*** Checkpoint FOR THURS 24 DEC 2009
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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It has been a horror 24 hours on the road with six deaths, four of them today just hours before the start of the holiday road toll period. 376 people have been killed so far this year - eleven more than last year. The National Road Policing Manager is Superintendent Paula Rose - she joins us now. LIVE
Last minute Christmas shoppers have set a another new EFTPOS record. In the peak hour between midday and one o'clock today, Paymark - which handles three quarters of the country's electronic transactions - recorded 131 transactions per second. That's up from last year's Christmas Eve high of 127 per second but Paymark won't know until until tomorrow whether more money's been spent. While some shoppers out today have been watching their dollars and cents others say they're happy to splurge. CLIP
Joining us now is Paymark's Chief executive - Simon Tong: LIVE
The government's being accused of misleading the public over how much money it's having to borrow. The Council of Trade Unions says the much quoted figure of 240 million dollars a week doesn't quite stack up because not all of it is new debt. National is rejecting the criticism - our political editor Brent Edwards has been looking at the figures and joins us now. LIVE
About two and a half million dollars worth of LSD has been seized by police and prison staff from a car park at a women's prison in Auckland. An amount equivalent to 50 thousand doses was found at Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility. A man has been charged with possessing class A drugs for supply. The prison manager is Agnes Robertson. PREREC
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1720 TRAILS AND BUSINESS WITH Anusha Bradley
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The Auckland City Mission says it's had its biggest queues for food pacels in ten years. As Ben Brown reports in the past two weeks almost two thousand people have come through the mission doors, double the number for the same time last year.
PKG
The American parents who triggered a major alert by claiming their 6-year-old son Falcon was adrift in a helium balloon have been sentenced to jail time. Richard Heene (hee-knee), who is 48 has been sentenced to ninety days in prison for the stunt, which captured international media attention in October. His 45-year-old wife Mayumi got 20 days - with the judge saying her term would begin after her husband's jail sentence ends, so at least one of them can be with their children during that time. Erina O'Donohue reports: PKG
And now for the big question ...whether or not the time has come to choose between owning a large dog and driving a large car.
Robert and Brenda Vale, professors at Victoria University, have written a book about the environmental impact of daily living, entitled "Time to Eat the Dog: the real guide to sustainable living".
It looks at the carbon emissions created by popular pets and says people should think about owning edible creatures such as chickens or rabbits. Earlier this year Robert Vale told me the eco-print of German Shepherd sized dog is twice that of an SUV.
PREREC
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17.30 HEADLINES
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While most New Zealanders are in for a fine Christmas Day, across the Tasman a flood warning has been issued for parts of New South Wales. Emergency services have warned that the dregs of Cyclone Laurence, which has left a trail of damage across the coast of Western Australia, is about to hit that means heavy rain and flooding for northern parts of the state tomorrow and Boxing Day. On the line now is a senior forecaster for the New South Wales Bureau of Meteorology, Peter Zmijewski (zm- ee- v - ski) (Z-meefski) LIVE
There has been a series of attacks against Shia pilgrims and other Shia targets in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Police sources say at least five civilians have been killed and more than forty injured.
Security forces have been on high alert in the run up to the Shia religious festival of Ashura this weekend Here's the BBC's Baghdad correspondent, Rob Walker: PKG
Christmas Island, best known for its detention centres, is now attracting visitors of a different kind. The small Australian territory has just had its first cruise ship visit, and the government says there'll be many more to follow. But the idea of promoting the island as a high-end tourist destination has drawn ridicule from opposition MPs, who question why anyone would want to go to a place filled with refugees who are desperate to leave. Gordon Thomas is the mayor or president of the Christmas Island Shire - he says it has to lot to offer. PKG
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17.45 TRAILS
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WAATEA
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The New Zealand record company Flying Nun has again been bought by the man who first started the label in the eighties, with bands like the Chills and the Clean.After swearing off the music industry and selling Flying Nun to a multi national record label in the nineties, Roger Shepherd is back in charge of the company that first took New Zealand rock and roll to the world. Ben Robinson Reports PKG
One of the greatest mysteries of the golden age of flight - what happened to Amelia Earhart - might finally be solved in the coming months when a team researchers return to a tiny archipelago near Kiribati. Earlier this year I spoke to Ric Gillespie - he's heading up the mission which has been given new life after the Earhart family agreed to provide DNA. He says that can now be used to compare with any human material the team recovers from an area American pilots first flew over in 1937 following an SOS call believed to be from Amelia Earhart PREREC
This year a life-size bronze sculpture of Phar Lap in full gallop was unveiled in the South Canterbury town where he was born. The champion racehorse entered the world in a paddock just three kilometres outside Timaru. The $500,000 memorial was revealed during the Timaru Festival of Roses. Gerry Morris from the Phar Lap trust spoke to Checkpoint just after the unveiling. PREREC