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,…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
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…
New Zealand Passes Zero Carbon Law
New Zealand has passed a law to reduce its emissions in a bid to become mostly carbon neutral by 2050, Britain’s Independent newspaper reports. The zero-carbon bill aims to tackle climate change by setting a…
Artist Scott Conrad Kelly Gets Some Rich Insights
London-based artist Scott Conrad Kelly, 29, first started documenting the kind of scribbles people left on the walls of public bathrooms in London in 2016, Raj Aditya Chaudhuri writes for Condé Nast Traveller. “I like…
Happy Sad Grant Trebilco Opens Up in New Film
New Zealand-born Grant Trebilco, who lives in Bondi, is one of the five subjects of Melbourne director Genevieve Bailey’s feature film Happy Sad Man, which investigates how men, who represent 75 per cent of…
Activist Richard McLachlan Talks Tough on Climate
Since June, activist New Zealander Richard McLachlan, 68, regularly gives talks on the New York subway, warning riders “we are sleepwalking into a catastrophe”. McLachlan is a member of Extinction Rebellion, an environmental action…
New Zealand the Small Country that Keeps on Top
For a country with a population under five million, its prowess on the sporting stage has always appeared to be disproportionate, James Master writes for CNN. Olympic champions in rowing, sailing, canoeing, home of…
New Zealander Subject of UK Mental Health Exhibit
The Museum of Lost and Found Potential launches in London this week, marking World Mental Health Day with an exhibition that hopes to encourage empathy, action and even anger by showing what mental illness…
Chit-Chat Flows Easily in NZ but Does It in Europe?
“In New Zealand, small talk flows so easily, a ceaseless background banter you become inured to and engage in unthinkingly. And it often goes so much deeper than exchanging shallow pleasantries,” Guardian journalist Eleanor…
Barbara Wheeler, The First New Zealander to Become a Longwood Gardens Fellow
Dunedin horticulturist Barbara Wheeler is the first New Zealander to receive a fellowship from Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, one of the premier horticultural gardens in the United States. The 13-month residency aims…
Anniversary of Cook’s Arrival Marked with Debate
The British government have expressed “regret” that explorers killed some of the first Māori they met 250 years ago but stopped short of issuing a full apology. British High Commissioner Laura Clarke met Māori tribal…
Tributes Flow for Randwick Legend Jeff Sayle
Former Wallabies flanker and “Randwick legend”, New Zealand-born Jeff Sayle has died in Sydney aged 77. The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Sayle was an icon of Sydney’s eastern beaches, a beloved member of Coogee Surf…
Why Ihumātao Truly is a Piece of New Zealand’s Soul
“In a city that has destroyed or forgotten most of its past, fragments of Auckland’s deep histories still survive at Ihumātao,” history curator at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira Lucy Mackintosh…
Helen Clark Lays Out Her Reasons for Legalising It
In an opinion piece for the UK’s Guardian newspaper, former prime minister and member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy Helen Clark explains why a ‘yes’ in next year’s referendum is a vote…
Tourists Banned from Swimming with Dolphins
Tourists have been banned from swimming with bottlenose dolphins in New Zealand in a bid to protect them from “being loved into extinction”. Chiaro Giordano reports for UK newspaper, The Independent. The population of bottlenose…
Auckland Teen Snapped Up By Stanford University
One of New Zealand’s smartest teenagers is headed to the prestigious US university Stanford, in California. After Yang Fan Yun, 18, won the Prime Minister’s Award for the person who gets the highest marks…
Are Weka Slacking Off in Seed Dispersal?
Humans can be a terrible influence on birds. Crows that live near us end up with high cholesterol, sparrows screech to be heard over oil pumps, and instead of migrating, some storks now just…
Vanishing Act of New Zealand’s Toheroa
People talk about toheroa like they’re a dream, because these days, they are, Naomi Arnold writes for travel site, Atlas Obscura. The big, delicious surf clams were once plentiful on New Zealand shorelines, before…
Haere Ra Petera. Open Letter to Mr Craig Little, Mayor of Wairoa, and his Hawke’s Bay fellows.
Dear Matua Craig, Late last evening I stood at the hospital bedside of my young Hawke’s Bay Black Power brother Petera Smith. He was in a coma and on life support. I whispered my nickname…
Clues for Brexit Future May Be Found Here
There may be insights for the UK on leaving the European Union without a deal from a long time ago on the other side of the world, Bloomberg economic writer Eddie Spence says. Britain would…
Young Māori Women Stand up for Their Land
Five years ago, law graduate Pania Newton and her cousins got together around a kitchen table and agreed to do everything in their power to prevent a housing development at Ihumātao, the south Auckland…
Human-Sized Penguin Lived in New Zealand
The BBC reports on the findings of the remains of a giant penguin the size of a human that were discovered in Waipara, North Canterbury by amateur palaeontologist Leigh Love in 2018. The fossilised leg…
Study Provides Alarming Biodiversity Figures
“When humans arrived in New Zealand some 700 years ago, they discovered a plethora of unusual birds that could be found nowhere else in the world, having evolved in isolation on the island ……
Fossils of Largest Ever Parrot Found in Otago
The fossils of an enormous parrot, estimated to have weighed about 7kg, have been found near Saint Bathans in Central Otago. The Guardian reports on the discovery. Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus…
Herbs And Freedom Songs For The New Revolution
I’ve just returned from a full-on weekend in Auckland. I originally come from Timaru. My father used to say, on learning that I’d been in that city, “Did you call in on your aunt…
All Black Brian Lochore One of Our Greatest Players
Former New Zealand captain and World Cup-winning coach Sir Brian Lochore has died aged 78, the BBC reports. An All Blacks player between 1964 and 1971, he made 68 appearances and captained his country on…
England’s Ben Stokes Nominated for NZer of the Year
Christchurch-born Ben Stokes, 28, is already receiving award nominations for his match-winning role in England’s Cricket World Cup win – but not from who you would expect, BBC Sport reports. Despite breaking New Zealand’s heart…
