News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Te Whaea opens Options

Te Whaea opens Options

Options, a tertiary dance festival for Australian and New Zealand students held in Sydney, was joined on its gala day by the New Zealand School of Dance. The Kiwi dancers shone in a generally…

New Zealand High School Dropout Blazes a Trail in Bit Valley

New Zealand High School Dropout Blazes a Trail in Bit Valley

Terrie Lloyd runs one of Bit Valley’s (Tokyo’s answer to Silicon) most successful start-up companies, Daijob.com, the largest on-line recruiting firm in Japan, as well as his English- language J@pan Inc magazine, which has virtually no competitors….

Japan Harpoons ANZAC Conservation Efforts

Japan Harpoons ANZAC Conservation Efforts

Japan has gestured towards restarting ‘scientific’ whale-killing, despite stern objection form New Zealand and Australia and environmental groups. New Zealand IWC Commissioner Jim McLay, who is seen as a key anti-whaling speaker inside the commission, said the…

Bilbo buzz spawns rumour about a hoard of treasure

Bilbo buzz spawns rumour about a hoard of treasure

The Lord of the Rings folklore continues to spread. Fox chronicles the Ring rage: the record breaking previews, websites, esoteric and precious fans, mammoth investment and eager anticipation that the project has spawned. “To…

The Outsider: Huck Finn on Heroin

The Outsider: Huck Finn on Heroin

Alison Maclean brings verge vision to the story of an American outsider. Jesus’ Son, an adaptation of a story by cult American author Dennis Johnson, is about a 7’s junkie who finds redemption. The…

Sheep Joke

Sheep Joke

Alliance MP Grant Gillon faces being baa-ed from parliament after making a wise-crack (more commonly used by Australians) about the relationship between sheep and opposition politicians. The remark was made during a debate on the experimental use…

New Zealand Seeks New Relationship with Korea

New Zealand Seeks New Relationship with Korea

New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Phil Goff said his country will seek to support the process for peace on the Korean peninsula “through a developing dialogue and new relationship” with the Democratic People’s Republic…

Fortified Cereals May Reduce Heart Risk

Fortified Cereals May Reduce Heart Risk

Researchers from University of Otago report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that folic acid supplements and fortified cereals are more effective than a diet rich in naturally occurring folates in reducing levels of the heart…

Kiwi Killer Lady of Kingairloch

Kiwi Killer Lady of Kingairloch

In a shooting career from 1930 to 1999 the huntress of the highlands Patricia Strutt shot more than 2000 stags. With her death, aged 89, the Scottish highlands lost one of its most formidable…

Cate’s Elvish Ways: standing up for the sisters in

Cate’s Elvish Ways: standing up for the sisters in

Cate Blanchett, playing the role of the enigmatic and beautiful elf queen Gandriel in Lord of the Rings, found a unique way of keeping up with the lads on set – she wore platform…

New Zealand Not Giving Up on South Pacific Whale Sanctuary

New Zealand Not Giving Up on South Pacific Whale Sanctuary

A bid by New Zealand and Australia to establish an ocean sanctuary to protect whale breeding grounds failed at the International Whaling Commission Meeting in Adelaide. Despite securing two-thirds of the vote, they were blocked by the hard-lobbying…

The White Sox’ Hurling Hope

The White Sox’ Hurling Hope

As the New Zealand women’s softball team hopes to reclaim glory at the Olympics, they place a great deal of expectation on the shoulders of Gina Weber as the Vancouver Sun reports: “There was a -time…

Stead and Knox star at Melbourne Writer’s Festival

Stead and Knox star at Melbourne Writer’s Festival

New Zealand writers CK Stead “whose new novel has earned rave reviews in Britain and the US” and Elizabeth Knox feature among global talent including Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson, Zadie Smith (White Teeth), Alain…

The Edge Beckons

The Edge Beckons

The Financial Times ponders years of reform, New Zealand’s loss of confidence in its ability to survive in an era of globalisation and evaluates the context: what is the role of a small western economy on the…

Want Twins? Ewe May be in Luck

Want Twins? Ewe May be in Luck

New Zealand scientists at the AgResearch Institute have found a gene responsible for twins in sheep, a discovery that could lead to understanding human fertility treatments and contraceptives, as well as increased agricultural production. Sue Galloway…

War and Peace: Kiwi UN Official Warns of Half-job Solutions

War and Peace: Kiwi UN Official Warns of Half-job Solutions

As the United Nations administration in Kosovo prepares to shut down, its job of emergency relief deemed to be over, Kiwi UN special envoy Dennis McNamara has some advice for the next great international mission to rebuild…

Delightful Dowderwell’s Delphiniums

Delightful Dowderwell’s Delphiniums

The Scotsman’s gardening writer Carolyn Spray recommends an esoteric Wanganui website: “If you’re as passionate about delphiniums as I am, you’ll love this site … All about growing, pests and diseases likely to occur, it also has…

Enjoy: Lattes and Colas Not as Dangerous as Thought

Enjoy: Lattes and Colas Not as Dangerous as Thought

A study by the Australian and New Zealand Food authority has found that the caffeine pick-me-ups effect in tea, coffee, and soft drinks did less harm than previously thought. “We have been drinking tea, coffee and…

Frozen Tomb of Kiwi War Pilot Uncovered

Frozen Tomb of Kiwi War Pilot Uncovered

The RAF has never forgotten a Kiwi pilot, flight officer Arthur Round, and his crew who died when their aircraft crashed in a glacier in northern Iceland during a World War Two mission. An…

“Absence of Cutting Edge” Proves Scots Undoing

“Absence of Cutting Edge” Proves Scots Undoing

The All Blacks proved the theory and continued with breathtaking conviction to erase uncomfortable memories when they trounced Scotland 48-14. As Andy Nicol, the Scotland captain remarked later, “that is as ruthless a team as I…

Big cheese #2

Big cheese #2

New Zealander Errol J. Baird runs a food importing business in Jamaica. “He offers to the discerning gourmet New Zealand cheese and wine.”

TimeOut Gets into NZ’s Real Crown Jewels

TimeOut Gets into NZ’s Real Crown Jewels

Time Out’s Mary Ann Percy provides an insider’s guide to New Zealand’s recondite attractions. Everybody knows about New Zealand’s tourist standards (Jonah and the whales), but “get your A into G: have you slipped…

Jesus and the Second Coming

Jesus and the Second Coming

Kiwi director Alison Maclean wowed Cannes with the moody Crush, then took a seven year maturing process, through Sex and the City, Homicide and a Natalie Imbruglia music video, to release the indie-hit Jesus’…

Out of Africa Theory of Evolution

Out of Africa Theory of Evolution

The Economist ponders the ‘where did we come from’ question, referring to the out-of-Africa theory first developed by New Zealand biochemist, the revolutionary Allan Wilson, and his colleague Rebecca Cann. They studied genetic material from a variety…

Piecing Together the WTO After Seattle

Piecing Together the WTO After Seattle

Kiwi World Trade Organisation head Mike Moore urges resolve and ponders the failure to launch a new round of trade talks in protest-ridden Seattle. “The WTO is at the heart of a passionate debate about the defining…

Otherworldly Sauvignon Blancs

Otherworldly Sauvignon Blancs

The New York Press predicts a sauvignon blanc summer – great for when the mercury rises. “The genuinely good stuff–particularly the world-class sauvignon blancs of New Zealand’s Marlborough region – tastes like alcoholic Fresca. Tastes almost otherworldly,…

Mandy Smith: Hockey’s Answer to Anna Kournikova

Mandy Smith: Hockey’s Answer to Anna Kournikova

In an article deploring the emphasis on sex over substance in the sporting press, the Irish Times compares New Zealand hockey’s Mandy Smith to Anna Kournikova. This, following a 3-0 drubbing of World and Olympic champions Australia….

Peter Jackson: “One of the Most Creative Directors Around”

Peter Jackson: “One of the Most Creative Directors Around”

Chicago Tribune, backs the talent of Jackson and a “top notch cast” as Hollywood indemnity for the Lord of the Rings. Jackson was recently voted 7th most promising director for the 21st century in…

Cuizean

Cuizean

Kiwi super-chef Peter Gordon is one of the “illustrious visitors” concocting culinary creations at Henrietta Green’s Food Lovers’ Fair. The fair brings together specialist food producers and suppliers hand-picked by the redoubtable Miss Green…

Lisa Harrow brings Wit to the stage in New York

Lisa Harrow brings Wit to the stage in New York

Kiwi Lisa Harrow plays the lead in what the Times calls “a theatrical experience of which legends are made”. She plays Dr. Vivian Bearing, an uncompromising professor of literature who learns that intellectual brilliance…

Rogue Anna Paquin is Premiere Cover mutant

Rogue Anna Paquin is Premiere Cover mutant

Playing the character of ‘Rogue’ in Bryan Singer’s (Usual Suspects) blockbuster adaptation of comic legend X-Men, Anna Paquin makes the special edition cover of July’s Premiere. Like Paquin’s Oscar winning acting talent, Rogue is…

New Zealand Edges into the Top-twenty, but Gives Women a Fair Go

New Zealand Edges into the Top-twenty, but Gives Women a Fair Go

For the seventh consecutive year, Canada ranks overall as the best place in the world to live according to the UN Human Development Report 2000. New Zealand is in twentieth place behind Austria, Ireland…

Whatever you do don’t go in the water

Whatever you do don’t go in the water

More bloody innovation saw Colenso pick up a Golden Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival. The campaign to promote the opening of the movie Scream, unlike another Kiwi winner at Cannes, involved a little…

Cyborg creatives

Cyborg creatives

New Zealand artists working with cutting edge computer-based new media technology feature in Art Asia Pacific’s feature “Interface: visions of the body and machine”. Mauren Lander and John Fairclough are integrating traditional Maori weaving…

Breath of fresh air from ideas company wins Cannes award

Breath of fresh air from ideas company wins Cannes award

Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland won a Golden Lion at the renowned Cannes Advertising Festival for its innovative solution for the Auckland Regional Council Anti-Pollution campaign. The campaign involved local artists decorating stormwater grates to…

Romance and roadkill in

Romance and roadkill in

Director Alison Maclean’s edge aesthetic gets sharper: described by the New Yorker as having a “big messy emotional talent”, she is thrilled that audiences are connecting with the romance rather than the wierdness. But…

Kiwi Bomb Victim Determined to Rebuild His Life

Kiwi Bomb Victim Determined to Rebuild His Life

Gary Reid, whose body was devastated by a nail bomb explosion at the Admiral Duncan Pub (London) last year, vows to recover fully and without malice, “I am looking forward to getting an artificial…

Stories from the Diaspora

Stories from the Diaspora

“I write to give voice to those who are otherwise lost or forgotten completely in Pacific literature: young girls and women.” Pasifika Press in New Zealand snapped up Sia Figiel’s where we once…

Giesen Estate Best White of the Show at Prestigous US Awards

Giesen Estate Best White of the Show at Prestigous US Awards

Giesen Wine Estate Double Gold 1999 Sauvignon Blanc, from Marlborough, has won best white of the show at America’s most important wine-judging event, the San Francisco International Wine Judging Competition. With 2,800 wines from around the world entered, it…

Phil Keoghan Spot on as Adventure Crazy Host

Phil Keoghan Spot on as Adventure Crazy Host

Remembered in New Zealand as host of Spot On, 3.45pm Live, Phil Keoghan has made a name for himself in the US as host and executive producer of Phil Keoghan’s Adventure Crazy, a popular…

Building Rome and other literary Pastimes

Building Rome and other literary Pastimes

“I like computer games – of the world domination kind.” She-Devil/New Zealand reared novelist Fay Weldon, in the Independent’s 50-best list, admits she has a soft-spot for empire building, channelling her desires through computer…

From One Edge to Another to Take up the Haka Challenge

From One Edge to Another to Take up the Haka Challenge

From Vancouver on the edge of the Atlantic, director Jonathan Tammuz will continue a global roll to the edge of the Pacific to direct “Haka” an 1850s-set $30million British production. The production will be…

The Ubiquitous Crowe Tabloid Dispatch

The Ubiquitous Crowe Tabloid Dispatch

“Hollywood’s golden girl Meg in marriage split … Crowe has become Hollywood’s latest heart-throb since starring as Maximus, in the summer’s most successful blockbuster. Ryan is reported to have spent considerable time with Crowe…

“I’m Quite a Fearful Person Actually”

“I’m Quite a Fearful Person Actually”

Sir Ed might have to do some convincing – he will go down in history as one of the Twentieth Century’s great adventurers. The Independent asks if the 81 year-old has any mountains left to climb,…

Kiwi Linguists Chart Man’s Journey Across the Pacific

Kiwi Linguists Chart Man’s Journey Across the Pacific

University of Auckland linguists Russell Gray and Fiona Jordan, “may have solved one of the greatest mysteries in human prehistory – how people managed to colonise the Pacific”. Writing in the journal Nature they analysed 77 languages…

Danyon Loader: The Retiring Type?

Danyon Loader: The Retiring Type?

New Zealand double Olympic swimming gold medalist Danyon Loader has announced his retirement, “I’ve been swimming competitively since 1987 … and the desire and incentive to race has diminished,” said Loader, 25, who won gold medals in…

Sam Neill: walking with the dinosaurs … again

Sam Neill: walking with the dinosaurs … again

Kiwi Neill has become the first major actor to sign on for more encounters with a blue screed/rampaging dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 3. He will reprise his role as Dr. Alan Grant from the…

Bryan Gould: Best Belletrist on the Left

Bryan Gould: Best Belletrist on the Left

The New Statesman’s literary editor uses his position to weigh up the relative literary merits of the Tory MPs compared to their Labour counterparts, and finds that the Tories are up at halftime, “with the exception…

Pete Sampras Follows Historic Kiwi Footsteps at Wimbledon

Pete Sampras Follows Historic Kiwi Footsteps at Wimbledon

Kiwi contribution to a tennis legacy: “No man in this century has dominated the world’s only important grasscourt tournament quite like Sampras. Not Hugh Doherty. Not the dashing New Zealander Tony Wilding. Not Fred Perry. Not Rod…

Simply the best: Dame Kiri: the Tina Turner of the opera world?

Simply the best: Dame Kiri: the Tina Turner of the opera world?

Dame Kiri talks about her Maori heritage, playing to an audience of 600 million people, her forthcoming concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and how long she can keep performing. Interviewing the  world-renowned soprano,…

New Zealand Versus the Mother Country: A Titanic Struggle

New Zealand Versus the Mother Country: A Titanic Struggle

We’re obviously not talking rugby, but earthworms. Visitors to the University of Dundee’s Botany Department got to see a titanic struggle of earthly proportions, with the New Zealand flatworm attacking and overwhelming its British cousin – the…

University of Canterbury, (Kuala Lumpur)

University of Canterbury, (Kuala Lumpur)

The University of Canterbury, New Zealand, held its inaugural overseas graduation and degree presentation in Kuala Lumpur with officials, 60 alumni and 200 guests attending. The universities strong ties with Malaysia stretch back 50…

Hollywood Hobbit Brings Trouble to Middle Earth

Hollywood Hobbit Brings Trouble to Middle Earth

Literary fans who are devoted to the purity of Tolkien’s Middle Earth ouevre are angry at rumours that Frodo Baggins is ready to flirt. The introduction of glamorous Hollywood stars such as Liv Tyler…

Fusion eating: Kiwi food produce makes for great Italian fare in Malaysia

Fusion eating: Kiwi food produce makes for great Italian fare in Malaysia

“The start to original Italian food is to use all fresh ingredients … the juicy New Zealand mussels in Amatricana sauce are to die for … the imported New Zealand spring lamb grilled in…

Vodka and herb, a très moderne kiwi potable

Vodka and herb, a très moderne kiwi potable

The Guardian blows away the myth that herbs are restrained by the cooking pot and salad bowl and offers some herbal cocktails for the urban sophisticate, including herb-based martinis from Dick Bardsell and vodka…

Graham Henry First Non-British Coach of the Lions

Graham Henry First Non-British Coach of the Lions

Call it post-colonial, call it usurping, but New Zealander Graham Henry will be charged with giving the British Lions Rugby-Union team a new roar for their tour of Australia next year. Citing his will to win…