picked up Man of the Tournament and R10 000 after New Zealand’s winning sevens effort in Durban.
Wave of Light
National Children’s Memorial Day is dedicated to families mourning a child. The event is marked by twenty-four hours of candle light, starting in New Zealand.
Power Dressing #2
Dress for Success provides smart clothes for UK, US and NZ women looking for jobs. “This isn’t about ‘ladies who lunch’ sprinkling love and charity on the poor. The Dress for Success thing is…
Flu in Freetown
Sierra Leone was an important staging port on the long route home for WWI ANZAC troops. Freetown’s cemetery commemorates a handful of Australians and a lone New Zealander, their journeys cut short by influenza.
Counting Crowe
Amazon keeps count of DVD pre-orders. Gladiator gores Perfect Storm 80 000 to 30 0000 . Also due out on DVD is Crowe’s “breakthrough performance” in Romper Stomper.
Xena kills jiggle TV
“Is it the end of the Baywatch phenomenon? In place of the silicon- enhanced charms of David Hasselhof’s babes is the well-toned New Zealander who yells yi-yi-yi-yi when vanquishing an opponent, leaps through the…
Green-edged Canada
“The Green Party is part of an international movement of environment-centred parties that began in New Zealand in 1972.” – Values Party perhaps?
Howzat?
John Wright gets personal on his new job as coach of the Indian cricket team: “One of the challenges of the job is to communicate with people. You have to be sensitive about it.”…
Thar’ She Blows!
The Kaikoura whale-boom is part of one of the world’s fastest-growing tourism opportunities, worth over US $1billion world-wide.
Burmese Campaign
From New Zealand to Burma, and then into prison for playing pro-democracy songs. Londoner James Mawdsley used his OE to fight SLORC.
A&LD rave
“Ever find yourself overwhelmed by the mass of information the net makes available?” Make like those in the know and head to New Zealand (and the web’s) hottest site, Arts and Letters Daily.
Role-model Winslet
As well as being every New Zealand director’s actress of choice, Kate Winslet can handle a baby.
Whale of an Appetite
Whales eat up to five times as much fish as humans, therefore protecting them is absurd, according to Dan Goodman of the Japan Institute of Cetacean Research, speaking at a whaling conference in New Zealand. …
Ice and Cannibals
Alan Gurney details three mid-nineteenth century voyages to Antarctica. Included is a “grisly description by a New Zealand missionary of the cannibalistic Maoris’ method of creating shrunken human heads.”
Location #2
“As globalisation impacts mainstream Indian cinema, one of the early fall-outs is a flight of locations, with Indian film-makers snapping up every excuse in the book to shoot everywhere – from Alaska to New…
Wave Action
A South Pacific-style reef in Bournemouth is the brain child of Prof Kerry Black of Waikato University. The big waves will help turn the resort into the next “coolest city in the universe”.
Geeks Downunder
“Geeks have a great chance Down Under” states the Economic Times. This, and other such headlines, are drawing high-skill immigrants to New Zealand where “living conditions are definitely better than elsewhere”.
Kosher Washer
Dishdrawers by Fisher & Paykel are taking the American Jewish market by storm. The separate compartments make them the kosher washer of choice according to New Zealand sources close to the Paykel family.
Sauvignon Temptation
Former Scots Rugby rep Rob Wainwright recalls a New Zealand tour run along the lines of a temperance society outing. The players escaped the coach for a day of deep-sea fishing, which swiftly “degenerated into deep…
Versatile Machine
Pakistani engineers have developed a “bed shaper cum seed drill”, and are exporting the all-purpose agri-tool to Uzbekistan thanks to New Zealand sponsorship.
Milford Magic
“Awesome!” screams Eric Forseter, 23. “The sheer power of being under a natural phenomenon like that is unbelievable.” Milford Sound, “a virtual catalogue of natural wonders of the Southern Hemisphere,” awes and exhilarates visitors.
Squash Title
World #1 Leilani Joyce was narrowly beaten in the final round of the World Women’s Open by Auckland-based Australian Carol Owens, who has indicated she’d like a place on the New Zealand squad in the future….
Horsemen of the Edge
“New Zealand horsemen have arrived in the village. They have taken over a surplus cowshed just behind the blacksmith’s. I visit and discover that, having seen better days, the shed is being converted with vast energy…
Balibo Five
Investigations are being renewed into the killing of five journalists (including New Zealander Gary Cunningham) during Indonesian’s invasion of East Timor twenty-five years ago.
Stadium award
“The trend has finally swung away from the exaggeration of post-modernism … Buildings are now plain, restrained and professional.” Capturing the mood, Wellington’s WestpacTrust Stadium picked up the international section at the Australian National…
Blinding Brilliance
Blind cricket is played with wicker balls, footballs and cricket balls, all with rattles inside so the players can hear where to hit. The New Zealand team are bowled over by England at the World Cup,…
Special League
The New Zealand team “ran out of juice” in the final, according to Frank Endacott, but they received praise from England’s coach for their semi-final performance: “I thought New Zealand were a bit special,” said John Kear….
Global Peddlers
250 bike-riding globe-circumnavigators are on their way to New Zealand as part of Odyssey 2000, an official Millennium event.
One Love
Bob Brett used to correct Boris Becker’s backhand. Now he’s formed a Paris academy to coach young stars, including fourteen-year-old New Zealander Eden Marama.
Hrithik era
Indian tourists are awarding New Zealand an Oscar. Visitor numbers have shot up on the back of a high-profile film starring mega-hunk Hrithik Roshan and New Zealand as the backdrop.
Ideas on IQ
1994’s The Bell Curve suggested that Black Americans have a lower average IQ than other groups – a suggestion that appalled Waikato academic James Flynn. Flynn suggests IQ tests reflect environment as much inherent “intelligence”, calculating that…
Southern Travail
“The temperature will drop as low as minus 10 degrees, waves will be as high as 4 meters and the wind will be as strong as 40 knots.” None of which deterred winning home team Propeller…
Slightly Missed
“Aaron Slight worked very hard for the team in the seven years he was with us and everyone at Castrol Honda is very appreciative of that. He played an important part in the development of the…
Security or Spying?
Activist Nicky Hager sees proposed anti-hacking laws as spying – Minister Paul Swain defends them as essential cyber-security.
New Zealand Pride
Not as bursting with hubris as the Algerians, don’t think we’re as great as the Greeks, not as frank in our appreciation as the French, but we’re in the top twenty countries that inspire pride in their…
NZ-edged NuTech
Matt Michalewicz, 24, founder and CEO of NuTech Solutions Inc fled to New Zealand from his native Poland at age six. He became “the only student I know of who drove to class every day in a…
Popstar export
Put it up there with kiwifruit and spreadable butter – the Popstars formula has become a unique New Zealand export success. Pop-packager extraordinaire David Foster will be involved in the US edition.
Unsubsidised Exuberance
New Zealand farmers are spreading the anti-subsidy word to Canuks: “We were regarded as leeches in society. Now we take our place. We’ve earned the respect of society,” says Fed. Famers’ Pres. Alistair Polson in Ottawa.
Whitewash
Maori cut from crowd scenes in Her Majesty, US-funded feature film set in New Zealand c.1953-54. Producer Walter Coblenz (All the President’s Men), said historical accuracy motivated the cutting.
