HEADLINES & NEWS
Surgical services in Kaitaia are to be restored following a summit meeting in Northland - initially for three months.
The Health Minister, Annette King has been in Whangarei to meet officials from [illegible] Health, Kaitaia surgeons, MPs and community representatives - in a bid to resolve the region's health crisis. After a meeting that was reportedly heated at times, she announced a short time ago that 24-hour surgical services will be restored to Kaitaia within two days, including caesarian sections.
Our Northland reporter Lois Williams is following developments. LIVE WITH DROPINS
Government officials today fronted up over what happened behind closed doors over the suspected GE corn planting in different parts of the country in the summer of 2000. The Ministry for the Environment's new chief executive, Barry Carbon, took the media through the saga that has been dominating headlines in the last two days. This follows allegations - in a book published by researcher Nicky Hager - that the government covered up a plan to allow GM corn to be grown, when initial tests came back positive. Mr Carbon - who's been in the job for just over a week shot from the hip, calling the matter a "stuff up" over the way it was handled. He said the grower who tested the corn seeds did the right thing and told the Minstry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Environmental Risk Management Authority of the corn. CUT
Our reporter Liz Banas was at the media briefing and joins us now. LIVE WITH DROPINS
The chief executive of ERMA Baz Walker joins us now. LIVE
BUSINESS NEWS WITH PATRICK O'MEARA
The Crown Research Institute HortResearch is shedding 41 positions. It's blaming a cut in Government science funding for the redundancies. We're joined now by the company's chief executive, Dr Ian Warrington. LIVE
New Zealand could be shut out of its biggest wine market because its labelling does not meet European standards.
The European market is worth around one hundred and 50 million dollars a year at the moment but that is estimated to double by 2006. Erin Harford explains. PKGE
5.30 NEWS HEADLINES
SPORT with STEPHEN HEWSON
New Zealand women taking hormone replacement therapy are being advised to review their use of the treatment in the wake the latest American research. The study examined the impact of the combined oestrogen and progesterone therapy and found it substantially increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and breast cancer. Massey University's Professor Jenny Carrier was on the committee which drafted New Zealand's guidelines on HRT two years ago.
She says the guidelines already recommend that HRT is not suitable for routine use and it's primarily prescribed to menopausal women with extremely bad hot flushes. PREREC
A legal watchdog has filed a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders against the US vice president, Dick Cheney over alleged fraud during his time as CEO of an oil company. The Washington based Judicial Watch group claims Halliburton overstated revenues by 445 million dollars from 1999, through 2001. The lawsuit came a day after President Bush announced plans to crack down on corporate fraud, as our Washington correspondent Vicky Ford reports. PKGE
There's been more election violence in Papua New Guinea where two people were hacked to death in the Southern Highlands, just hours before troops arrived on election security duty. Political supporters also stole 55 ballot boxes before releasing eight prisoners from police cells in the war-torn provincial capital of Mendi. Voting began on June the 15th and the election results are due to be declared on July the 29th. I asked AAP's Port Moresby correspondent Jim Baynes for the latest. PREREC
With the election just over two weeks away the Electoral Enrolment Centre is urging people to sign up before it's too late. It says first time voters are [illegible] hardest to sign up - that's despite widespread marketing - including people hired to brandish enrolment forms on street corners. The deadline to get on the printed roll expired more than two weeks ago, but people can still enrol but will have to cast a special declaration vote. Since its illegal not to enrol, why do some people still not bother? Sally Wenley takes a look. PKGE
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