E-Panui April 2007                                                                                       E-P # 7

Mana Magazine
April / May 2007

Our cover story for this issue features Phyllis Tarawhiti - home after 11 years in a Thai jail. Mana editor Derek Fox caught up with Phyllis shortly after her return home in Febuary. In an extensive interview, Phyllis talks about her upbringing and the years leading up to the fateful trip to Bangkok where she was convicted of heroin smuggling. She talks about receiving the death sentence, day-to-day life in the prison nicknamed the 'Bangkok Hilton' and how she eventually received a pardon from the King of Thailand.

 

 

The late Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu had a dream. She was among those who wanted to have a marae at Auckland International Airport. It was to be a place where tupapaku flown back to New Zealand from overseas could be reunited with grieving whanau in a dignified space. Mana journalist Qiane Corfield explains how this dream unfolded into a completed masterpiece - a beautiful Tainui marae called Te Manukanuka O Hoturoa that now serves the airport community.

 

Tagging or graffiti? We talk to Bronx-raised New York graffiti artist Eric Orr, in Auckland to teach rangitahi how to embrace graffiti as art. He reckons that councils should provide spaces to let graffiti be seen rather than hidden.

 

We go trans-Tasman to report on the annual Taki Toa Shield rugby and netball tournament in Sydney. This sporting and social fixtures seems to go from strength to strength. Find out why this year's event was one of the best ever in the tourament's 24-year history.

 

 

For God, for King and for country - we tell the story of our forgotten VC and how over the last 20 years his whanau have campaigned to get recongition for neglected Maori Battalion hero, Haane Manahi.