Rugged Coast a Place of Refuge for Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary’s daughter, Sarah reflects on the area in New Zealand – along the wild coast of the Waitakere Ranges – where the mountaineer found refuge, from the attention that followed his conquest…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Leave the Hillary Step Ladderless Urges American Mountaineer
“Sixty years ago this week, as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay approached the summit of the world’s highest mountain, they were stopped by a 40-foot wall of rock and ice,” American mountaineer Ed Viesturs…
NZ’s WWII Polish Orphans Impress and Inspire Pulitzer Prize Winner
Anne Applebaum is an American journalist and historian. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner for Gulag: A History, a remarkable and eye-opening account of the horrors and madness of the Soviet penal system. Recently,…
Former Press Editor Wins ‘Friend of NZ Award’
Andrew Holden, former Christchurch Press and now Age editor-in-chief, was honoured with the prestigious 2013 Friend of New Zealand award for his ‘brave efforts’ in ensuring the people of Christchurch received vital information during…
New Zealand in Midst of Year-long Earthquake
For the past five months a magnitude 7 earthquake, centred near Wellington, has been slowly rocking the country. It’s the strongest earthquake to hit the region in 150 years says The New Zealand Herald,…
Royal NZ Navy Revisits Shanghai
The Royal New Zealand Navy frigate Te Mana, commanded by Commander Andel, visited China on a goodwill visit for five days in May, according to The Peoples Daily. The visit began at the Yangtze…
Sir Don McKinnon is 2013’s Supreme World Class New Zealander
Sir Don McKinnon is the Supreme Award winner of the 2013 World Class New Zealand Awards, says scoop.co.nz. The annual award, made by Kea New Zealand on behalf of NZ Trade and Enterprise, recognises…
Girl on Film All Year in Chicago
New Zealand architect Emily Oakley has documented 365 days of her stay in Chicago one video clip at a time. In her first post of the series on 23 January 2012, Oakley…
Auckland City Lets You be the Planner
Scientific American recently featured an article, from Fast Company, on the Auckland City Council’s Shape Auckland Housing Simulator. The simulator helps residents engage with Auckland’s Unitary Plan, a blueprint for the cities…
Ceremony Honours Remains of Chinese Goldminers
“When the steamer SS Ventnor sank off the in 1902, a Wellington newspaper listed its lost cargo in the language of the time as ‘5347 tons of coal consigned to the Admiralty…
All That and Everest Too
The British expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, led by New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary, was one memorable event of that year, “a summer sixty years ago when all seemed possible,”…
No Justice nor Kings Permitted
New Zealand’s Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages has released an updated list of banned newborn names. In the past 12 years, the agency has had to turn down not one, not two, but…
NZ Faces Climate Change Disasters Influx
Climate change is real, and its impact on small Pacific states will be severe. So severe that New Zealand and Australia need to prepare now for an influx of Pacific Island peoples fleeing from…
Miss Popularity Exceeds Half a Million Likes
Sixteen-year-old Hawkes Bay student Jamie Curry has amassed over 500,000 likes on her Facebook page, Jamie’s World, which she began in July last year. Seven million people a week see videos, photos and status…
Merleen Thomas, Inspirational Airline Engineer
‘One of the most satisfying things about my job is seeing an aircraft that you inspected take off and just seeing it fly in the air,’ Merleen Thomas, Air New Zealand aircraft engineer, told…
New Zealand’s Lamborghini Connection
Bob Wallace, originally from New Zealand, became Lamborghini’s test driver in 1964; he was instrumental in the founding of the Italian car company. For most devoted fans,” The New York Times’ John Lamm writes,…
Hard to Fathom
“Stand humbled” at the exhibition ‘Whales: Giants of the Deep’, a show which originated at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and is now on at the American Museum…
Otara’s Pasifika cultures and Te Aro’s vibe impress
Intrepid Age travel writer Louise Hawson and her daughter, Coco, have just finished a year-long journey around 52 of the world’s suburbs. Auckland’s Otara and Avondale, and Wellington’s Te Aro were on the list,…
Little Bit Ahead of Everyone
Lynda Topp, one half of New Zealand’s beloved comedic country music duo, The Topp Twins, has made history as the first-ever lesbian to appear on the cover of New Zealand’s weekly Woman’s Day magazine….
What’s it Like in Paradise?
“Even this self-consciously egalitarian society, which was first to give women the vote in 1893, is not immune to social and economic inequality,” writes Michael White for the Guardian. “What’s it like in paradise…
Kids TV and Crime Linked
Otago University Professor Bob Hancox has found that the risk of having a criminal conviction in adulthood increases with every hour that children spend watching TV. The New Zealand study followed a group of…
Sheep, Lizards and Hobbits
February 6 is New Zealand’s national day. Known as Waitangi Day, it marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the British Crown and the Maori, New Zealand’s first peoples. Britain’s…
Remarkable Global Firsts
New Zealand has much more to shout about than just global rugby dominance and hirsute heroes of the big screen, according to Kate Rowan of the Irish Independent. “Taking a look at New Zealand’s…
Students Give Cyclone Relief
New Zealand volunteers “joined hands” with locals and other foreign aid workers to help Fiji get back on its feet after recent Tropical Cyclone Evan, the biggest such storm in 20 years. High School…
Weaving the Threads of Life
New Zealander Cassandra Ellis, a quiltmaker who has settled in London, believes a quilt is a great way to mark an occasion, from a birth to a death to a marriage or…
Freedom At The Edge
New Zealanders enjoy a higher level of human freedom than anyone else, according to a report written by The Canadian Fraser Institute, which evaluated 123 countries to see how each country measures up in…
Librarians Confer
Under a new five-year Arrangement on Cooperation agreement signed by the National Library of New Zealand and the National Library of China, the two institutions will share knowledge and information in joint…
American Deal For Angels
Wellington company Angel Delivery, owned by Becs Cass, has struck a US partnership that will see the four-year-old freshly made meal and treat delivery service enter the New York market. Partnering with…
World Leaders in Arbitration
New Zealand has the perfect conditions to become a seat for international commercial arbitration, world-leading lawyer in the field, American Lucy Reed says. Reed, who leads the arbitration group Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in New…
Landscapes a Drawcard
Foreign buyers are mostly drawn to the Auckland area, or to the lake and mountain views near Queenstown on the South Island, according to The New York Times. Bill Sandston, a real estate lawyer…
Epic Story About Epic Men
A new book about New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mt Everest “is one of courage, perseverance and jingoism”, author Justin Cartwright writes for The Observer. “Mick Conefrey’s moving book…
Honouring the Greats
Prince Charles is greeted with a hongi by Bruce Simpson from the Ngati Ranana London Maori Club during a reception at St James’s Palace for prominent New Zealanders, Australians and Papua New Guineans….
Insight into Dotcom
“Across an ocean, hours before Operation Takedown began, the US Department of Justice had already tipped off a select group of journalists about the raid’s planned highlights. If you know nothing else about Kim…
Not Alone at Being Alone
A message in a bottle tossed into the sea by a group of children from Katikati Primary School has washed up over a year later in Oceanside Harbor, California. Seventy-seven-year-old Sonja van Hall, who…
Other Side of Paradise
“New Zealand, a country that routinely tops international lifestyle indexes, may not be the first place you would associate with gang culture – but violent gangs have deep roots in society,” Rebecca Kesby writes…
With the Push of a Button
New Zealand’s first-ever controlled building implosion executed in Christchurch brought down the earthquake damaged Radio Network House in seconds. American demolition experts detonated 130 pounds of explosives to blow up the 14-story building, which…
British Make the Move
The latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show that in June almost 40,000 New Zealanders left for Australia, the same amount as April 2012 and the highest ever recorded. But helping to stem this…
Modern Christchurch Planned
Plans for a new-look downtown Christchurch have been unveiled, with a convention centre, sports stadium and performing arts complex among the big projects. The blueprint for the city replaces office towers with green spaces,…
Climbing the City Ranks
Auckland rises four places to rank at nine in Monocle’s annual list of “Top 25 Liveable Cities”. “What a difference a Rugby World Cup and a new political structure makes,” the magazine writes. “Aucklanders…
Brightening the Bridge
The Wanganui City Bridge is sporting a refreshing new look at night as a result of new GE80W R150 LED luminaires, the Financial describes. “The 14 new fittings on the bridge will save the…
New Zealand’s Great Indoors
New Zealand’s temperate climate, stunning scenery and lower cost of living make it an attractive option for young Irish people and families who are looking to find a new home. According to Quotable Value…
Connecting the Health System
General manager for planning and funding with Canterbury District Health Board Carolyn Gullery explains how the city’s healthcare workers responded so quickly and effectively to last year’s devastating earthquake. “The transition towards a more…
Experiencing Activism in Thames
Thames was the first stop in New Zealand for American Deborah Swift, author of The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict Women. On a three-week book tour of the Antipodes, Swift writes…
Solving the Jam
Auckland businesses have come out in favour of a surprising solution to finding the cash for mayor Len Brown’s $12bn transport improvements, Monocle correspondent Simon Farrell-Green explains: “A daily toll on the city’s motorway…
Walking Amongst the Dead
South Island cemeteries intrigue visiting USA Today correspondent, Liz Lewis, who stops in at Collingwood cemetery and the idyllic Church of the Holy Innocents graveyard at Peel Forest. “New Zealand crime writer Ngaio Marsh…
Lake Views To-die-for
A seven-bedroom home with unobstructed views of Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables features in the online property pages of the Wall Street Journal. “They’ve got quite a bit of land, a stream a…
One of the Best Places for Mothers
New Zealand has been rated the fourth best place in the world to be a mother, in line after Norway at the top followed by Iceland and Sweden. Just ahead of Mother’s Day, Save…
Spotlight on Adolescent Health
New Zealand has the second highest overall mortality rate and the highest suicide rate in those aged 10-24 years among developed countries, according to recent analysis undertaken by medical journal The Lancet. In the…
Cup Makes Television History
Last year’s Rugby World Cup final, in which the All Blacks beat France, was the most-watched event in New Zealand television history “attracting a 98 per cent audience share,” Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL)…
Mad for it in Wellington
Wellington’s St James Theatre heaving with a full-capacity crowd features in the Guardian’s ‘24 Hours in Pictures’ as One Direction fans watch the British boy band perform. One Direction’s 2012 tour of New Zealand…
Reflections on Survival
Mayor of Wellington Celia Wade-Brown has opened the capital city’s Holocaust Centre on Holocaust Remembrance Day — an “asset for all New Zealanders to reflect on the importance of harmony, diversity, resilience and survival.”…
Emergency Place of Worship
“Christchurch, New Zealand, where an earthquake last year killed 185 people, is still struggling with how to treat another of its casualties, the city’s Anglican cathedral,” Wall Street Journal reporter Eric Felten writes, beginning…
Dangerously High Salt Levels
New Zealand’s fast foods on average contain 8 per cent more sodium than comparable foods in the UK and a massive 18 per cent more than those in France, as shown in an international…
Crowned Mr Gay World
Andreas Derleth, 32, from Auckland was crowned the Mr Gay World in a gala event that took place for the first time in Johannesberg, South Africa. Originally from Germany, Derleth moved to New Zealand…
Gauging Health Performance
New Zealand has rated sixth worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialised nations. According to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs, Ellen Nolte and Martin…
Locking Up The Problem
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the world and imprisons people at a rate second only to the United States, according to a study conducted by the…
