News and Current Affairs.
Main Stories:
The Space Shuttle Challenger is due to take off in just over an hour on its sixth mission. Shuttle flights have become so routine these days that most people pay them only passing attention, but this flight has a special attention for New Zealand. DSIR scientists here are taking part in one of the experiments in which the shuttle crew will aim a special radar device at New Zealand. A report about the experiment. Speaker: Dr Mike McDonnell (DSIR).
A report from Australia where the Costigan Commission on the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union has implicated Kerry Packer as “Goanna” and involved in organised crime. Two reports.
In 1901 when the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York visited New Zealand the Government of the day thought it such a significant event that it took unprecedented steps to record it. This rare footage, which also features Richard “King Dick Seddon, is the oldest surviving piece of film shot in New Zealand and has been uncovered and preserved by the New Zealand Film Archive. A report about the work of, and problems facing, the Film Archive. Speakers: Jonathan Dennis (Director, Film Archive), Peter Tapsell (Minister of Internal Affairs). Also see under F57349 (better quality)
News Summary:
The Opposition Leader Sir Robert Muldoon finally made public today the date the French President gave him for the end of nuclear testing in the Pacific. President Mitterrand told him testing would end at Mururoa in two years. Speaker: Geoffrey Palmer (Deputy Prime Minister).
Auckland Police still have no new leads into last night’s armed robbery of the Mangere Bridge Post Office. A father and his ten month old daughter were shot in the raid. Speakers: John Palmer (Chief Postmaster, Auckland), Dt Chf Insp Ron Chadwick (Police Operations).
Both the union and management are claiming satisfaction from the report on the Picton railway roster dispute released today.
The Prime Minister David Lange is in Singapore tonight en route to New Caledonia where he is to have discussions with the French High Commissioner and various independence movements.
There have been a spate of political bombings in various parts of the world.
In England the corpse of an Iron Age man is seeing the light of day.