Archive for the ‘New Zealand’ Category
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Today the New Zealand Parliament voted in amendments to the terrorism suppression laws, allowing the government to designate terrorist organisations and creating a new offence of commiting an act of terrorism (penalty of life sentence). The Prime Minister will have the responsibility of designating groups and individuals as terrorists. Police will have the power to lock people up without charge, under the instructions of politicians.
It’s a move that is said to arise from international response to the existence of groups such as Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah. Only problem is that violent activism has been part of New Zealand’s short history since European invasion. And the raids of Tuhoe land in the Ureweras over the last month would have cut to the bone of the memories that were associated with resistance to land confiscation.
With the restriction of certain rights the Government has a responsibility to ensure that extra efforts are made to protect vulnerable bicultural relationships. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Tags: Maori, New Zealand, terrorism
Posted in New Zealand, Reconciliation | No Comments »
Thursday, October 4th, 2007
Stuff.co.nz today published a photograph (by Peter Meecham) of two All Blacks wearing pink as they trained on a northern hemisphere tour in 2006.
The suggestion of pink comes as the All Blacks are required to wear their silver strip in their match against the French this weekend. French captain Raphael Ibanez said that the New Zealand rugby team could play in blue or pink or without any jersey and they would still be the All Blacks.
The poll run by the Fairfax site asks readers to vote on pink, black, silver/grey and topless. There is something about the black and silver that makes the All Blacks who they are. The black and white colours come from the traditional Maori art. What’s missing is red. The All Blacks should be wearing red socks.
Tags: All Blacks, New Zealand, rugby
Posted in New Zealand, Sport | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
On this day in 1935 Bert Sachse is credited for creating the pavlova. Sachse was a chef at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth, Western Australia. It is said that the pavlova was named after ballerina Anna Pavlova who had visited Australia in 1926 and 1929 and had died in 1931. Australians like to use this date to claim pavlova as a national dessert.
New Zealanders have a problem with this. Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist at Otago University in New Zealand, found a pavlova recipe in a 1933 Rangiora Mothers’ Union cookery book, along with an even earlier copy of the pavlova recipe from a 1929 rural New Zealand magazine. She’s written the story up in “The pavlova cake: the evolution of a national dish”, an article in Food on the Move: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 1996, edited by Harlan Walker.
The pavlova, a whipped cream-filled meringue dish usually topped generously with passionfruit, strawberries or kiwifruit, is considered the national dessert of both Australia and New Zealand.
Tags: Australia, food, New Zealand
Posted in New Zealand | No Comments »
