Checkpoint FOR FRIDAY 30 APRIL 2010
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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Tonga's Attorney General has resigned in protest over government interference in the judiciary saying the country is heading down the same path as Fiji. John Cauchi who was appointed in May last year says he can no longer act as window dressing for democracy and he wants New Zealand and Australia to condemn Tonga's latest moves. New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully was unavailable for an interview this afternoon, but a spokesman for his office says they are monitoring the situation closely. Mr Cauchi says an eleventh hour decision by the Cabinet to overide his appointment of independent prosecutors for those charged over the Princess Ashika sinking raises serious questions about whether anyone will be held to account. And he's also alarmed that the government has gone ahead and appointed a judge ignoring both him and the Judicial Services Commission. PREREC
In the U.S a massive oil spill is now washing up on the Louisiana coast and President Obama is promising every single available government resource will be used to stop it getting any closer to the Mississippi River. The slick from a damaged rig is now nearly 200 kilometres wide and every day more than 800,000 litres of crude oil gushes into the ocean.For people along the coast of the the Gulf of Mexico it's a distressing waiting game as the ABC's Kim Landers reports : PKG
The flood alert in Queenstown will remain in place for at least a week, with Lake Wakatipu likely to overflow if there's anymore rain. The dangerously high lake is still rising and the Queenstown Lakes District Council says it cannot rule out flooding in the central business district in the next 12 hours. There is still a significant amount of water in lower Beach Street, Earnslaw Park and Marine Parade which runs along the lake front. The Council's James Hadley joins us now. LIVE
Around 4,000 Auckland homes and garages have been built with low grade timber that was falsely labelled as premium load-bearing wood. Larry Binns, a former managing director of West Auckland timber company Total Frame and Truss has pleaded guilty to 36 charges of breaching the Fair Trading Act and fined $15,000. The Commerce Commission says the timber framing and trusses were sold between April 2007 and October 2008. Spokesperson Greg Allan says it launched an investigation after a building inspector discovered the rort. PREREC
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BUSINESS WITH Naomi Mitchell
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China's showcase world expo opens tomorrow to huge international attention, with more than 240 countries on display. It is the first time a developing country has hosted the expo, which is traditionally a platform for a country to flex its political, economic and military might. Chinese media is reporting the Government has spent almost 60 billion dollars on the expo, a larger budget than the 2008 Bejing Olympics. Phillip Gibson the New Zealand Commissioner-General for the World Expo joins me now. LIVE
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17.30 HEADLINES
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A Wellington man who admitted to being part of an international internet child pornography ring will spend the next four and a half years behind bars. Daniel Jess Moore, who is 32, pleaded guilty to distributing thousands of images of children being sexually abused. The sickness beneficiary also recorded thousands of covert images of women in the Wellington city area which were found on his computer. Our reporter, Teresa Cowie was at the District Court in Wellington for the sentencing and she joins us now. LIVE
It's less than a week to the British election and the leaders of the three main parties have held their last televised debate. Much was riding on the outcome particularly for Prime Minister Gordon Brown after a gaffe on the campaign trail yesterday. In their latest encounter the leaders debated the economy. The BBC's Rob Watson. PKG
An Auckland man has been charged with manslaughter after an 8-car pile up which killed another driver. 50-year-old Cornelis Klein had previously been charged with dangerous driving. 71-year-old Michael Plimmer died instantly when Mr Klein's jeep flipped and landed on his vehicle on Auckland's North Shore in February. Georgina Ball has been at North Shore District Court. PREREC
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WAATEA NEWS
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A conman who took elderly Christchurch residents into his confidence while delivering meals on wheels then stole from them, has been sentenced to 5 years in jail. A judge has described 30-year-old Lachlan Patrick Irvine's crime spree as callous, and an illustration of just how low a person can go. Matthew Peddie was at the Christchurch District Court. LIVE
Three education professors are warning families to keep a critical eye on government plans for pre-school education. The government this week indicated it will rein in early childhood spending that has trebled to more than one-billion-dollars in five years. Professor Helen May from the Otago College of Education says early childhood centres now fear a change in their funding formula. She joins us now. LIVE
The Whangarei District Council is defending its policy of shooting farm stock wandering onto roads, saying it has dramatically decreased the risk to motorists. The Council has shot a number of animals this summer after repeated attempts to get landowners to fence them in. But the SPCA and a neighbouring council say the hard-nosed policy may not be legal. Lois Williams reports: PKG
The US defence department says only a quarter of what it regards as key regions in Afghanistan supports President Hamid Karzai. The Pentagon says much of the country is either neutral to the central Afghan authorities or supportive of the Taliban insurgency. The findings have been published before Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington next month. The BBC's Ian Pannell reports from Kabul : PKG
People feel more pain when they get empathy from others and women are more sensitive to pain then men but complain less. That's according to a professor of pain studies speaking at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaethsetists conference in Christchurch today. Montreal's McGill University's Professor Jeffrey Mogil explains. PREREC
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(Source: Radio New Zealand iNEWS)