New Zealand

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Skydivers Cheat Death With Early Jump

13 escape just moments before plane crashes into lake

(Newser) - They went out to skydive for fun and ended up leaping for their lives. The pilot and all 12 skydivers on a light plane escaped without serious injury after the aircraft suffered engine failure and crashed into a lake in New Zealand today, the BBC reports. Officials say the plane...

ISIS Fighter Mistakenly Reveals Location in Tweets

New Zealander is apparently unfamiliar with geotagging

(Newser) - A New Zealander who left home to fight with ISIS in Syria made it pretty easy for authorities to track his movements—he tweeted happily away as "Kiwi Jihadi" with his geotag tracking turned on, reports the Guardian . The mistake by Mark Taylor, also known as Abu Adbul-Rahman, was...

Outrage Over Handling of Graveyard Ship

Chinese community says vessel with 499 bodies should be undisturbed

(Newser) - Last week, divers announced that they had found a ship that went down off the coast of New Zealand more than a century ago. Now, the nation's Chinese community has a message for all those figuring out what to do next: Keep your hands off it. The reason has...

Shipwreck Is Grave of 499 Who Were Already Dead

Miners were being brought from NZ to China for burial

(Newser) - The watery grave of more than 500 people has been found off the coast of New Zealand after more than a century—but most of those aboard were already dead when the SS Ventnor sank in 1902. The steamer was carrying the exhumed remains of 499 Chinese gold miners back...

Scientists Defrost, Dissect Rare Colossal Squid

Specimen is one of 2 known intact ones ever found

(Newser) - After thawing an animal that had been frozen for 8 months and some careful maneuvering with a forklift to get it into a tank, scientists were able to take a good look at the best-preserved specimen of the elusive colossal squid ever discovered. The 770-pound creature hauled up by a...

New Zealand Was Spying on Citizens, Lying About It

PM's claims to contrary 'false,' says Edward Snowden with election days away

(Newser) - Edward Snowden's latest revelations target New Zealand: The country's leaders repeatedly told the public that they weren't working on a domestic spying program, the whistleblower says, when in fact they were doing just that. "The Prime Minister’s claim to the public, that ‘there is...

World's 1st 'Climate Refugees' Find a Home

New Zealand accepts family from island nation of Tuvalu

(Newser) - Mark your calendar: The age of modern climate-change refugees may have just begun. New Zealand has agreed to let the family of Sigeo Alesana, a teacher, migrate from Tuvalu, a Polynesian island nation where rising salt water is said to be polluting the drinking water, the Smithsonian and Radio New...

Fishing Boat Hooks Plane—With Body

Plane likely belongs to missing NZ pilot Daroish Kraidy: cops

(Newser) - The crew aboard a New Zealand fishing boat today hauled up a surprising and gruesome catch: a small plane with a body inside. Authorities suspect the plane is a 19-foot aerobatic biplane that was home-assembled from a kit and flown by missing Auckland pilot Daroish Kraidy. The crew of the...

Prince George Sets Off on First Official Tour

He arrives in New Zealand with Prince William, Kate

(Newser) - Prince William and wife Kate arrived in New Zealand at the beginning of a three-week tour today, and they brought Prince George along—it's the eight-month-old's first official tour, the BBC reports, and just the second time he's faced the media. The royal family's first stop:...

New Zealand PM: Time for a New Flag

He promises referendum on 'post-colonial' design

(Newser) - The era of British colonialism is over and it's about time New Zealand adopted a flag without a Union Jack on it, says Prime Minister John Key. "The flag remains dominated by the Union Jack in a way that we ourselves are no longer dominated by the United...

Young Girl Suffers 100 Bites in Dog Mauling

Japanese girl survives but will need repeated surgeries

(Newser) - New Zealand doctors said today that a 7-year-old Japanese girl was bitten about 100 times during a dog mauling that has horrified many in the South Pacific nation. Zac Moaveni, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital, told reporters that the girl, Sakurako Uehara, would likely need...

Boy Going Blind Sees Dream Come True

Louie Corbett on mission to complete a visual bucket list

(Newser) - Louie Corbett's dream was to see the Boston Celtics play ball—a dream made all the more urgent due to the 12-year-old's degenerative eye disease that has stolen 50% of his sight in the past year alone and will soon render him blind. This week, the New Zealand...

Maori King Snubs Prince William, Kate

90 minutes not enough time for proper meeting, his people say

(Newser) - Ouch: Prince William and wife Kate have been refused a meeting with New Zealand's Maori king, because they didn't offer up enough time. Wills and Kate, along with son Prince George, will be in New Zealand next month, and asked to meet with King Tuheitia for 90 minutes....

Americans Search Pacific in Hunt for Lost Daughter

But Ricky, Robin Wright are out of money to search for Danielle, 19

(Newser) - Danielle Wright, 19, set off on a sailing adventure on May 29 aboard a 70-foot wooden sailboat called the Nina. It left New Zealand bound for Australia with six others aboard, but the weather quickly turned bad. After a final text on June 4 stating that the sails had been...

After Shark Bite, Guy Stitches Leg, Grabs a Beer

New Zealand doctor wasn't too worried

(Newser) - When a New Zealand man felt something odd on his leg while spearfishing, he assumed it was one of his buddies. "I looked behind to see who it was and got a bit of a shock," James Grant, a 24-year-old doctor, tells Radio New Zealand . It was, apparently,...

New Zealand's Tallest Mountain Has Shrunk

Ice collapse decades ago knocks almost 100 feet off Mount Cook

(Newser) - The highest point in New Zealand is about 100 feet shorter than we thought. A new measurement of Aoraki/Mount Cook puts its height at roughly 12,217.8 feet, down from an official listed height of 12,316.3 feet, Stuff.co.nz reports. That discrepancy likely isn't due...

It&#39;s 2014 Somewhere

 It's 2014 Somewhere 
Happy New Year
Dec 31, 2013 3:22 PM CST

It's 2014 Somewhere

Images of celebrations from around the world

(Newser) - It's that time of year again: Time for Australia and New Zealand to steal everybody else's thunder. Auckland has already rung in 2014, and Sydney has lit up the sky with its annual much-heralded firework extravaganza. In most of the rest of the world, everyone's still just...

3 Avatar Sequels Will Be Made in NZ

Cameron wants first one out by Christmas 2016

(Newser) - New Zealand is about to get a major case of the blues—Avatar director James Cameron has announced that he plans to return to the country to shoot three sequels about the blue-skinned inhabitants of the fantasy world of Pandora. The director and Twentieth Century Fox have guaranteed that the...

New Zealand Quakes Made Earth's Crust Weaker

Geologists find weakening for 3 miles around crust

(Newser) - How nasty were the deadly quakes that hit New Zealand one after another in 2010 and 2011? So bad that they appear to have seriously weakened the Earth's crust, scientists reveal in a new study. Geologists had previously believed that the strength of the Earth's crust was more...

Get Ready for Jetpacks &mdash;and Soon
 Get Ready 
 for Jetpacks 
 —and Soon 
in case you missed it
Sep 21, 2013 12:06 PM CDT

Get Ready for Jetpacks —and Soon

But you'll need to have $150K to spare next year

(Newser) - At last, that staple of air travel from cheesy sci-fi movies and, of course, the Jetsons, looks to be reality soon: The Wall Street Journal reports that a New Zealand company plans to have its jetpacks up for sale next year, and at least 10 already have been reserved for...

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