Top Scoop Stories December 8, 2009 News Summary
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LEAD STORY------------
56 newspapers in 45 countries have taken the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial.
We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and
security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past
14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices
provide a foretaste of future havoc. More »[1]
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[6] - http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-change-exempting-one-of-nzs.html" target="_blank [6]
- More »[1]
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ETS, etc [2]
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NZ POLITICS------------
The Crown and Ngāti Whare today signed a Deed of Settlement for the iwi’s historical Treaty of Waitangi claims, Minister
for Trety of Waitangi Negotiations Christopher Finlayson announced. Ngāti Whare’s rohe is centred around Te Whaiti,
Minginui and the Whirinaki Conservation Park in the Bay of Plenty Region. More »[1]
Most of the intercepts of the pseudoephedrine precursor to P that were being touted by John Key at his press conference
yesterday originated from China – which suggests that Chinese criminal gangs may be at the heart of our P problem. Key
though, didn’t seem to know either way. More »[1]
ALSO:
The review was conducted by the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development Peter Hughes, the Commissioner of
Police Howard Broad, and well known clinical psychologist Nigel Latta... “Mr Latta has found that the Police and CYF
responded appropriately and proportionately to the child safety concerns that were raised,” Mr Key says. More »[1]
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- More »[1]
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The nine finalists for the 2009 Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand
are: ANZ, BNZ, Infratil, Newmont, Rio Tinto Aluminium NZ, Rymans, Telecom, Transpacific and Westpac. More »[1]
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- More »[1]
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The Governments of Australia, The Netherlands and New Zealand remain resolute in our opposition to so-called
‘scientific’ whaling. We are deeply disappointed at the recent departure of the Japanese whaling fleet for the Southern
Ocean. More »[1]
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BUSINESS SCIENCE & TECH------------
Prescriptions for government funded medicines increased by almost 4 percent last year to 36.3 million, but the rate of
that growth is slowing, drug buying agency PHARMAC says. More »[1]
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Telecom New Zealand Limited has pleaded guilty to 17 charges of breaching the Fair Trading Act over claims made in 2006
when promoting Xtra’s Go Large broadband plan. Telecom has been fined $500,000 in the Auckland District Court today. More »[1]
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Federated Farmers welcomes Fonterra’s announcement of an annual retention but believes the amount retained by the
cooperative is far too small. More »[1]
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COMMENT------------
Media coverage of the battle against P has tended to focus on the role of Maori gangs in the P trade. Yet most of the
intercepts of the pseudoephedrine precursor to P that were being touted by John Key at his press conference yesterday... More »[1]
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When California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, travels to Copenhagen this week to participate in Subnational Day at
the UN Climate Change Conference, he and his support staff may be doing so at the expense of a wealthy business owner
who contributes... More »[1]
Uruguay's left wing political coalition, the Broad Front party ( Frente Amplio ), retained control of the presidency in
the November elections. This wasn't just any election. More »[1]
Several public accounts of abusive interrogations at Guantanamo have praised psychologist Dr. Michael Gelles for his
opposition to these abuses. Similarly, the American Psychological Association (APA) has repeatedly pointed to actions of
Dr. Gelles to instantiate... More »[1]
Tomorrow Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labanino will grace the Miami court with their presence once again - for yet
another re-sentencing by a judge more renowned for her grotesquely inconsistent rulings than for the administration of
justice. More »[1]
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IT WOULD have been the epitome of political kitsch. Binyamin Netanyahu and ten of his ministers were to hold a joint
meeting with Angela Merkel and ten members of the German cabinet. What for? To demonstrate Germany’s love for Israel... More »[1]
It has been called the spoiling of a good walk and similar to watching flies fornicate, but golf has decided to provide
a touch of entertainment for the rest of us. And it should come as little surprise that it has nothing to do with golf
itself... More »[1]
It's been a year since the Illinois Department of Natural Resources poisoned all the fish in Lincoln Park's South Pond
to ''restore'' the water body into a ''model Illinois freshwater habitat.'' Most of the world was watching the events a
mile away in Grant... More »[1]
Hillary Clinton, in a just-published piece on the Afghanistan mission (see note at bottom), offers us nothing helpful or
enlightening, only boiler-plate American slogans, the kind of stuff you’d hear from some provincial Congressman giving a
Fourth of ... More »[1]
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LIFESTYLE------------
What is one to make of this extraordinarily gritty, brutal film by Lee Daniels? An obese 16-year-old girl from Harlem
is cooking for her abusive, welfare-addicted mother in a room that rarely sees the light of day. The mother hurls an
object at ... More »[1]
New Zealand Freedivers have shown the world, that when it comes to going deep, those from down under truely have what it
takes. Over 2 seperate events held in Denmark and The Bahamas, Kiwi Freedivers have won a total of 9 medals, out of a
possible 22, hauling the highest Medal Tally of any country, and cementing NZ's place as the leading freedivers in the
world. More »[1]
ALSO:
Break out the diary, cancel your late February plans, and surprise your loved one(s) with tickets to something truly
wonderful and intimate: the one and only Rufus Wainwright is returning to New Zealand for a very special evening
featuring our prodigious wunderkind in solo piano and vocal mode. More »[1]
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WORLD------------
The difference between success and failure in Copenhagen could be whether warm words are backed up by the funding to
protect vulnerable people from climate change and help developing countries reduce their emissions. More »[1]
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The U.S. Department of State in October published the latest in its series of ''Background Notes'' regarding Indonesia.
( http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2748.htm ) The periodic series provides a useful overview of the history, culture,
geography, economy and government. More »[1]
Bananas are withstanding the impact of the global economic crisis more than most agricultural commodities, with
consumers regarding the fruit as a necessity in their diets, according to a new report issued by the UNFAI. More »[1]
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today voiced its sadness at the death of
Ikuo Hirayama, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima who became an eminent painter and advocate for the agency’s work. More »[1]
Two Rwandan peacekeepers from the joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID) were killed and others
wounded today in an attack by unidentified gunmen while collecting water at the north of the strife-torn Sudanese
region. More »[1]
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has applauded the big leap taken by the South African Government towards
achieving universal access to treatment for HIV for the country’s women and children living with the virus. More »[1]
In its annual survey of the protection of human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories, ACRI reveals an alarming
trend: the conditioning of rights. More »[1]
ENDS