Tag Archives: Independent (The)

MP Efeso Collins a Champion of Equality

MP Efeso Collins a Champion of Equality

Green Party MP Fa’anānā Efeso Collins, who had only recently started his new role as member of parliament, has died at the age of 49. He was participating in the ChildFund Water Run to…

Discovering New Zealand’s Newest Dark Sky Reserve

Discovering New Zealand’s Newest Dark Sky Reserve

The stars have long held a special resonance within Māori culture. Now, the plight of a small seabird has triggered Kaikōura to seek dark sky status – and the results are awe-inspiring, finds The…

Tilt at a Record Fourth World Cup Crown

Tilt at a Record Fourth World Cup Crown

“To think New Zealand had entered this tournament with questions about their ability to assert themselves up front; this was a frightening display of forward strength, leaving Argentina’s Rugby World Cup dreams buried beneath…

We Are Writing Our Own Food History

We Are Writing Our Own Food History

In an article for UK newspaper The Independent, New Zealander Molly Codyre, editorial assistant and food and drink writer for the publication, decides to find out what New Zealand cuisine really is. “This is a…

Victory for Bat in Bird of the Year Competition

Victory for Bat in Bird of the Year Competition

The winner of New Zealand’s Bird of the Year 2021 contest has been announced and it’s the country’s only native land mammal – the pekapeka-tou-roa long-tailed bat. The UK’s Independent newspaper reports. The bat stole…

New Zealanders Overseas Talk Being Behind Borders

New Zealanders Overseas Talk Being Behind Borders

When Jacinda Ardern closed New Zealand’s borders, chasing a zero-Covid policy, many New Zealanders were effectively locked out of their own country, Molly Codyre writes, having interviewed “those left behind” for an article published in the…

Antarctica Trip Motivates Lorde on All Levels

Antarctica Trip Motivates Lorde on All Levels

New Zealand-born singer Lorde, 24, has teased fans with more information about a new album while announcing her book, Going South, inspired by her 2019 trip to Antarctica. The Independent’s Isobel Lewis reports. The “Green Light” singer has…

Journalist Laura Pitcher Chooses NY Over NZ

Journalist Laura Pitcher Chooses NY Over NZ

Friends and strangers told writer, editor, and designer Laura Pitcher she was “crazy” to leave New Zealand after a four-month visit “home” to return to the United States during the pandemic. But the New…

Sam Neill Back on Set with Anna Paquin

Sam Neill Back on Set with Anna Paquin

The Jurassic Park star Sam Neill has been entertaining the masses during lockdown with his ukulele playing and ‘Cinema Quarantino Productions’. He talks to The Independent’s Alexandra Pollard about his new role on season…

New Zealand Passes Zero Carbon Law

New Zealand Passes Zero Carbon Law

New Zealand has passed a law to reduce its emissions in a bid to become mostly carbon neutral by 2050, Britain’s Independent newspaper reports. The zero-carbon bill aims to tackle climate change by setting a…

Tourists Banned from Swimming with Dolphins

Tourists Banned from Swimming with Dolphins

Tourists have been banned from swimming with bottlenose dolphins in New Zealand in a bid to protect them from “being loved into extinction”. Chiaro Giordano reports for UK newspaper, The Independent. The population of bottlenose…

Chef Monica Galetti Recounts Rise to Cooking Fame

Chef Monica Galetti Recounts Rise to Cooking Fame

Samoan-born New Zealand chef Monica Galetti was the first woman to become head chef at La Gavroche and now runs her own restaurant, Mere, in London with her husband. Galetti talks to Britain’s Independent…

New Zealand’s Sacred Mermaid Pools Closed Indefinitely

New Zealand’s Sacred Mermaid Pools Closed Indefinitely

“Picturesque Mermaid Pools in Matapouri in New Zealand have been closed indefinitely after human waste and litter were repeatedly found at the sacred Māori site, Joanna Whitehead reports for The Independent. “The failure to…

England Denied Victory over All Blacks

England Denied Victory over All Blacks

“The All Blacks looked a shadow of their usual selves in the first half but eventually fought back as Damian McKenzie and Beauden Barrett cut the deficit,” the Independent’s deputy sports editor Jack de…

Why Countries Are Competing in Happiness Rankings

Why Countries Are Competing in Happiness Rankings

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…

Sign Up to Help Protect Our Iconic Bird

Sign Up to Help Protect Our Iconic Bird

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…

New Zealand Is a Haven of Liberal Politics

New Zealand Is a Haven of Liberal Politics

“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…

NZ Passport Ranked 7th Most Powerful

NZ Passport Ranked 7th Most Powerful

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…

Rare ISS Moon Shot Captured by Josh Kirkley

Rare ISS Moon Shot Captured by Josh Kirkley

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 World’s Second Safest Country

New Zealand World’s Second Safest Country

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….

Genetically Distinct Blue Whales Discovered in NZ

Genetically Distinct Blue Whales Discovered in NZ

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…

Photographer Launches Project to Prevent Bullying Against Redheads

Photographer Launches Project to Prevent Bullying Against Redheads

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…

Frances Schoemack’s Abel a Worthy Investment

Frances Schoemack’s Abel a Worthy Investment

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…

How the Flat White Conquered UK Coffee Scene

How the Flat White Conquered UK Coffee Scene

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…

World Cup-Winning Coach Graham Henry Joins Auckland

World Cup-Winning Coach Graham Henry Joins Auckland

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…

Uninhabited Tiritiri Matangi Where Birds Thrive

Uninhabited Tiritiri Matangi Where Birds Thrive

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…

Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines Teaser Released

Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines Teaser Released

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

André Spicer Desperately Seeks Self-Improvement

André Spicer Desperately Seeks Self-Improvement

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 Announce UK Tour Dates

Flight of the Conchords Announce UK Tour Dates

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…

New Zealand’s Best Ales Available in UK

New Zealand’s Best Ales Available in UK

“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…

Norwegian-Kiwi Duo Anna of the North

Norwegian-Kiwi Duo Anna of the North

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…

Brunch at Peter Gordon’s Providores

Brunch at Peter Gordon’s Providores

“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…

Connan Mockasin’s Faking Jazz Together in Spotlight

Connan Mockasin’s Faking Jazz Together in Spotlight

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…

48 Hours In Wellington

48 Hours In Wellington

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 – 13th Most Competitive Country

New Zealand – 13th Most Competitive Country

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…

Taika Waititi’s Creative Journey

Taika Waititi’s Creative Journey

”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…

Girls Stars Front Unretouched Lonely Lingerie Ad

Girls Stars Front Unretouched Lonely Lingerie Ad

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…

Medal Per Capital Table Puts NZ up Top in Rio

Medal Per Capital Table Puts NZ up Top in Rio

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…

New BBC Doco Explores Our Mythical Islands

New BBC Doco Explores Our Mythical Islands

“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…

Marvel-lous Opportunity for Niki Caro

Marvel-lous Opportunity for Niki Caro

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…

Bianca Andrew Wins London Song Prize

Bianca Andrew Wins London Song Prize

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…

New Zealand’s Food and Drink Make It A Land of Plenty

New Zealand’s Food and Drink Make It A Land of Plenty

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 One of The World’s Most Generous Nations

New Zealand One of The World’s Most Generous Nations

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 Acknowledged by Google Doodle

Beatrice Tinsley Acknowledged by Google Doodle

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…

Top of the Lake Season 2 to Start Filming This Spring

Top of the Lake Season 2 to Start Filming This Spring

“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…

Sundance Welcomes Taika Waititi’s Latest

Sundance Welcomes Taika Waititi’s Latest

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…

New Zealand’s Lavender Farms Inspiration for Novel

New Zealand’s Lavender Farms Inspiration for Novel

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…

Simon Denny Merges Tech and Art at Serpentine

Simon Denny Merges Tech and Art at Serpentine

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…

Thomas Pavitte Revives the Art of Dot-to-Dot

Thomas Pavitte Revives the Art of Dot-to-Dot

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…

Incredulous Anna Smaill on Booker Nomination

Incredulous Anna Smaill on Booker Nomination

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,…

Anna Hansen Says It’s Not Fun Boiling a Pig’s Head

Anna Hansen Says It’s Not Fun Boiling a Pig’s Head

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…

Hard as Nails Keven Mealamu Has an Arty Side

Hard as Nails Keven Mealamu Has an Arty Side

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…

Shushila Takao Stars in Cook Island-Set Thriller Tatau

Shushila Takao Stars in Cook Island-Set Thriller Tatau

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…

Richie Benaud’s career made possible by Timaru pharmicist

Richie Benaud’s career made possible by Timaru pharmicist

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….

Sam and James O’Connor Row for Winning Oxford Team

Sam and James O’Connor Row for Winning Oxford Team

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…

Writing Struck a Chord for Author Anna Smaill

Writing Struck a Chord for Author Anna Smaill

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…