Why is New Zealand so Progressive?
She wasn’t the only mother checking in with their whānau that evening. But this woman was Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, and the one who had decided – on expert advice – to…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Coach George Simpkins Took Rugby to China
New Zealander George Simpkin, Hong Kong’s former head coach and HKRU technical director, who played a major role in the overall development of rugby in China and Asia, has died aged 77, the South…
Hilary Bracefield was a True Polymath
“Writing on a wide range of subjects from Stravinsky to the poetry of her fellow New Zealander Fleur Adcock, my friend and one-time colleague at the University of Ulster, Hilary Bracefield, has died,…
Geoff Walker a Helping Hand in Uganda
Photographer Geoff Walker left New Zealand to escape the haunting memory of witnessing the 2012 Carterton balloon tragedy, and found a new purpose for life in humanitarian work in Uganda, Mariné Lourens reports for…
James Shaw on Our Economic Climate Post-COVID-19
Cheap, renewable electricity is one way of reviving economies and preserving New Zealand’s natural environment, Climate Change Minister and co-leader of the Green Party James Shaw argues in an opinion piece for The Guardian. Shaw…
Rare Parakeet Rebounds in New Zealand
Populations of New Zealand’s critically endangered orange-fronted parakeet, or Malherbe’s parakeet, are recovering thanks to conservation efforts concentrated on bringing them back from the brink, the editor of educational geography website World Atlas, Oishimaya Sen Nag,…
Boris Johnson Just Another Patient Says Jenny McGee
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “just another patient we were trying to do our best for”, one of the nurses who treated him has said. In her first public comment since Johnson…
What Next for New Zealand’s Economy?
“In New Zealand, a country of five million people, new COVID-19 cases have been in the single digits for most of the past week. Australia reported just seven new infections on 23 April. That…
Jacinda Ardern “May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet”
Influential U.S. news journal The Atlantic says “Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style, focused on empathy, isn’t just resonating with her people; it’s putting the country on track for success against the coronavirus.” Uri Friedman, staff…
New Zealand One of World’s Most Resilient Economies
Experts have already begun assessing how a recovery might look once the COVID-19 virus is contained, and which countries stand to bounce back best. According to the 2019 Global Resilience Index, New Zealand sits…
May the US Find Its Ashley Bloomfield
“It’s a dark time, with the days blurring together and the hours crawling by. New Zealanders may be known for our laid-back, generally cheerful demeanours, but truth be told we’re getting pretty ratty, pretty…
How New Zealand Is Coping under Lockdown
As the COVID-19 crisis continues, Forbes hears from their science contributors across the globe, including New Zealand-based Irish writer, Laurie Winkless who, over Twitter, asked a number of New Zealanders to share their stories…
Allbirds for Health Workers During COVID-19 Crisis
Around the world, there is a shortage of personal protective gear that will keep health workers safe as they care for patients in COVID-19 wards, Elizabeth Segran reports for Fast Company magazine. While companies…
Ruby Princess and the Great Discontinuity
Denis O’Reilly is a New Zealand community leader and activist. This is his 91st essay for nzedge.com. My time as a bouncer on the door at Ali Baba’s in Cuba St Wellington, circa 1975,…
PM Jacinda Ardern Inspires Across Planet
March is National Women’s History Month in the US and Washington state newspaper, the Chinook Observer, salutes several outstanding women, including our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. The Observer’s Robert Brake writes: “I extend kudos to 39-year-old New…
John Platts-Mills QC Stuck to His Principles
A journalist for London’s independent newspaper the Camden New Journal recalls the first public meeting he attended as a 16-year-old in Manchester, a meeting at which Wellington-born John Platts-Mills became his hero. “It was a…
Recognising the Whanganui River’s Legal Voice
In 2017, New Zealand granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River. Since then, other nations have followed suit in an effort to protect the environment. The BBC’s Luana Harumi reports, with the river featured…
Big Future in Tiny Homes Says Bryce Langston
Some call them small homes, while others prefer ‘tiny homes’ or ‘tiny houses’. Whatever the terminology, more and more people are getting their heads around the idea of creating living spaces that depart significantly…
Escaping COVID-19 Chaos in New York
It started with an ominous email: “We urge New Zealanders currently travelling overseas to consider returning home while commercial options remain available,” the foreign affairs ministry wrote. For citizens of the nation at the…
New Zealand Eases Abortion Restrictions
Lawmakers have voted to liberalise New Zealand’s abortion law and allow unrestricted access during the first half of pregnancy, ending the country’s status as one of the few wealthy nations to limit the grounds…
Earth’s Green Flag Flies for Jeanette Fitzsimons
For the decade Sue Bradford spent in parliament as a Green MP, party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons led by example, bringing a quiet but steely determination to everything she did. Bradford writes about the politician,…
Pioneer Troy Collings Made N Korean Connections
New Zealander Troy Collings, whose tour-guide company specialised in taking young budget travellers to forbidding places like North Korea, has died. He was 33. The cause was a heart attack, his company, Young Pioneer Tours,…
Kea Show Humanlike Ability to Make Predictions
Whether it’s calculating your risk of catching coronavirus or gauging the chance of rain on your upcoming beach vacation, you use a mix of statistical, physical, and social information to make a decision, Virginia…
Businesswoman Mavis Mullins Speaks on Pukaha Treaty Reparations with NPR
Mavis Mullins runs a sheep-shearing company that handles over 1,000,000 sheep. She’s also a charming, disarmingly honest straight-shooter. One day her cousin pulled her into a café with a request: Help us fight with…
Jennifer Ward-Lealand Te Atamira named Kiwibank’s New Zealander of the Year.
The actress was awarded the title by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Other finalists in the running for the award included Peter Beck – the chief executive of RocketLab, and Professor Jane Harding from Auckland University’s…
Jacinda Ardern Has the World’s Attention
History came fast at Jacinda Ardern. Just a few years ago, in 2017, having been a local Member of Parliament for a matter of months, she became a Hail Mary candidate for Prime Minister,…
Peter Hogg Quietly Shaped Canadian Law
Peter Hogg, a New Zealander who became Canada’s pre-eminent constitutional scholar, was sometimes called the 10th person on that country’s nine-member Supreme Court. Hogg died on 4 February, aged 80. The Globe and Mail’s…
Māori Increasingly Asserting Identity with Tā moko
Gary Harding’s body is a living testimony to his heritage. Tā moko, a cultural tattoo artwork, adorns Harding’s face and body, a visualisation of his Māori whakapapa or genealogy, his role in the community…
New Zealand, India, Collaborate on Leading-Edge Research, Education
New Zealand’s education ties with India have been strengthened by a New Zealand university-led academic workshop at the Indian Institute of Technology, culminating today with a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a New Zealand…
OSACO Investigates Global Corruption From Blenheim
The last place you might expect to find the headquarters for a global corruption investigation group is small town New Zealand, Sophie Trigger writes for The Marlborough Express. But after working in some of…
In the Zone with Educator Terrance Wallace
Chicago-born Terrance Wallace founded the internationally lauded InZone Project that has been educating impoverished indigenous students in New Zealand for 10 years. InZone is now being replicated in his hometown. Maudlyne Ihejirika reports for…
Mike Moore Dedicated his Life to Helping NZ
Mike Moore, who served as New Zealand’s prime minister before leading the World Trade Organisation (WTO) during a tumultuous time when thousands protested in Seattle riots, has died in Auckland. He was 71. Associated…
How Surgeon Ian Bissett Did Wonders in Nepal
Every year 33 million people globally are left impoverished after paying for surgery. Others die for lack of treatment. New Zealander Ian Bissett has been operating on desperately poor patients in Nepal for more…
New Zealand’s Role in Canada’s Pacific Shift
“A contract for Canada to upgrade two New Zealand frigates illustrates a budding, mutually-beneficial, Pacific-focused relationship,” according to Melbourne-based political analyst Grant Wyeth reporting for Washington D.C.-based online international news magazine, The Diplomat. “Last …
Helen Clark Discusses Global Cooperation
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark is unequivocal when challenged on the pervading doom and gloom about the world. Can she really remain an optimist? “Of course,” she said enthusiastically, when former UK…
New Zealand Least Corrupt Country in the World
New Zealand is seen as the least corrupt country in the world, according to a new report by the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which shows New Zealand and Denmark tied for the top…
Haiti Journalist Bernard Diederich a Man of Truth
Christchurch-born Bernard “Bernie” Diederich, a long-time journalist in the Caribbean region who braved dictators and disasters, has died in his adopted homeland of Haiti, The Associated Press reports for a story published in The New…
Scientists Climb Tane Mahuta to Help Save Kauri
Two arborists, chest-deep in underbrush, secured a rope slung over a branch in the Waipoua Forest, close to the northern tip of New Zealand. Scott Forrest pumped his fist, Per Liljas writes for The…
Jacinda Ardern is Pacific Person of the Year
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is Fiji-based publication, Islands Business 2019 Pacific Person of the Year, the second person of non-Pacific heritage to ever be awarded the title. “Just over two years since she…
Chief Censor David Shanks Tackles the C-Word
When David Shanks presents himself at international conferences, his peers recoil slightly, Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for The Guardian. “I’d introduce myself as, ‘Hi, I’m David from New Zealand. New Zealand’s chief censor,’” Shanks says. “And…
Dubliner Gavin Lang Loves NZ’s Mountains
Each week, The Irish Times column “Abroad” interviews an Irish person working in an interesting job overseas. Last week the newspaper met Gavin Lang, who is originally from Glasnevin, Dublin, but now lives in…
UK Ambassador Laura Clarke’s Aim in Office
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Laura Clarke, the British high commissioner to New Zealand, writes about why the UK wants to strengthen its relationship with Māori. “The connections between the UK and New…
Can Technology Save the Kākāpō?
Large, plump and nocturnal, the kākāpō is the only parrot in the world that lives on the ground and cannot fly. There are only 211 in existence, confined to four small islands off the…
Manawatāwhi’s Lonely Kaikōmako Gets Some Neighbours
After seven decades of cuttings, failures, plant enzymes, a little coaxing, and a Māori blessing, one of the world’s rarest trees – which lives on a tiny island 64km off the northern edge of…
What California Can Learn from Christchurch
“I went to New Zealand on a long-planned vacation to see the setting for The Lord of the Rings movies and the mountain scenery. But as the earthquake reporter for the Los Angeles Times,…
Sir Peter Snell Sports Champion of the Centuries
Sir Peter Snell, three-time Olympic champion on the track and arguably the greatest runner in the history of New Zealand athletics has died, aged 80, at his home in Dallas, Texas, where he lived…
NZSOF Mission After Disaster on Whaakari
The team that recovered bodies from Whaakari/White Island went “to the depths of their endurance and past it,” said the colonel who oversaw the mission. The bodies were almost half a kilometre from shore, some…
Jacinda Ardern Makes Annual Bloomberg 50 List
“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern banned military-style semiautomatic and assault rifles six days after 51 people died in the worst mass shooting in the country’s modern history … and rallied the leaders of…
Labour Elects Hungarian-Kiwi Claire Szabó
“A truly surprising story from New Zealand. The ruling Labour Party has elected Claire Szabó as its new president. New Zealand-born Szabó is also a Hungarian citizen, her father served as Hungary’s Honorary Consul…
In the Shadow of the Mt Erebus Disaster
It remains New Zealand’s worst peacetime disaster. On 28 November 1979, a sightseeing aircraft carrying 257 people crashed head-on into the side of a volcano in Antarctica. The tragedy of flight TE901 was a…
Tackling Hot-Button Liberal Issues in One Swoop
Next year, our country will hold public referendums to decide whether to legalise assisted suicide and recreational marijuana, and separately, lawmakers will consider a bill that would decriminalise abortion. Conflict-averse New Zealanders may be…
Housing Crisis Bites in Northland
A 30 per cent rise in people waiting for state housing in Northland is fuelling New Zealand’s “desperate” shortage in affordable homes, resulting in some families living in the woods, and in huts built…
Anne Young Improving the Welfare of Horses
It’s 6pm on a freezing winter’s night, the wind is howling and the rain beating down. In the darkness, New Zealander Anne Young, the president and founder of Victoria’s Horse Shepherd Equine Sanctuary,…
Pioneer Croatian Settlers in New Zealand
Historian and author Kaye Dragicevich has been extensively researching the Far North of New Zealand, the area where a large number of pioneering families came from Croatia in search of a better life over…
Moe mai rā Nancy Brunning
One of New Zealand’s best loved actresses Nancy Brunning, made famous as Nurse Jaki on Shortland Street, has died in Wellington, aged 48, Daily Mail Australia reports. Brunning, a talented playwright, acting coach and director,…
New Zealand’s Bird of the Year is the Hoiho
The endangered hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) won New Zealand’s coveted Bird of the Year competition after two weeks of intense campaigning, the BBC reports. The hoiho saw off many avian rivals to become the first…
