Butter on Ice
The world’s oldest block of butter — believed to have come from the Canterbury Central Co-operative Dairy Company, formed in the 1890s and based in Christchurch — has been found in the stable area…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Marriage Good for You
University of Otago clinical psychologist Kate Scott led a study of the effects of marriage on 34,493 people across 15 countries finding that it really is good for you and reduces the risks of…
Christmas and Cows
New Plymouth physical education teacher Tracey Dravitzki explained New Zealand Christmas celebrations to a York News-Times journalist while stopping off in the American country town to participate in a local primary school’s classes with…
Hatchery to Home
In the last eight years, 89 chicks have been returned to the wild by the Whakatane Kiwi Project, and on a recent holiday to New Zealand, Vancouver-based freelancer Jennifer Laidlaw joins a crowd of…
Icy Conundrum
New Zealand is one of the dozen founding members of the Antarctic Treaty, along with the United States, Russia, Britain and others, and is among those leading the push for shipping regulation – particularly…
Revered Geochemist
Port Chalmers-born Smithsonian scientist Brian Harold Mason, who was internationally known for his study of meteorites and moon rocks and who was the first to discover that a rock found in Antarctica came from…
Place for NZ in Chile
The New Zealand government has gifted the Chilean capital Santiago a new plaza in the municipality of Providencia. Plaza Nueva Zelandia aims to represent New Zealand culture, landscape, flora and fauna, and to provide…
In living memory
“Three decades ago, New Zealand was a mass of tears. The country suffered its worst air tragedy ever when, on November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand plane on a sightseeing flight over Antarctica…
Miniature by might
A 25-hectare replica New Zealand city, dubbed “Little New Zealand” is being constructed in the northern Chinese city of Qufu. The $4 million New Zealand Gardens initiative will come with its own Maori village…
Challenging Tradition
Wellingtonian Felicity Lusk, 53, has been appointed head of the prestigious 753-year-old Abingdon School, in Oxfordshire — the first female to ever run a boys’ public boarding school. “I don’t know why they chose me,”…
Out Damn Pests
New Zealand’s possum population has halved over the last 20 years down from 70 million in the 1980s to approximately 30 million. Possum control is carried out over 13 million hectares, which is about…
Phar Lap Home to Rest
A bronze statue of Timaru’s most famous resident Phar Lap has been unveiled at the entrance to the city’s raceway on State Highway 1. Timaru Herald sports editor Stu Piddington talks to the ABC’s New Zealand correspondent Kerri…
Claim to Fame
Napier antiques dealer and former New Zealand hockey representative Kevin Percy, 74, is claiming to be the rightful heir to Alnwick Castle, the family home of the Earl of Northumberland, on an estate conservatively…
Arguing the Green
“Sometime in the 2020s, New Zealand will become responsible for a massive surge in emissions from its forests,” writes Fred Pearce in his Guardian series ‘Greenwash’. “The central problem seems to be that when…
Travel Trailer Legacy
New Zealand-born entrepreneur Wade F. B. Thompson, who made his name reviving the American Airstream brand of travel trailers, has died at his Upper East Side home, aged 69. Raised in Wellington, Thompson dreamed…
Least bent
New Zealand is the least corrupt country in the world according to the annual Transparency International index which ranked 180 countries on a scale of zero to 10 with zero being perceived as highly…
Digging For a Tipple
Next year, a team of New Zealand explorers led by Glenorchy man Al Fastier will head to Antarctica to try to recover 25 crates of rare McKinlay and Co whiskey gifted to Ernest Shackleton…
Haka and the Birds
The origins of New Zealand’s Ka Mate haka are traced and birds discovered by the Telegraph’s Sue Attwood who travels to Kapiti Island, the composer Te Rauparaha’s stronghold in the mid-1800s. Hunted by a rival tribe,…
Return to the Homeland
The remains of 12 Maori – known as koiwi tangata – were recently returned to New Zealand having been part of the Welsh national collection at National Museum Cardiff. Research has shown that the…
Green Mirage
The Guardian newspaper’s ‘greenwashing exposer’ Fred Pearce uncovers a number of offending countries who have succeeded in raising their emissions from 1990 levels despite signing up to reduce them. “Step forward Spain, Portugal, Ireland and…
Kanohi Ki Te Kanohi
Whale Watch Kaikoura has been named overall winner of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2009. The Telegraph’s Mark Chipperfield travels to the seaside town to spot some southern cetaceans. Whale Watch Kaikoura is…
South Island Sauropods
Proof that dinosaurs did roam the South Island 70 million years ago has been found with the discovery of 20 footprints across a 10km stretch in northwest Nelson. The footprints were found by geologist…
Park’s Plinth a Triumph
A statue of revered New Zealand airman and Battle of Britain hero Sir Keith Park has been unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. The unveiling was a triumph for the veterans who…
Safety First
As of November 1, it is an offence in New Zealand to use hand-held cellphones while driving. The ban on making or receiving calls from a cellphone, texting and e-mailing is one of a…
Rare Privilege
Napier-born Dr John Hood has given his retiring Vice-Chancellor’s Oration at the University of Oxford after a five-year term. In his final address, Dr Hood reviewed the 2008-09 academic year and reflected on “aspects of…
Carbon Paw-Prints
Wellington-based eco-architects Brenda and Robert Vale, authors of Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, include in their controversial book figures for carbon footprints of pets compared with other more…
Slump looks likely
New Zealand economist Robert Wade, a professor at the London School of Economics, predicts a further slump into global recession in 2010 or 2011. Wade, who made his name analysing East Asia’s economic…
Basically Extreme
An image of a New Zealand base-jumper against a backdrop of Kuala Lumpur’s skyline is one of the BBC’s ‘Week in Pictures’. Ninety-eight base jumpers took part in the annual International Tower Jump leaping…
Bilingual in Kansas
Auckland exchange student Fallon Simchowitz, 17, is spending a year abroad in Olathe, Kansas with a local deaf family. Simchowitz is deaf as are host family Ron and Kim Symansky and their three children. Normally, that…
Anniversary Apology
Air New Zealand will apologise to relatives of the victims of the 1979 Mt Erebus plane crash which killed all 257 on board in Antarctica during a sightseeing flight. Chief executive Rob Fyfe is…
Appreciating the green
Second generation Zimbabwean immigrant Myfanwy van Hoffen describes her move to Auckland leaving behind her citizenship, her vote, her passport and her husband, “cancer taking its too-early toll” . “I landed in a clean,…
Quietly Heralded
Tauranga-born peace campaigner Alyn Ware, 47, has been awarded what is commonly known as “the alternative Nobel prize” for “his effective and creative advocacy and initiatives over two decades to further peace education and…
Compensation comparisons
New Zealand “has some good ideas” when it comes to tort reform writes Newsweek blogger Katie Connolly, who uses this country’s government-operated Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) as an example of a system the US…
Distinguished Discourse
The New Zealand accent has been declared the most attractive and prestigious form of English outside Britain. In the BBC survey, Britons responded to an online survey rating the prestige and social attractiveness of…
Parrot’s Love Affair
Sirocco the kakapo has caused a stir in cyber space after he was captured on camera mating with the head of a British zoologist. The footage, which has received more than half a million…
Pesky Boy Inspires
Beano character Dennis the Menace was based on a New Zealand boy called Robert Fair who was a childhood friend of the cartoon character’s creator David Law, and a frequent visitor to the Law…
Our Feathered Friends
“New Zealand’s island ecology – from the kauri trees to the kiwi, the country’s emblematic bird – is unique,” writes The Independent on Sunday’s Ben Ross. “Twenty years ago, Douglas Adams – the man…
Looking at Labour
Former New Zealand Rhodes Scholar and Vice Chancellor of Waikato University Bryan Gould writes in the Guardian that “barring a miracle, and miracles seem likely to be in short supply, Labour will lose…
Still the Greatest
Adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary is the “greatest living New Zealander” according to the results of a recent Research New Zealand poll. Despite his death in January 2008, Sir Ed was named by 15…
Seoul mates
New Zealand’s trade commissioner in Seoul Graeme Solloway, who is responsible for promoting bilateral trade and investment, has been in the South Korean capital promoting technological ties between the two countries. “Both Korea and…
Great Totara Falls
Beloved New Zealand entertainer Sir Howard Morrison has died aged 74. Morrison was born in 1935 into a Rotorua family renowned for its entertainment skills. He had a singing career for more than 50…
Consonant clash
The New Zealand Geographic Board has announced the River City, Wanganui should be spelled Whanganui, after considering an application by Whanganui iwi, Te Runanga o Tupoho. This single letter has raised the ire of…
Best of both tribes
Linda White Wolf, a member of the Chickasaw Tribe from Oklahoma and host of Arizona Native News on the Pat McMahon Show on KAZ-TV, never knew about her Maori heritage until she happened to…
Letters to the Editors
“Small town” New Zealander and self-confessed letter addict, Andrew Prieditis, 30, has been published in over 60 newspapers globally in the past six weeks alone by writing ‘letters to the editor’ and supplying a…
Ancient Mystery Solved
The now extinct giant Haast’s eagle ruled the skies over New Zealand 750 years ago attacking moa from mountain perches and capable of killing small children. Because of their large size – these eagles…
Tourism by Post
Nick and Val Martin have operated the Pelorus Sound mail boat for the past four-and-a-half years transporting both mail and passengers from the mussel-farming town of Havelock out to the farthest reaches of the…
By hoki but not forever
Hoki, found in the dark Pacific depths around New Zealand, is the favourite fried meat for McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish burgers, and a fish “whose bounty it seems, is not limitless,” writes William Broad for The…
Wall Street Suggestions
“The findings of the ‘Emissions Trading Review Committee’ … is green PR gone wild,” writes the Wall Street Journal. “New Zealand already boasted one of the world’s most pristine environments before it passed cap-and-trade last…
Rescuing the Bumblebee
The short-haired bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus, was introduced to New Zealand from England between 1885 and 1906 to help pollinate crops. The bumblebee died out in the UK in 2000 because of loss of habitat and intensive…
Ace Transformer
Aeronautic machinists 23-year-olds Adam Turnbull and Dan Melling have “knocked the bastard off” and crossed the Cook Strait in a converted amphibious 1990 Toyota Town Ace van travelling the 65-km distance in nine hours…
Liquidity rules
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has “become the first authority to pass hard-and-fast rules for liquidity since the crisis”, writes The Economist in an article called ‘Lord of the Ratios’. Locally incorporated banks…
He takes the long road
Originally from Takaka, Ewan Kingston has been travelling from the UK to New Zealand by any means possible save for flying since mid-28, posting his adventures on the Ecologist site, the world’s leading environmental…
Poet Chief Farewelled
Pukerua Bay poet, playwright and author Alistair Te Ariki Campbell has died aged 84. One of the leading writers of New Zealand and the South Pacific, Campbell published more than 20 volumes of poetry…
Looking for the Lost
Veteran polar expedition leader New Zealander Rob McCallum is leading the search to find the submerged seaplane wreck which had been carrying Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen to the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in 1928….
Without Distraction
A long-term University of Otago study comparing the achievements of 900 boys and girls attending both single-sex and co-educational secondary schools has shown that boys perform better when attending single-sex schools. “These findings are consistent with the…
Strengthening Relations
New Zealand’s outgoing ambassador to Vietnam James Kember has received a medal from the Vietnamese government for his contributions to relations between the two countries. Speaking at the award presentation ceremony in Hanoi, President…
