Clay’s Reading Gift

New Zealand-developed remedial programme Reading Recovery, devised by the late educationalist Dame Marie Clay, is proving successful in the UK with 30,000 British children a year expected to take…

Let Cones Be Licked

Chief judge for the New Zealand Ice Cream Awards and sensory scientist at Massey University Kay McMath has proved the dessert tastes better when licked from a cone. McMath…

Rite of Pastry Passage

Mince, steak, chicken and potato top pies are amongst a few of the popular pastry to be sampled in a two-week tasting marathon undertaken by Vancouver Courier reporter Michael…

Elias on Equality

New Zealand’s first female Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias, and presiding judge of the country’s Supreme Court, recently gave a lecture at the University of New Mexico School of…

Alliance Revisited

New Zealand and the United States fought side by side in both World Wars, in the Korean War, Vietnam and in various Cold War conflicts, but with stringent nuclear…

Beyer Receives Iconic Status

Former mayor of Carterton and Labour MP Georgina Beyer – the world’s first transsexual to hold such positions – is interviewed by Boston publication Windy City Times about her…

One Beloved Phantom

Much venerated entertainer Rob Guest, 58, who was awarded an OBE for his services to the New Zealand entertainment industry in 1994, has died in Melbourne. Guest had been…

Ditching the Dot-matrix

New Zealand’s second annual eDay saw more than 15,000 carloads of electronic waste dropped off at 32 centres throughout the country. The event was organised by the Computer Access…

Councils Make Good

Christchurch and Hutt City are model municipalities and inspirations for their Canadian counterparts, according to the president of Canada’s Frontier Centre for Public Policy Peter Holle. “Hutt City is…

Pride in Heritage

New Zealand’s first Governor-General of Asian descent Anand Satyanand – who recently paid a visit to India – is the subject of an article in The Times of India,…

The Final Lap

Celebrated Taranaki-born swimming coach Duncan Laing – who held a four-decade coaching tenure at Dunedin’s Moana Pools has died – aged 77. Laing is best known for coaching swimming star Danyon…

Green Invasion

Though New Zealand has 2,065 plant species which grow nowhere else on the planet, 22,000 non-native plants have also made the isles their home. Of those, 2,069 have become…

To Cascading Waters

Waiheke Island, home to 8000 people and 30 vineyards, is a “true microcosm of Aotearoa” writes Boston Globe reporter Stephanie Stephens, who is “struck by the endearingly lower-stress pace…

Islands Preserved

New Zealand tourism is as much reliant upon maintaining the highest environment standards and preserving the Maori concept of kaitiakitanga – guardianship of the land and the animals -…

Persistence in Love

On Maud Island, evolutionary biologists from the University of Toronto have been studying the mating habits of giant male Cook Strait weta. Not only do males travel more than…

Commendable Position

New Zealand’s refusal to approve of a nuclear deal between India and the United States has been praised in a New York Times editorial. Headed “Let’s hear it for…

Familial Ties

Gisborne has the highest concentration of the surname Blair – and Northland the surname Beckham – in the English-speaking world, according to a new website which enables the names…

Sea Urchin Reef Concert

Auckland University marine biologists Craig Radford and Andrew Jeffs have discovered that sea urchins are behind loud noises emanating from underwater around New Zealand reefs. The 20- to 30-decibel…

Kiwi-Pukapuka Relocate

Little Spotted Kiwi, the second rarest kiwi species, have been reintroduced onto Fiordland’s Chalky Island for the first time in a century. Sponsors of the transfer, South Island tour…

Beauty in Cold

Winter in New Zealand is captured in seascape images by Independent photographer Hannah Bills, who travelled through Wellington and then south, taking shots in and around Christchurch, “the Oxford…

Te Reo Goes Google

Google Aotearoa has been launched to coincide with July’s Maori Language Week (Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori 2008), with more than 8750 words translated. Potaua Biasiny-Tule, 32, and…

God Defend NZ

Of all the nations in the Anglosphere, New Zealand had the proudest and toughest military culture of the 20th Century according to Australian lawyer and author, Hal G. P….

Facing New Partnerships

New Zealand’s population makeup may one day number more Asians than Maori according to a new study called, ‘Asians in New Zealand: Implications of a Changing Demography’, launched…

Maori Treasure in Ireland

The extensive Maori art collection – part of a larger ethnological collection of exotic Pacific art – at Dublin’s National Museum includes, the Meyler collection, pieces Captain James Cook…

Between Continents

At low tide in June on the Firth of Thames in Auckland, American traveller Eric Wagner looks for the bar-tailed godwit amongst thousands of waterbirds flocking to feed on…

Father of Oceania

Soccer administrator Charles Dempsey, life member of both New Zealand football and world football body FIFA, has died, aged 86. Dempsey was instrumental in both the founding of the…

Pirate Captain

Thames-born actor Bruce Purchase, a founding member of Sir Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre, has died in Putney, aged 69. Purchase decided to become an actor at the…

Williamstown Whakaeke

Nga Manu Waiata are in dress rehearsal for the Australian national kapa haka competition – the group representative of 110,000 Maori who have made Australia their home. Thomas Rangihuna…

City of Sails’ Top Spot

Auckland is number five in the 2008 Mercer’s WorldWide Quality of Living Survey, making it the most liveable city in the Asia Pacific region. Tourism Auckland’s chief executive Graeme…

Wellington Reunion in KL

In the 1970s, Malaysian students at Victoria University’s Weir House relished the informality of calling each other by their first names, they cooked one another Malay and Chinese dishes,…

Futures in the Heavens

Bethany Edmonds, 26, is a Maori artist about to leave on a scholarship for New York University to study the conservation of traditional textiles; Kipa Rangiheuea works at the…

Flight to Learn

Remuera Primary School has classrooms full of South Korean children – “wild geese” – who live separately from their families in order to study in an English-speaking, and less…

Solomon Islands Position

New Zealander Peter Marshall has been sworn in as the Acting Police Commissioner for the Solomon Islands. Marshall has over 35 years experience across all areas of policing and…

History Lessons in Mood

Professor Sydney Shep, senior lecturer in print and book culture at Victoria University, has uncovered the emoticon’s “pre-history” stumbling upon emoticons in an 1882 typographic journal at St. Bride’s Printing Library…

Europe Follows Lead

New Zealand is the first English-speaking country in the world to have banned smacking and Europe wants to follow suit. The New Zealand police were reassured when they won…

Search Engine Commemoration

The anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mount Everest in 1955 has been honoured by search engine giant Google. Google periodically changes its logo…

Home Amidst History

Four hours from Auckland, New Zealand developer Peter Cooper’s 400 ha Mountain Landing property boasts white sand beaches, native bush and historical value. “When I first saw the property,…

For the Love of Letters

Thirteen-year-old Hamilton spelling champion Thomas North will compete at the 81st Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., travelling further than any of the record 288 competitors. North competes a year…

Enigma funds school

Though New Zealand tycoon Christopher Chandler keeps a reclusive profile, he has invested $50 million in a business school for students from developing countries in Boston. Chandler, a beekeeper’s…

Peaceful Isles

New Zealand comes in at number four on the second annual Global Peace Index released by Britain’s Economist  Intelligence Unit. A survey on the harmoniousness of the…

Touting the Youth

New Zealand ‘the youngest country’, is the new focus of Tourism New Zealand’s international branding. Tourism chiefs have called in London PR agency Henry’s House as they revive the…

Cattle for Capital

New Zealand dairy farmers are benefiting from a worldwide demand for milk and cheese with Fonterra Cooperative Group members promised big payouts for their efforts this year. Never before…

Safety in Cyber-space

New Zealand-designed educational software Hector’s World, which teaches children about the dangers of online aedophiles with cartoons, has been launched at St Vincent de Paul RC Primary School, in…

For the Whales

Actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 19, has joined the Save the Whales Campaign and is urging the New Zealand government to reject Japan’s proposal to resume commercial whaling in its waters…

The Highest of Achievers

Colin Murdoch, inventor, pharmacist and self-taught engineer, a man who designed something the world could not do without, has died in Timaru, aged 79. Murdoch led an extraordinary life;…

Berkett Settles In

Neil Berkett is eight weeks into his role as chief executive at Virgin Media and already has battle scars. Actually, he explains in an interview with Sunday Times reporter…

Breathing Clean Air

New Zealand is a haven for environmental refugees and in this BBC World Service programme, one of six in the Global Perspective documentary series, four immigrants discuss their new…

Exploring the Lab

New Zealand is where the revolution will happen and a “perfect place for an ideas summit,” writes journalist Craig Sherborne in an essay entitled ‘Not…

Investigating a Colossus

Te Papa’s colossal squid, the largest ever caught, has created a worldwide media furore making headlines from South Africa and Germany, to Iran and Uruguay. Very little is…

From One Village to Another

New Zealand journalist Thomas Butson began his career in copy at New Zealand’s Truth, followed by positions at The Toronto Star and from 1968 at The New York Times….

Trade Relationship Anniversary

In 1983, New Zealand and Australia signed the Closer Economic Relations trade pact, and this year, on the 25th  anniversary of the agreement, chief economist of the Australian Trade…

Global Positioning Sleuths

Rotorua has always been famous for its geothermal activity, now another ‘geo-‘ is making its mark around the city, less the sulphur. It’s the sport of geocaching, a kind…

Maori Role Models

New Zealand is a model for Canada in improving its relations with indigenous populations. By adopting lessons from the Maori experience, a report by the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for…

Surfing Rhapsody

Raglan may be home to “one of the world’s best left-hand surf breaks”, but the town is also garnering international interest for its relaxed isolation and its arts scene….

Together at Arms

A new sculpture of a New Zealand digger will be unveiled on the Anzac Bridge in Sydney. The digger will stand guard on the other side of the road,…

Masterpieces in Ink

Ta moko is more than aesthetics, it is writes the Los Angeles Times, a solemn declaration of Maori identity and dignity. With a little ink, some stinging pain and…