Not So Drowned Continent
Fossils of an 18 million year old ancestor to the tuatara have been found outside of Saint Bathans, Otago, filling a huge void in the fossil record, and casting doubt on a widely held…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Small Surprises At the Zoo
Four two-week-old Kunekune-cross piglets are the newest attraction at Five Sisters Zoo near Polbeth in West Lothian, Scotland. A cross between New Zealand and Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, they originate from Asia, and are now…
Henry’s Heyday
A 111-year-old tuatara named Henry has successfully sewn his seed after over fifteen years in solitary confinement. Henry, who lives at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, was assumed over the hill and kept…
Slippery Subjects
Maori eel catching methods are related in a new book about migratory animals by American artist and author James Prosek, who spent time in New Zealand studying the fish. Bird, Butterfly, Eel is designed…
Altered stories
“New Zealand remains a comfortably social democratic society, less dynamic but also less brash or polarised than Australia,” writes Guardian political blogger Michael White in a posting which looks at the reintegration of Chinese…
Facebook’em
Queenstown police have caught a burglar by posting footage of a man trying to break into a safe on the social networking site Facebook. The burglar broke into the Franklin Tavern in Queenstown and…
Pre-Human New Zealand
Paleontology researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of Otago, and the NZDEC have begun to paint a picture of ancient life on the New Zealand islands by investigating the feces of the giant…
Killer Waves
A New Zealand man spent one recent Saturday surfing alongside three orcas near a beach on the Taranaki coast, enjoying the perfect waves. Craig Hunter, who has been surfing off the North Island for…
Bush’s Pacific Monument
Large areas in the Pacific near New Zealand territory have been designated as American national monuments by outgoing U.S. President George Bush. The areas include the Mariana Trench and northern Mariana Islands, a chain…
Around New Zealand in 30 Days
Sherman’s Travel offers up a primer on New Zealand’s “stunning landscapes … fantastic wine scene, unbelievable lodges, and happening cities,” charting a course through the premier attractions of Auckland, The Wine Trail and The…
Unlimited Potential
After the multi-blockbuster book The Learning Revolution, Gordon Dryden returns with his latest book Unlimited: The New Learning Revolution and The Seven Keys to Unlock It. The new book, according to Dryden – whose…
Fondly Remembered
Sir Edmund Hillary is one of 45 individuals remembered in Time magazine’s 2008 ‘Fond Farewell’ tributes. “On May 29, 1953, Hillary, with the help of his Sherpa guide, became the first person to reach…
Drilling For Knowledge
Victoria University’s Tim Naish is one of a hundred scientists from 40 different countries working on a map of climate change. The Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) is digging deep below the Ross Ice Shelf to determine…
Aiding an Avian Identity
Though the battle to save New Zealand’s famous national symbol the kiwi is “conceded unwinnable on some fronts”; the bird’s existence is mounting with the help of Zealandia, Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, which expects…
Minnie Dean Memorialised
Infamous Winton baby-farmer Minnie Dean, the first and last woman to be hanged in New Zealand, will soon have a headstone erected on her unmarked grave in the Winton Cemetery. Dean’s Scottish great-great-nephew Martin…
Hold the Cash
One alternative form of paper money in New Zealand is the local exchange trading system (LETS) of green dollars, which is a particularly useful means of trade in smaller towns. Swiss national and…
Revolution in the Wananga
Maori educator and chairman of tertiary institution Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith was a key speaker at the World Indigenous People’s Education Conference in Melbourne held in early December. A…
Goodbye to a Good Guy
Former All Black front rower John Drake has died at his home in Mt Maunganui aged 49. Drake was a tighthead prop in the World Cup-winning All Blacks team of 1987. In recent years…
Via the Red Route
Since its opening in 1995, Karori Wildlife Sanctuary – recently renamed Zealandia – has assisted in halting the continued demise of many native bird species, releasing 15 endangered species back into the…
Pouhaki Relocated
In 1920, Maori carver Tene Waitere gifted Prince Edward an eight-metre pouhaki, or flagpole, carved from a single tree trunk. The Prince then bequeathed the pole to Portsmouth Naval Base, where for the…
Leader for Change
01 December 2008 – Time calls John Key’s election win “an emphatic triumph”, and in a Q&A, Key notes that “we are 22nd out of 30 countries in the OECD for average income. I…
Masterful to the End
Dunedin-born professional chess player and writer Robert Wade has died in London, aged 87, bringing to an end a career which famously included a draw with Bobby Fischer at the Havana tournament in 1965,…
Educating the World
New Zealand’s international students industry is flourishing again after a recent downturn in numbers. Smart marketing strategies and the lower New Zealand dollar are luring overseas students back. Compared to offshore competitors, New Zealand…
With Loppers at the Ready
Conservation Volunteers New Zealand is joined by British gap-year blogger Ruth Holliday who writes about her time spent with the group in the Telegraph, “doing what is best described as heavy gardening in the…
An Astral Heritage
23 November 2008 – Tekapo’s Graeme Murray – director of Earth & Sky at Mt John Observatory – is the driving force behind obtaining UNESCO World Heritage Starlight Reserve status for the pristine skies…
Teaming Up for Culture
New Zealand and South Korea are forging an artistic alliance with a film co-production treaty signed in September 2007 and the forthcoming New Zealand Cultural Diplomacy International Program which will be held over three…
Antarcticans Unite
Nearly every New Zealander, according to American author of The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica, Leslie Carol Roberts “has some link to Antarctica – either they had been there, or someone they…
Parliamentary Melting Pot
Pansy Wong, 53, is New Zealand’s first Asian cabinet minister, having been named Minister for Ethnic Affairs and Minister of Women’s Affairs in the new government. Wong, who was born in Shanghai, said her…
Te Rauparaha’s War Cry
The all-Maori team first performed a haka against Surrey in Richmond in 1888 where they, according to theIllustrated London News, “cavorted about in ostrich-feather capes and tassell’d caps in a device of novelty and…
The siege of Helengrad
Antony Green, election analyst with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, summed up Election 08 thus (abridged): “Whether New Zealanders wanted change or just a change of government is the mandate question that John Key will…
Legendary Cricketer
Former test-cricketer and left-arm spinner Aucklander Hedley Howarth has died, aged 64. Howarth claimed 86 wickets in 30 tests for New Zealand between 1969 and 1974, retiring from test cricket in 1977. He was…
Key In Clark Out
8 November 2008 – National Party leader John Key, 47, has ousted Labour’s Helen Clark from office and a nine-year term, with a mantra of change. Prime Minister Helen Clark conceded defeat. Clark, 58,…
R.I.P Harry
Henry William Bourne Palin, British actor Michael Palin’s uncle, was a farmhand in New Zealand who at the outbreak of war in 1914 enlisted in the 1st battalion of the Canterbury Regiment of the…
Better Late Than Never
30 October 2008 – For the first time in approximately two hundred years, a tuatara has been discovered nesting on the New Zealand mainland. The event happened at Wellington’s Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, where four…
Green Light District
New Zealand’s “liberalisation” of the world’s oldest profession is, according to the Economist, a success story, where in 2003 the magazine writes, “that country decriminalised the sex trade with a boldness that exceeded that…
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 part by 21. Under the…
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 said that the flavour in…
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 Kissinger. According to a 2005…
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 Law on indigenous rights entitled,…
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 policies introduced in New Zealand…
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 recent selection as one of…
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 starring in the musical Wicked….
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 New Zealand Trust (CANZ). Most…
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 winning business excellence awards against…
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, which discusses how “the heirs…
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 Loader to gold in the…
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 naturalized: they have spread out…
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 of New Zealand life” coming…
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 – as it is giving visitors…
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 twice as far as females…
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 New Zealand”, the newspaper writes:…
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 of people to be tracked…
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 sound is caused by the…
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 operators Real Journeys, joined iwi…
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 of the southern hemisphere.” “Intensely…
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 his Puerto Rican wife Nikolasa,…
