Safe Haven for Seals
Kaikoura is the first place in New Zealand, and the second in the world, to be Green Globe benchmarked, an international benchmarking and certification program developed for the travel industry in 1992. Kaikoura was…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Tot Takes a Punt
Stanmore Bay three-year-old Pipi Quinlan purchased a full-size excavating digger on auction site TradeMe for $20,000 while the rest of his family slept. “The first I knew of it was when I came down…
Not Much on Television
Birth rates in New Zealand are the highest since 1991 with the average number per woman at 2.2 births. In the 12 months to March 31 this year, 64,160 babies were born Statistics New…
Adieu to a Comedienne
Opera singer Heather Begg, a mezzo-soprano who last month was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, has died in New South Wales, aged 76. Begg was the first person…
Great Balls of Fire
The traditional Maori performance art of poi, now popular with flame on beaches and at festivals throughout the world, is taking off as a form of exercise in Hollywood with classes available at two…
Rotten Rants on Butter
Former Sex Pistol John Lydon is reminding British dairy consumers that “Anchor’s From New Zealand!” preferring UK-produced Country Life butter. Lydon is stirring up trouble with his straplines in an advertisement that attacks the…
For a Worthy Cause
New Zealand-born actress, director and producer Anna Wilding has launched a new charity that aims to fill an overlooked gap in the charity and not-for-profit marketplace. The Wilding Foundation awards scholarships to those…
Park’s Plinth Secured
Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park will grace the fourth plinth for six months in London’s Trafalgar Square, after the Westminster City Council agreed to erecting a statue of the Battle of Britain commander….
Fatter But Happier
New Zealand men are a little shorter than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development average and New Zealand women are quite a bit shorter according to the latest report from the Organization, a report…
Surprising Fruit
A feijoa shaped like New Zealand’s national bird, the kiwi has been bought by a Christchurch businessman for $1000 who says he will preserve the quirky fruit. Auckland woman Shavon Green found the freak-of-nature…
Together for more
Unite is New Zealand’s newest union representing young service sector employees in the fast-food industry, call centres, hotels and the postal service. The Unite union’s barnstorming approach has organised thousands of them, led strikes…
Icy Developments
Victoria University glaciologist Dr Andrew Mackintosh has released findings of a study which shows that southern hemisphere glaciers evolve quite differently to those in the north. “Don’t assume that warming will be uniform over…
Tree Gods Unite
A ceremony to form a “sister-tree relationship” between Waipoua Forest’s Tane Mahuta and an ancient Japanese cedar tree located on Yakushima Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was held this month at the base…
Leading negotiant
New Zealand’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Dr David Walker has been appointed as the new Chair of the WTO Doha Round Agriculture Negotiations. Walker replaces fellow New Zealander Crawford Falconer, who…
Eskimo furore
The humble Eskimo lolly will remain on New Zealand shelves though lambasted by a Canadian visitor who claimed the confectionary’s shape and name was a racist slur against the Inuit. Seeka Lee Veevee…
Alternate landscapes
From next year, the North and South Islands could be renamed in Maori. A discovery by officials that the existing names had never been adopted in law has increased pressure from Maori nationalists for…
Symphony ire
New Zealand anti-apartheid activist John Minto recently flew to Capetown to lend his support to 127 families who for the past 14 months have lived in makeshift homes on Symphony Way pavement in the…
Ratting Out the Weasels
Stoats, which were first introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century to combat the spread of the rabbit, have decimated the kiwi population reducing little spotted kiwi and Rowi or Okarito brown kiwi…
All Fenced in and Loving It
The South Island Tieke is making a protected return home after a 100-year hiatus, as the newest resident of the Orokonui Ecosanctuary. Forty tiekes, also known as saddlebacks, were released into the predator free…
Critical Condition
Three birds have joined ranks of the critically endangered, after an assessment by a panel of experts analysing data on 428 native birds. The grey duck, the eastern rock hopper penguin, and the grey-headed…
Moa Meals Uncovered
University of Otago postgraduate Jamie Wood collects moa dung, or coprolites, which he finds on tip-offs from hunters who report findings of moa bones. Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide, who specialises in…
Kakapo Comeback
The Kakapo, a flightless, nocturnal, critically threatened New Zealand parrot that was long thought extinct, has staged a tiny comeback. Scientists are hailing the arrival of 34 kakapo chicks this year, propelling the total…
Sports Refugee Remembered
Wanganui-born journalist Jock Veitch who as a student at Wanganui Collegiate was regarded as a slacker and told there was nothing wrong with him that a game of rugger or cricket couldn’t fix, has…
Whisked Debate
Helen Leach, an academic at Otago University, is hoping to settle the origins of the pavlova with recipes found in a 1933 Mothers’ Union cookbook and in a 1929 rural magazine, both calling the…
Hitched
For those looking to tie the perfect knot, New Zealand is worth the trip halfway across the world, according to Brit Marc Brierly and his fiancée, New Zealander Angie Watson. “Afterwards, everyone said what…
To Save the Queen or Not
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, 59, who has given her valedictory speech to the House after 27 years as an MP, said the country’s institutions had “evolved a long way from our colonial heritage”….
Sailing into the US
New Zealand global procurement company Unimarket is in the process of finalising a move to Annapolis, Maryland in the United States, where it plans to hire 100 new employees by 2011. Founder and chief…
Pride of place
According to the third national Quality of Life survey, nine out of ten New Zealanders rate their quality of life as good or better. Wellingtonians thought they had the best quality of life at…
Questioning change
New Zealander Bob Rigg has published an extensive analysis of the Obama administration’s initial approach to foreign policy in a paper for the South Asia Strategic Forum, a recently launched thinktank on global geo-political…
Time Well Spent
Lieutenant-Colonel John Darwin Maling, awarded an MC on the North-West Frontier and a DSO in Burma has died at the age of 94 in Waikanae. Born in Timaru in 1915 and educated at Christ’s…
Memories of millions
Dame Silvia Cartwright, former New Zealand Governor-General and now serving as one of five international judges on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh, has recently criticized Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s disdain for…
Study With Leisure
A recent New Zealand Education Fair held in New Delhi attracted hundreds of Indian students eager to discover the merits of study in this country, many surprised to see New Zealand was more than…
Vying for the ultimate
Radio host and television personality Clarke Gayford is one of 16 finalists for the ‘Best Job in the World’ organised by Tourism Queensland. Queensland Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor on Friday telephoned 15 finalists across…
Dogs Sacked
British supermarket Tesco has ordered its largest suppliers in New Zealand, Silver Fern Farms in Fairton, Canterbury to stop using dogs to herd sheep into the abattoir. Tesco wants the shepherds to wave their…
Pass the Wallaby
The increasingly ubiquitous wallaby may be the newest presence on the New Zealand dinner table, as municipalities around the country are being encouraged to consider different strategies to control their booming populations. The Australian marsupials…
Auckland Calling
New Zealand could be one of the world’s last havens as climate change fundamentally changes the planet according to the scientist and creator of the Gaia theory James Lovelock, and for this reason, on…
Switched Off for Change
New Zealand was one of the first countries to switch of its power for this year’s Earth Hour event aimed at highlighting environmental problems caused by excessive use of energy. Forty-four New Zealand cities,…
Stormy Outlook Ahead
New Zealand’s economy contracted in the fourth quarter at its fastest pace in 16 years as the global turmoil worsened a domestic slump, putting interest rate cuts back on the agenda. The Reserve Bank…
Clark’s UN role confirmed
26 March 2009 – Helen Clark’s nomination to lead the United Nations Development Program has been officially announced by Michele Montas, spokeswoman for the UN secretary general, in New York today. As the former…
Reserved for the Solomons
Last year, New Zealand Territorial Forces machine gunner Private Adam Friend, 33, left the Marlborough Museum where he had been putting together an exhibition on the history of grape growing in the region, to…
Beauty Reigns
National MP Korean-born Melissa Lee has been voted one of “the most beautiful women in politics in the world” by Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos, a poll which also included Hillary Clinton. Photos of 60…
The power of the pedal
New Zealand is considering building a 3, km bike path winding through the country in an attempt to stimulate tourism and maintain an industry central to the country’s economy. The project would cost around…
Clark First Choice for UN Role
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has been tipped to head the United Nations Development Programme, according to an unnamed UN official. If confirmed in this posting, Clark will be responsible for the…
Catch Him if you Can
Whitianga self-confessed hacker Owen Thor Walker, 19, who was alleged to have been involved with a criminal network which infiltrated more than 1 million computers worldwide, has been hired by TelstaClear as a cyber…
Copywronged Righted
New Zealand’s Creative Freedom Foundation, opponents of an amendment to the country’s copyright law, Section 92a, have secured victory with the scrapping of the plan which would have required Internet service providers to implement…
Passing Through the Idyllic
For three weeks over the summer, private gardens throughout New Zealand opened their gates to a tour group of 28 Arkansas Master Gardeners beginning at Totara Waters, a 2 acre garden owned by Peter…
Coup for Longevity
A one-month old tuatara has been discovered at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary Zealandia, the first baby tuatara to be seen on the mainland in two centuries. “We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery,”…
Advice from two experts
Auckland identical twin sisters Matilda ‘Tilly’ Hanlon and Beryl Baguley recently celebrated their 100th birthday, a rare occasion indeed with the mathematical chance of identical twins reaching the age of 100, one in 700…
The Racing Reverend Rests
Legendary racing announcer Darren Tyquin died in a car crash in Christchurch recently, at 41. Tyquin had been calling races since he was fifteen, when he began covering greyhound and harness meetings for a…
Booming Population
The kakapo – star of a recent BBC documentary presented by British actor and raconteur Stephen Fry – is one of the world’s most endangered birds the kakapo, but thanks to the Kakapo Recovery…
Nabbed online
Wellington High Court judge Justice David Gendall has granted approval for the serving of papers via Facebook, the first time a New Zealand court has allowed such a step. The social networking site became…
Sensitive Subject
Gisborne-born adventurer Graeme Dingle has said British author Jeffrey Archer is “dreaming” after Archer claimed that George Mallory, not Edmund Hillary, was the first to reach the summit of Everest. Archer’s new book Paths…
Across the waves
Auckland-born Sara Seruvatu, 28, hosts a mid-morning lifestyle show on Fiji’s Legend FM station and says radio has enabled her to meet and greet people from all walks of life. In an interview with…
Small With Might
14 March 2009 – In an unprecedented move, Lincoln University, New Zealand’s smallest with just 2,600 full-time students and 610 staff, will merge with government-owned AgResearch “in order to capitalise on the institutions’ strengths and deliver more…
Accent on Mr Big
Auckland University of Technology language expert Andy Gibson says Australian actor Matthew Newton, who plays New Zealand drug lord Terry Clark in the series Underbelly, is using “fush and chup” vowels where real New…
Memorial at Shore’s Edge
Missing Warriors rugby league player Sonny Fai, 20, is remembered with wreaths and garlands at a memorial on Te Henga, Bethells Beach, in Auckland, a poignant image included in a Los Angeles Times photo…
