**** CKPT FOR MON 21 MAY 2007
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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Mayors are putting the pressure on parents to do more to curb their teenagers' deadly drunken antics.They say more parental responsibility and NOT tougher laws is the answer.The local leaders met in Christchurch today, to discuss preventing tragedies such as the deaths of two 16-year-old girls hit by a car outside a party in the city recently. And just over the weekend, 20-year-old Scott Finn died after being struck by a car in an alleged drag race in Mt Maunganui.From Christchurch, Monique Devereux filed this report. PKG
Nelson Mayor Paul Matheson chaired today's meeting.He says the focus was not on how existing laws could be toughened, but whether parents are doing enough to ensure their teenagers don't end up dead or badly injured PREREC
An Invercargill woman is demanding that medical staff at Dunedin Hospital be held to account, after her five-year-old daughter developed a flesh eating disease and had to have a finger amputated.Leilani Pennicott lost her index finger after getting the infection, necrotising fasciitis, following surgery to remove a needle that had become lodged in her hand.The Health and Disability Commissioner, Ron Patterson has found the hospital didn't give her antibiotics before operating and didn't know she'd previously had a superbug.While Mr Patterson says it's not known if this would have stopped the infection, he's ordered Otago District Health Board to apologise to the family, and to make sure it never happens again.But Leilani's mother, Allanah Pennicott says a letter of apology isn't much. She still vividly recalls what happened when she took her daughter for a checkup a couple of days after the surgery, and the doctor took the bandages off the hand. PREREC
Otago District Health Board chief medical officer Dick Bunton says the hospital's clinical record procedures have been tightened up. And the DHB's apology is for the treatment provided by the hospital rather than the for Leilani losing her finger.
Some of its bloodiest internal feuding since the 1975 to '90 civil war has hit Lebanon. 50 people are dead after Lebanese troops battled Fatah Islam militants around a Palestinian refugee camp. Fighting erupted when security forces raided a building in the northern city of Tripoli to arrest suspects in a bank robbery. Our correspondent is Sara Khoury. LIVE
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BUSINESS NEWS
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A record shipment of common New Zealand stamps has just clinched a Kapiti Coast stamp trader the deal of a lifetime. John Mowbray of Otaki will send 11-point-five-million New Zealand stamps to Britain later this week - the biggest ever stamp consignment to London.He won't say how much was paid for the stamps, but he says they're worth next to nothing here. PREREC
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17.30 HEADLINES
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A controversial episode of the television cartoon South Park has been the subject of a legal challenge today in the High Court in Wellington. New Zealand's Catholic Bishops have asked the Court to overturn a Broadcasting Standards Authority decision which ruled the cartoon, which depicted a bleeding statue of the Virgin Mary, didn't breach television standards.The episode was screened by the broadcaster, Canwest on its channel C4 in February last year.Our Court reporter Ann Marie May has been at the hearing and joins us now. LIVE
Auckland is set to embark on a one billion dollar overhaul of its train system in a bid to make it a rail city to rival Wellington.The government announced last week it will allow the regional council to impose a 10 cent a litre fuel tax to fund the electrification of the trains.Transport authorities say there will be more trains and they'll be cleaner, more efficient and free up the roads.But already wary travellers are worried about more of the delays they're so familiar with. Rowan Quinn filed this report. PKG
Seven Greymouth laboratory workers were suspended for a week this morning, after they turned up for work intending to perform only limited duties.The move by the West Coast District Health Board could herald the start of wider industrial conflict, with more than 100 staff at Counties Manukau DHB threatening similar action tomorrow.Lab workers at eight other health boards have given notice of a partial withdrawal of labour over the next couple of weeks, amid an ongoing stalemate over a wages and conditions claim. John Sheard, a medical laboratory scientist at Greymouth Hospital, is one of the seven workers suspended today PREREC
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WAATEA NEWS
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Bad weather's being blamed for switching off the lights on a runway in Niue, forcing an Air New Zealand flight to abort its landing and turn back to Auckland.The lights failure at Niue's Hanan Airport forced the 737 jet in to an hour-long holding pattern yesterday, Friday Niue time, while engineers unsuccessfully tried to fix the problem.The plane then went to Tonga to refuel before flying back to Auckland, turning a three-and-a-half hour flight into an almost ten hour ordeal. Nearly 50 passengers booked on the return flight to Auckland were also stranded in Niue.New Zealand's High Commissioner to Niue, Anton Ojala (oh-JAR-lah) says flights will resume this evening. But he says the bill will be in the thousands. PREREC
National says there's no mood to bring their problem MP, Brian Connell, back into the party caucus. The member for Rakaia missed the Canterbury-Westland conference at the weekend and says as long as he's excluded from the caucus he feels unwelcome at such gatherings. Brian Connell was suspended from National's caucus last year after he challenged the then party leader, Don Brash, about his private life.Here's our political reporter, Julian Robins. PKG
The world of film and fashion for the next two weeks is centred on the French Riviera, with the opening of the annual Cannes film festival. CNN's Neil Curry reports the festival has the knack of producing the unexpected PKG
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