**** CKPT FOR THURS 19 JUNE 2008
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1700 to 1707 NEWS
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FILE-MISSING: A Corrections department file listing 30 pages of high risk high profile offenders on parole or about to paroled has been found lying outside the High Court in Auckland. Journalist and blogger Bomber Bradbury has seen the file and is arranging for it to be handed back. PREREC.
Barry Mathews is the Chief Executive of the Corrections Department. He says the loss of the file is humiliating and embarrassing. PREREC.
ASSAULT DEATH: The grandchildren of an 80 year old woman who was violently attacked in her south Auckland home have made an impassioned plea for her killer to be found. 80 year old Yin Ping Yang was beaten last week by an intruder. Joy Reid reports. PKG.
BUSINESS NEWS - Nadine Chalmers-Ross
EDUCATION-BADGE: Antagonism towards promotional badges sent to schools by the Ministry of Education to promote Māori education is growing. And the row saw Parliament's Question Time today descend into chaos. Here's National's Education spokesperson, Anne Tolley. CUT
Education Minister Chris Carter in parliament today.
The past president of the Auckland Primary Principals Association, Ken Pemberton, comments on the latest developments. LIVE.
PHAR LAP: Forensic analysis has confirmed the long-held suspicion that New Zealand's most famous racehorse Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning. The Timaru-bred gelding died in California in 1932. Today at Melbourne Museum, where the taxidermied horse is displayed, scientists confirmed that Phar Lap ingested a large dose of arsenic in the last 30 to 40 hours of his life. Dr Ivan Kempson led the investigation. PREREC.
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17.30 HEADLINES
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SEX ETHICS: The Bioethics Committee is recommending the government liberalise the guidelines for pre-birth testing, as well as allowing parents to choose the sex of an unborn child. Lisa Thompson canvassed reaction. PKG.
ZIMBABWE: The Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says Zimbabwe's neighbours should have put more pressure on Robert Mugabe to stop political violence. CUT
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, has expressed new fears that violence in Zimbabwe is only going to escalate. Orla Gueran reports. PKG.
CATHOLIC ABUSE: The defence has opened its case in the trial of a Catholic brother with the defendant Rodger Moloney giving evidence. The 73 year old is defending 23 charges of sexually abusing boys at Christchurch Maryland's School in the 1970s. Our reporter Shanna Crispin has been at the High Court in Christchurch and joins us now. LIVE.
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WAATEA NEWS
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CHCH FINES-ILLEGAL: The Christchurch City Council has decided to refund almost 80 thousand dollars in illegally collected parking fines - but only if people ask for their money back. The fines were originally issued for parking offences, including parking on grass verges but this in breach of a central Government law that says councils must put no-parking signs to let people know where they cannot park. Here's Christchurch city councillor Sue Wells. LIVE.
FIJI-ELECTIONS: In Fiji, the interim prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama has told a European Union delegation that next year's election could be delayed by his plans to change the country's electoral system. Fiji's Interim Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khayum, met with the delegates today and had this to say afterwards. CUT
Fiji's Human Rights Commissioner, Shameema Ali, met with the European Union delegates yesterday and joins us now. LIVE.