Prince Edward to present NZer of Year in UK Award

Prince Edward will present the New Zealander of the Year in the UK award at the annual New Zealand Society’s Waitangi Day Dinner in London on Friday (UKtime).

The prestigious award recognises the contribution that a New Zealand or British national has made in presenting an outstanding positive image of modern New Zealand in Britain.

Past winners have included Commonwealth secretary general Don McKinnon, rowing coach Harry Mahon, chef Peter Gordon, show jumper Mark Todd and golfer Michael Campbell.

Finalists this year are:

Daniel Bedingfield, singer and songwriter nominated this week for a Brit Award; Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, DBE, the first woman to be elected Provost of Kings College, Cambridge and until recently chair of the policy and resource committee of the Corporation of London; and Len Cook, New Zealand’s former chief statistician and now the UK’s National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales.

Periodically and exceptionally the NZ Society makes a lifetime achievement award which will also be presented at this year's dinner to Robin Cook FRS.

Judges this year include the Russell Marshall, New Zealand High Commissioner in London, Shari Gallagher, Clare De Lore, Barbara Stones and Mike Coreless, managing director of the Downunder Insurance, which is sponsoring the event.

The winner will be announced at the February 6 dinner at the Dorchester Hotel.

Copyright Word of Mouth Media NZ 2004

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>