Top Scoop Stories – 3 December 2008 News Summary
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LEAD STORY------------
John Key Meets Queen, Avoids "Pants" Faux Pas:
Prime Minister John Key has met the Queen. In an attempt to differentiate his leadership style from Helen Clark's he did
not wear trousers at the event. "The response to Helen Clark's behaviour made it clear meeting the Queen with trousers
on is not respectful," said the pants-less Mr Key. More »[1]
ALSO:
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NZ POLITICS------------
The previous Labour government underfunded ACC to the tune of about $1 billion over the next three years, Prime Minister
John Key has revealed. More »[1]
ALSO:
ACC Papers (PDF) [3]
Lindsay Shelton writes: Just days before councillors are due to debate major amendments to the city’s District Plan, the Wellington City
Council has released 79 pages of documents about the proposed changes... More »[1]
New Zealand Red Cross welcomes the New Zealand Government’s intention to be one of the first signatories of the
Convention on Cluster Munitions, which opens for signing on 3 December in Norway. The Convention prohibits the use,
development, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. More »[1]
ALSO:
The building industry downturn means National should invest in more state houses - not put a cap on them - says the
Green Party. "Putting a cap on state houses as indicated yesterday by Housing Minister Phil Heatley is irresponsible at
a time of economic downtown." More »[1]
ALSO:
[10] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE0812/S00008.htm [10]
[11] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0812/S00025.htm [11]
[12] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0812/S00019.htm [12]
[13] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0812/S00024.htm [13]
[14] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0812/S00021.htm [14]
[15] - http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0812/S00037.htm [15]
The Office of the Ombudsmen is concerned some parts of the public service have been deliberately delaying responses to
Official Information requests. In the office’s Annual Report to Parliament, Chief Ombudsmen Beverley Wakem says the
practice is unacceptable and subverts the purpose of the legislation. More »[1]
ALSO:
NZ will definitely be keeping to its Kyoto commitments said new New Zealand Prime Minister John Key this afternoon. Mr
Key held a post cabinet press conference and answered questions on a variety of subjects including capping the state
housing stock, the situation facing New Zealand travellers in Thailand and the decision to scrap Labour's ETS
legislation and send the whole caboodle back for select committee consideration. More »[1]
Scoop FULL COVERAGE of the Air New Zealand A320 air crash, including tributes to those lost in the tragedy, Air New
Zealand news conferences, reactions, emerging details of the aircraft, those on board, and the investigation into what
went wrong. (Image: Captain Brian Horrell.) More »[1]
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BUSINESS SCIENCE & TECH------------
The recent axing of TVNZ’s current affairs programme Agenda has been only the last step in a long decline….The wider
picture is how TVNZ can possibly survive as a public broadcaster. The social charter money has been scrapped. More »[1]
Google today announces the launch of Street View on Google Maps in New Zealand: maps.google.co.nz/streetview. Street
View is a new feature for Google Maps that lets internet users view and navigate 360 degree street-level imagery of New
Zealand's cities, towns, regions and remote areas. More »[1]
ALSO:
November figures show TVNZ’s flagship bulletin has grown in both audience numbers and share compared to the same period
last year. It is now heading into its second year of continuous growth. More »[1]
The longer-term outlook is positive for New Zealand’s livestock producers, who are wellplaced to over-come short-term
challenges and weather the storm created by the current financial crisis, audiences in rural New Zealand were told last
week. More »[1]
New Zealand’s most well-known consumer rights advocate David Russell is joining the council of New Zealand’s first
independent telecommunication dispute resolution service, Telecommunication Dispute Resolution (TDR). More »[1]
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COMMENT------------
John Key Meets Queen, Avoids ''Pants'' Faux Pas; Blogger Still Maintains Clark Just Like Mugabe; Jim Anderton Loves
Labour So Much He Is In Fact Marrying Them; New Press Secretaries Busy Reprogramming AutoText More »[1]
Is the New Zealand representative at the UN General Assembly’s discussions on the Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights able to make mention of the fact that the Optional Protocol (OP) does
not ... More »[1]
India is the largest democracy in the world and is claimed to be the world’s rising economic power after China with
Mumbai a leading international financial city. With a population of more than a billion India has vast division among
the people on the ... More »[1]
Although the steps between President-elect Obama's November 13 meeting with Senator Clinton in Chicago and the December
1 nomination of the latter for Secretary of State did not exactly embody the ''no drama'' brand of the former (and,
behind the scenes, ... More »[1]
''The kinds of things you're reporting on, you're reaching a wider audience. It is important in writing to highlight
where there may be controversies or disagreements because that is what's most exciting, that's what moves science. . . . More »[1]
Extruding onto the land like some slow, cold lava from Hades, ten well-trained terrorists were able to shatter the
polytheistic openness of Mumbai, and telescope the distancing complacency of the global society... More »[1]
Often referred to disparagingly by the mainstream media as “the perennial candidate”—after all, he first ran for
President in 1976—Peter Camejo was a huge force in progressive politics in the United States. He died on September 13,
having just recently switched... More »[1]
THE ISRAELI OBAMA. What will he look like, the Israeli counterpart of Barack Obama? What will be his attributes? That is
a tantalizing question. It goes without saying that one cannot construct a human being according to a recipe, like a
cake from a ... More »[1]
Michael Collins writes: California turned blue with a vengeance in the 2008 presidential election. President-elect Obama's 61% majority plus a
78% turnout rate statewide was enough to strip the Republicans of all but one county with a significant population. More »[1]
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LIFESTYLE------------
Santa’s Elves have been busy in Auckland stitching together more than 37,000 magical lights to carry wishes to Santa
this Christmas. The Telecom Tree - a seven-storey high light structure - will shine in Auckland’s Victoria Park this
December and bring magic to the 15 year tradition of Santa Line. More »[1]
“FEWER EMERGENCIES” is the dark, humorous, confrontational and unsettling series of plays presented by the 2008 Acting
Diploma Graduates of The Wellington Performing Arts Centre. More »[1]
An Auckland woman is going to meet her long term friend she met on the internet 12 years ago for the very first time
after winning ‘The Kiwi Story’ Show Off NZ Competition. More »[1]
Wellington's fastest growing sport Gaelic Football, has over 150 kiwis playing week in, week out in their seven a side
summer competition, which started on the 12 November. The games run each Wednesday evening at Ian Galloway Park in
Wilton. More »[1]
With almost 85,000 votes being cast in Throng's third annual Shortland Street Fan Awards, this year's results are the
biggest yet! More »[1]
Lee Mingwei, a leading artist on the international stage, presents Uncommon Senses at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
from 6 December 2008 to 16 March 2009. More »[1]
ALSO:
Te Papa is pleased to announce that its bid for Colin McCahon's painting, Mondrian's Last Chrysanthemum, 1976, was
successful. The painting was purchased for AUD$312,000 (including a 20% buyer's premium). More »[1]
ALSO:
A political studies graduate from The University of Auckland keenly interested in global justice and migration from
developing countries has gained a coveted Rhodes Scholarship for 2009. More »[1]
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WORLD------------
Richard S. Ehrlich writes from Bangkok: In a Darwinian struggle, the rich buy tickets for expensive helicopters and chartered planes, flying from airstrips
elsewhere in Thailand, while protesters blockade Bangkok's international and domestic airports. More »[1]
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A famous Rwandan singer and composer has been sentenced by a UN tribunal to 15 years in prison for inciting the murder
of Tutsis through his songs and speeches during the 1994 mass killings in the small African Great Lakes nation. More »[1]
Early this morning, 11 Greenpeace activists scaled a 150-metre high chimney at the Pątnów power plant in Poland to hang
a banner reading ''Quit coal, save the climate''. More »[1]
Children continue to be enlisted by armed groups in the war-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the
United Nations reported today. More »[1]
With today's introduction of key members of the National Security Team, President-elect Barack Obama and Vice
President-elect Joe Biden have now chosen nearly half of the cabinet, including the heads of the departments of State,
Defense, Treasury, and Justice. Significant among them is Hillary Clinton who will replace Condoleezza Rice as Secretary
of State. More »[1]
ALSO:
The critically endangered cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, is set to obtain added international protection next
week at a United Nations-backed conference seeking the conservation of species that cross national borders. More »[1]
Environmental fraud is big business. The natural level of discomfort that results from the thought of global warming is
reinforced by numerous reports claiming inevitable environmental doom. More »[1]
ENDS