Move over GDP, happiness is angling to become the metric of the future. Nation states have begun to compete in global happiness rankings and plan policy according to statistics of wellbeing, with New Zealand…
Kiwis for kiwi is a national charity working with community and Māori-led conservation projects to put a stop to the horrific decline of our national icon. With the support of Old Mout Cider, they have…
“Unlike most other countries, New Zealand’s parliament appears to have realised that no one’s going to get anywhere by pretending to agree with, or make bargains with, Donald Trump,” freelance journalist Matteo di Maio…
New Zealand has been placed on rank #7 – tied with the Czech Republic and Malta – in this year’s Henley Passport Index, which ranks “all the world’s passports according…
Auckland amateur astrophotographer Josh Kirkley captured a shot so unusual the cameraman can be heard gasping as he films clip. Kirkley describes his “shock” at capturing footage of the International Space Station (ISS) crossing…
New Zealand has been ranked as the second safest country in the world in this year’s edition of the Global Peace Index. Iceland was ranked the world’s safest place for the 11th consecutive year….
A new population of at least 700 blue whales has been found living between the North and South Islands. The gigantic marine mammals are genetically distinct from whales found in the neighbouring Pacific and…
New Zealand photographer Bianca Duimel “is hoping to change the conversation around red hair with a powerful art project.” Sarah Young reports for The Independent. “I was looking for children for…
Vegan perfume lovers must not only avoid fragrances made with extracts of milk, honey, leather and beeswax, but also secretions from animals used to mark their territories, which are often used as fixatives to…
Latte, Americano, cappuccino … the flat white might be relatively new to the scene (and sound less glamorous), but it now amounts for about 10 per cent of UK coffee sales, according to The…
The mastermind of the 2011 Rugby World Cup success, Sir Graham Henry, has returned to the side where he first came to prominence joining provincial side Auckland to assist head coach Alama Ieremia, the…
Tiritiri Matangi – a 75-minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland – is one of several offshore islands that New Zealand has turned into sanctuaries for its native birds. The Independent’s David Whitley visits Tiritiri…
The first footage of Peter Jackson’s fantasy movie Mortal Engines, an adaptation of Phillip Reeve’s novel, has finally landed,” writes Jack Shepherd in an article for
Like a couple of lab rats, professors New Zealander André Spicer and Swede Carl Cederström have subjected themselves to every conceivable test in pursuit of perfection, hoping to become better human beings, smarter, more…
Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie are back, and will tour the UK and Ireland in March 2018 for the first time in more than seven years. The ‘Flight of the…
“Antipodean ales are on the up, with more and more becoming available this side of the equator. These are the breweries you need to know about,” brewer and author Nick Moyle writes…
The Norwegian-Kiwi duo “Anna of the North is a product of heartbreak, and the recovery that comes after,” writes Roisin O’Connor in an article for The Independent. “Anna Lotterud was working…
“Marylebone is certainly a nice place to be on a weekend morning – especially if the sun’s out – with its beautiful shop fronts and stylish eateries, it feels very civilised. Making it even…
A Connan Mockasin song features on an Independent list of most-listened-to tracks the UK newspaper’s staff played the most last year on Spotify. “Oddly, my most-listened to track of 2016 wasn’t from this year at all, but…
Wellington “is a small city and practically everything in the downtown district is in a straight line between the mountains that rise to the west and the bay to the east,” writes Christopher Beanland…
New Zealand has been identified as the 13th most competitive country in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. “Countries were ranked according to the “12 pillars of competitiveness,” which includes macro-economic environment, infrastructure, health…
”The vast majority of us lack the happy-go-lucky charm of New Zealand’s favourite writer/director,” writes Clarisse Loughrey for The Independent. She is talking about Taika Waititi, who currently is working on one of…
Creator and star of hit American television show Girls, Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke are championing the unretouched precedent for Lonely Girls, a journal featuring inspiring women modelling underwear from the New Zealand-based Lonely…
New Zealand computer scientist Craig Nevill-Manning’s Medal Per Capita table put this year’s New Zealand Olympic team near the top, placing fourth with 18 medals and a population of 4,595,700. That’s one medal for…
“In New Zealand, you’ll be interested to learn, there are more species of penguin than anywhere else in the world,” the Independent’s deputy managing editor Sean O’Grady writes in a preview of BBC Two…
New Zealand independent director Niki Caro is one of two frontrunners to oversee Captain Marvel, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The other possibility to helm the film is Australian Jennifer Kent. Wellington-born Caro and Kent…
Wellington-born mezzo-soprano Bianca Andrew, 26, has won the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize for her performance of Hugo Alfvén’s “Skogen sover” and Hugo Wolf’s “Nimmersatte Liebe”. According to the Independent’s Michael Church, who attended the…
With their “Zingy “sauv blanc”, rich flat-white coffee and citrusy hops which now flavours British craft beers, “Kiwis have been making much more impact on our tastes than simply supplying lamb and butter,” as…
New Zealand is the country with the second highest rate of charitable donations as a percentage gross domestic product (GDP) according to a new report released by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). Charitable giving by…
Beatrice Tinsley, “one of the least acknowledged – and most original – thinkers in astronomy is being acknowledged by Google Doodle”, writes Jess Staufenberg in an article for The Independent. The Doodle on Google’s…
“It’s been almost three years since Top of the Lake first aired and it’s still hard to shake the series’ sense of creeping dread”, writes Jacob Stolworthy in an article on The Independent. Lead actress…
Taika Waititi’s new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a dramatisation of Barry Crump’s 1986 novel, Wild Pork and Watercress, has premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Boy director Waititi returns with the road comedy…
Research for her first novel Jakob’s Colours took British writer Lindsay Hawdon and her two young sons to the Land of the Long White Cloud and its fragrant lavender fields, reports the Independent. Hawdon writes…
For an artist, Simon Denny has an unusually agile grasp of corporate jargon, according to the Independent. Discussing his forthcoming Serpentine Sackler Gallery exhibition in London, Products for Organising, the 33-year-old New Zealander’s chat…
New Zealand-born designer Thomas Pavitte is taking a minimalist approach to the current craze for adult colouring books, requiring his readers to draw the images themselves and turning dot-to-dot drawing into an art form. Pavitte…
One of three debut writers on the Man Booker longlist, 35-year-old Anna Smaill will be unfamiliar to all but the most avid reader of contemporary fiction: her previous publication is a volume of poetry,…
New Zealand chef Anna Hansen, 45, who worked with Michelin-starred Fergus Henderson and fusion expert Peter Gordon before opening her own London restaurant, The Modern Pantry, talks with the Independent about music to make…
The second most-capped All Black of all time tells the Independent how illustrating children’s books helps keep him grounded before big games, like the forthcoming defence of the World Cup. Mealamu, 36, one of the…
Like many of the cast of BBC3’s new supernatural thriller Tatau, Shushila Takao is a New Zealander. She stars alongside British newcomers Joe Layton and Theo Barklem-Biggs as Aumea in the television…
The cricketing career of Richie Benaud – Australian captain and the first man to take 200 wickets and score 2,000 runs in Tests – was had a critical intervention by Timaru chemist Ivan James….
New Zealand brothers Sam and James O’Connor have helped Oxford University beat Cambridge in the annual University Boat Races held on the River Thames in London. Sam, 27, (pictured left) who has competed in and…
According to the Independent, New Zealand author Anna Smaill’s debut novel The Chimes is “superb … intriguing, ambitious and strikingly written.” Harper’s Bazaar tips it for “book of the year.” The setting is a dystopian…
One mother and two young boys are on a trip around the world to seven countries to find the origin of seven colours. The Rainbow Hunters, as the trio are called, are…
Over the coming six weeks, the world’s greatest cricketers will be zig-zagging across New Zealand. So for the cricket fan the Independent’s David Whitley suggests, that’s a fine excuse to disappear to the other…
New Zealand poet Anna Smaill’s debut novel The Chimes, reviewed in the Independent, is “dystopian fiction but not quite as we know it.” “Smaill draws on her training as a classical violinist to create a…
Before Peter Jackson and his film crew rolled into town, Mount Doom went by the humble name of Mount Ngauruhoe, the fearsome volcano which forms the centrepiece of New Zealand’s Tongariro Alpine Crossing, the…
New Zealand author Peter Walker’s latest novel Some Here Among Us is “an absorbing, ethereal meditation into how the passage of time opens us up”, Peter Carty writes in a review of the book…
Upon its release in Britain, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was met with great enthusiasm, with UK newspapers agreeing the New Zealand director has completed his trilogy with verve. “Jackson’s…
The sequel to cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show is set to be adapted for the London stage. Director Benji Sperring will bring Richard O’Brien’s Shock Treatment to the King’s Head Theatre in spring 2015, which will include…
Seventeen years after Sir Peter Jackson won the rights to film The Lord Of The Rings, he is finally taking leave of JRR Tolkien and Middle-earth with the conclusion of The Hobbit. The new film marks a magnificent,…
The All Blacks gained a fifth consecutive win over England, after the home side led 14-11 at half time. But the English side made error upon error and suffered a long, slow black death in…
With less than a fortnight to spend on the other side of the world, the Independent’s Kate Simon used planes, trains, automobiles … and a bike to make every second count on a trip…
New Zealand is one of the best countries in the world to grow old in, coming 10th in the Global AgeWatch Index which ranks countries by how well their older populations are faring. Norway topped the…
Former All Black forward Brad Thorne, 39, has pitched up at Leicester at the tail-end of a colourful career that’s taken him from Dunedin to Leinster via Japan. But, he tells the Independent’s Chris…
It’s great to be a tourist down under, with travellers naming New Zealand and Australia among the best vacation destinations – the cities of Auckland and Melbourne are the friendliest in the world. Kiwis and…
A New Zealander who bet $2 on the exact score between FIFA World Cup Semi-finalists Brazil and Germany has made global headlines. The semi-final, which ended 7-1 to Germany and has been called “Brazil’s worst…
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