Category Archives: New Zealand

Singular vision: New film spotlights queer New Zealand photographer who broke the mould

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When she started out 50 years ago, Fiona Clark’s work was met with rejection. Now she’s the subject of an admiring documentary

Whether documenting the crackling raw energy of Auckland’s fledgling punk rock scene in the 1970s or the hedonistic glamour of Karangahape Road’s queer culture, renowned New Zealand photographer Fiona Clark’s vibrant photos evocatively capture people and personalities in subcultures many people wouldn’t even know existed.

Seen as too confronting and radical by the New Zealand art world in the 1970s, Clark’s work was met with resistance from major art dealers who told her “we’re not handling your work”, and some of her images mysteriously disappeared from the Auckland art gallery. But Clark has never let this distract her from her singular vision.

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Māori tribe tells anti-Covid vaccine protesters to stop using its haka

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Tribal leaders say they have lost many ancestors to previous pandemics and see vaccine as best protection against virus

Anti-vaccine protesters in New Zealand have been told to stop using the “ka mate” haka by the tribe who have ownership of it.

The haka, a Māori war dance made internationally famous by its performance by the All Blacks at rugby matches, is considered a cultural treasure, or taonga, in New Zealand. It was performed last week by anti-vaccination and “freedom” protesters, who marched in their thousands to parliament.

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New Zealand possum holds woman ‘hostage’ at her home

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Police say the animal, thought to be either an escaped pet or a juvenile, kept charging at the woman when she left her house

A possum has been released without charge after it held a woman “hostage” at her home, New Zealand police say.

Officers received a call late on Sunday night from a distressed woman who said “a possum was holding her hostage” at her home in the South Island city of Dunedin.

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My family history omits all mention of violence against Māori – I want to break the silence

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It is a grim irony that my Irish family – paying to live on land colonised by the English – was involved in alienating Māori from their land

On the morning of the5 November 1881 my great-grandfather, Andrew Gilhooly, stood alongside 1,588 other men, waiting to commence the invasion of Parihaka pā (settlement), home to the great pacifist leaders Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi and their people. He would have participated in the weeks and months of destruction and despoliation – of people, property and cultivations – that followed.

Andrew remained at Parihaka – which is on the west coast of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand – as part of the Armed Constabulary’s occupying force until late 1884. The occupation was not benign: on one occasion constables tore down 12 houses in retaliation for attempts by neighbouring Māori to bring goods into Parihaka (the attempt to feed starving people was dismissed by the Native Minister as being “in every way objectionable”).

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‘It is about being in control’: how New Zealand’s assisted dying law is bringing comfort to one family

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Steve Smith may be the first person in the country to qualify for the euthanasia procedure. He says it’s a ‘solution’ and a ‘choice’

When Steve Smith dies, he wants to be at home, in the arms of his beloved wife. He wants it to be a moment he chooses, before the aggressive tumour in his brain takes hold. He may get his wish.

Smith, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma in May, might be the first New Zealander to become eligible for a medically assisted death, after the country’s End of Life Choice law came into force this week.

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‘Super rare’: Antarctic penguin washes up in New Zealand, 3,000km from home

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Expert say the bird’s presence is a reminder of the threats penguins face due to warming waters and changing habitats

An Antarctic penguin has traversed 3,000km of icy waters to find himself far from home and on new and puzzling shores: the south-eastern coastline of New Zealand.

The Adélie penguin in question, affectionately named “Pingu” by locals, was spotted looking somewhat lost at Birdlings Flat, a small settlement on New Zealand’s South Island.

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Fearful of overwhelmed morgues and battling lockdown protests, New Zealand faces up to Covid peak

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The country that kept the virus out for so long is now coming to terms with endemic Covid

Fears of overwhelmed morgues, record Covid cases, anti-lockdown protests – the headlines this week in New Zealand might evoke deja-vu for anyone who lived through the pandemic in Europe, Asia or America.

New Zealand has recently generated a series of news stories that could have been a year-old dispatch from the opposite side of the globe. National radio announced that hospitals had been buying portable refrigerators to prepare for the possibility of growing Covid deaths. In the capital, Wellington, a crowd of thousands of “pro-freedom” anti-vaccination protesters gathered in front of parliament – one of the first organised, medium-scale expressions of dissatisfaction from a country that had held on to extraordinarily high levels of social support for its Covid response.

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‘See these glaciers, before they melt’: living on the frontline of global heating

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From extreme weather obliterating homes to rising sea levels ruining crops, climate breakdown is a terrifying daily reality for many

Throughout the 2021 United Nations climate change conference, the Guardian will be publishing the stories of the people whose lives have been upended – sometimes devastated – by the climate breakdown.

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Peter Jackson sells special effects studio Weta Digital for $1.63bn

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The Wellington-based studio built characters and scenes for films including Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Wonder Woman and Planet of the Apes

The special effects studio co-founded by Sir Peter Jackson, which has brought blockbusters including Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones to life, has been sold for more than $1.6bn, in the latest blow to New Zealand’s film and TV industry.

The cash and shares deal, which will see Weta Digital sold to US-based video game company Unity Software for $1.63bn, comes less than three months after Amazon made the shock decision to move its $1bn-plus development of a small screen adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (LOTR) from New Zealand to the UK after shooting just one series.

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Jacinda Ardern interrupted by daughter Neve during livestream that coincided with bedtime

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The New Zealand prime minister was trying to explain changing Covid rules when her three-year-old daughter appeared off-screen

The New Zealand prime minister has been interrupted by a persistent heckler: her three-year-old daughter, who had “escaped” and was up past her bedtime while Jacinda Ardern was trying to give a live update on the country’s Covid response.

The prime minister was conducting a livestream about shifting public health restrictions when she was interrupted by an apparently wide awake Neve.

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‘You’re meant to be in bed, darling’: Ardern interrupted by daughter Neve during livestream – video

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New Zealand's prime minister is interrupted by her three-year-old as the leader takes to Facebook live to share a Covid update. ‘You're meant to be in bed, darling,’ Jacinda Ardern says, turning her head to speak to Neve. ‘It's bedtime, darling, pop back to bed, I'll come and see you in a second.' Ardern’s mother then ushers Neve back to her room and the PM turns back to camera to joke: ‘Well, that was a bedtime fail, wasn’t it?’

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New Zealand finally welcomes godwit two months after it was blown 2,000km back to Alaska

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The bird has failed to complete the non-stop, 12,200km journey three times in the past year

A plucky migrating godwit that captured New Zealand’s attention after it was forced to make a dramatic U-turn back to Alaska after 33 hours of non-stop flight has finally touched down in the country.

Every year, the Eastern bar-tailed godwits, or kuaka in Māori, make one of the longest avian migration flights in the world, travelling from their breeding ground in the Arctic, across the Pacific, to New Zealand.

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Coronavirus live: Germany sees highest ever seven-day Covid incidence rate; Auckland lockdown set to end

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Germany’s Robert Koch Institute records incidence rate of 201.1; Lockdown of New Zealand’s largest city likely to end this month

Dozens of crossings at the Mexico-US border reopened to non-essential travel on Monday after a 20-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lizbeth Diaz reports for Reuters from Tijuana that ahead of the reopening, hundreds of cars formed lines stretching back kilometres from the border, while queues at pedestrian crossings grew steadily.

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‘We saw everyone drop’: bee swarm stops play in New Zealand cricket match

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Players and umpires dropped like flies as bees descended on a Plunket Shield match between Wellington and Canterbury

It’s usually rain that stops play in New Zealand, but on Sunday it was the unfamiliar sight of a swarm of bees that brought a halt to the cricket being played at Wellington’s Basin Reserve.

Players and umpires dropped like flies as they took cover from the descending bees on the relative safety of the oval’s turf on the opening day of the Plunket Shield match between Wellington and Canterbury.

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Australia’s commitment to coal is directly responsible for climate crisis in the Pacific | Anote Tong

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Constant change in the climate policies of Australia and New Zealand has been a huge disappointment to Pacific island nations

When I came into office as president of Kiribati in 2003, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its third assessment report and, like my predecessors, I believed the report’s projected rise in sea levels posed a real threat to the survival for those of us on the frontline. Accordingly, in my first address at the UN General Assembly in 2004 I drew attention to the dangers posed by climate change, especially to small island nations like Kiribati and other Pacific island countries.

The fact that no other leader made any reference to it in their statement worried me and I wondered whether I might be making a fool of myself, especially when the focus of international attention at the time was on more real and present threats like terrorism. Thankfully by the next assembly, in 2005, other Pacific island leaders had joined the call for action. This has gathered great momentum in the years since.

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New Zealand hits Covid case record but Ardern says ‘better times coming’

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200 daily cases for the first time as PM says it is on track to have ‘amongst the highest vaccination rates in the world’

New Zealand has passed 200 daily cases of Covid-19 for the first time in the pandemic, placing it on a worrying trajectory for the summer and raising expert concerns that the growing outbreak could overwhelm the health system.

On Saturday there were 206 cases announced – 200 based in Auckland, the city at the centre of the outbreak. There were 73 people in hospital with the virus, seven in intensive care.

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Once a global conservation success story, New Zealand’s black robin in trouble again

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Down to just one breeding pair 40 years ago, the bird bounced back after extraordinary efforts – now its survival is again under threat

Forty years ago, on a remote rocky island in the Pacific, 800km east of New Zealand, a conservationist set out to bring the rarest bird in the world back from the brink of extinction.

Don Merton, wearing a check shirt and shorts, climbed 200 metres up the rockface of Little Mangere Island, part of the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu in the indigenous Moriori language and Wharekauri in Māori), and laid a soft netted trap for the black robin, also known as kakaruia and karure – a tiny endemic bird that lives up to its name, with black plumage, black eyes and a little pointy black beak. Once captured, he gently placed the bird inside a wooden box, strapped it to his back, descended the cliff and jumped on a boat to the neighbouring island – Mangere, a larger, more verdant habitat.

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UK reports 193 deaths – as it happened

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Only those vaccinated or recovered from Covid will be allowed to frequent restaurants and cultural venues in Austria ; UK records 34,029 new infections

Germany recorded its second consecutive daily record for new coronavirus cases on Friday as infections pick up across Europe, and its disease control centre said unvaccinated people face a “very high” risk of infection.

The country reported 37,120 new infections over the past 24 hours, according to the centre, the Robert Koch Institute. That compared with Thursday’s figure of 33,949 – which in turn topped the previous record of 33,777 set on 18 December last year.

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New Zealand couple dig up ‘Doug’, potentially the world’s heaviest potato – video

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A giant 7.9kg potato found in a New Zealand couple’s overgrown garden may set a new world record for the heaviest of its kind ever to be discovered. Colin and Donna Craig-Brown were weeding in their Hamilton garden when Colin hit the large tuber. The couple have grown fond of the potato, nicknaming it Doug and taking it for walks. The current Guinness world records entry for the heaviest potato is a 2011 specimen found in Britain, that weighed in at just under 5kg, with the Craig-Browns saying they are waiting to hear if Doug will be the new record holder

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Vast veggie: huge New Zealand potato weighing 7.9kg could claim world record

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Colin and Donna Craig-Brown have named the 17.4lb tuber Doug and have been taking him for walks

A giant 7.9kg potato found in a New Zealand couple’s overgrown garden may set a new world record for the largest of its kind ever to be discovered.

Colin and Donna Craig-Brown were doing a spot of weeding in their Hamilton back yard, when Colin’s hoe hit something below the ground.

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