Checkpoint FOR TUESDAY 24 2011
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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The Mines Rescue Service, which has so far been largely silent about any recovery at Pike River, says it's never been formerly asked to go back into the mine. A new agreement's been signed between the rescue service, the families, police, and the receivers to investigate options for re-entry to recover the remains of the 29 men killed there. The Prime Minister says the Government will help but there must be a safe and credible plan. We'll hear more from John Key shortly. But first, the lawyer for the Mines Rescue Service Garth Gallaway says the first step is for the receivers to finish stabilising the atmosphere in the mine to make it safe. PRE-REC
Earlier this afternoon the Prime Minister John Key spoke to reporters about the Pike River recovery. He says the Government is happy to put money in to a feasibility study but to fund any recovery operation it must have a safe and credible plan - and there isn't one yet. I/V John Key speaking to reporters this afternoon.
Schools, hospitals and businesses are first in the queue for ultrafast broadband under one of the country's largest ever communications infrastructure projects. The Government has awarded the multi billion dollar job to Telecom for much of the country, but a local Christchurch company is also a winner and it's promising thousands of jobs will result. Tim Graham reports. PKG
Dairy farmers in line for a bumper payout this milkmaking season are promising the riches will trickle down into towns and the tax take. The country's largest company Fonterra today raised this season's forecast payout to between 8 dollars and 8 dollars ten cents a kilogram of milk solids . And its new forecast for next season is the highest it's ever been at this stage. The chief executive of Fonterra, Andrew Ferrier, is on the line. LIVE
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1720 TRAILS AND BUSINESS WITH Amy Williams
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The National-led Government will spend just over 15 million dollars stabilising an old mining dam near Te Aroha, which is in danger of collapsing. Under an agreement with the Green Party the Tui Mine, which closed in the 1970s and is described as the country's most contaminated site, will be cleaned up. The Environment Minister, Nick Smith, says a geo-technical report completed last year has revealed the mine also poses a real danger to Te Aroha. CUT The Tui Mine project manager, Ghassan Basheer [ga-SAHN ba-SHEER], joins me now. LIVE
Wellington's plan for a "Wellywood" sign is raising hackles in California. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is threatening legal action over the controversial plan for the 30 metre wide sign above Wellington airport. And now the Prime Minister John Key, who is also Tourism Minister, says he's no fan of the idea either. CUT Our reporter Nick Butcher has been following the latest developments. Q&A
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17.30 HEADLINES
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Kiwifruit growers are being warned the climate here could make it harder to eradicate the vine disease, PSA. Orchards in Italy and France have been ravaged by the canker - and the industry here should be planning for the worst. The General Manager of Kiwifruit Vine Health Incorporated is John Burke. LIVE
The Canterbury Regional Council is spending tens of thousands of dollars investigating claims that metal drums holding toxic waste are buried beneath the Opuha Dam, near Fairlie, in South Canterbury. A former worker on the dam site, which was constructed in 1994, says some of the dumped drums hold 245T - a chemical used to make Agent Orange. Some of Timaru's water supply is taken from an aquifer below the dam. The council will begin testing the water tomorrow, and the Canterbury Regional Council's Ken Taylor is leading the investigation. PRE-REC
A volcano erupting in Iceland is again forcing flight cancellations in Britain, as its ash cloud has moved into UK airspace. Flights to Scotland have been stopped and the cloud caused a change in the US President Barack Obama's travel plans, whose flight from Ireland to Britain was brought forward. The eruption has people nervous about a repeat of last year's travel chaos - sparked by another Icelandic volcano - which led to the biggest shutdown of European airspace since the Second World War. The BBC's Helen Fawkes has the latest. PKG
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17.45 WAATEA
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A cycling group is pinning its hopes on a new coroner's inquest into eight cycling deaths to make the roads safer. The Waikato Coroner is about to visit four regions round the country for a joint inquest into the deaths that occurred between November and April. Georgina Ball reports. PKG
The former Fiji soldier who fled to Tonga after being charged with sedition says corruption is now rampant within the regime of Commodore Frank Bainimarama. In a You Tube message, Lieutenant Colonel Ratu Tevita Mara says that in order to cover up corrupt dealings, the Auditor General Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum's reports on government accounts have been hidden from the public. CUT Lieutenant Colonel Ratu Tevita Mara. Crosbie Walsh was a professor at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and now has a blog that he describes as being pro Fiji's government in a qualified way. He says there has always been corruption in Fiji. PRE-REC
A teenager, who's been described as Britain's youngest contract killer, is facing a life sentence for shooting a young Turkish woman on the doorstep of her mother's home. Santre (son-tray) Sanchez Gayle, from north-west London, was just fifteen when he was paid 350 New Zealand dollars to murder twenty-six-year-old Gulistan Subasi. (GOO-liss-tuhn SOO-bass-ee) The BBC's crime reporter, Ben Ando, has been following the case at the High Court in London. PKG