The Weekender 25/04/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 25/04/2010 - 18:16
Welcome to ANZAC Day. It was a great day to remember the ANZAC's who fought in both wars for us, thousands turned out for the dawn services around the country.
Sport
Well just in case you are sick of rugby & league, we'll start off with curling. The brother & sister team of Sean & Bridget Becker have won silver to claims NZ's first world curling champ medal in a thrilling 7-9 mixed doubles final against Russia. The champs were in Chelyabinsk, Russia.
It's not a normal week without a league scandal, however this week the biggest rugby league scandal ever, surfaced. The Melbourne Storm were found to have breached the salary cap by $2.2 million over the past five years. The glamour club has only been going for a few years but held two premiership titles and three minor premierships - now we know how they did it! They have been stripped of all the titles (with no replacement), they have to return the $1.4m in prize money they won (to be distributed amongst the other teams), and they've been fined $650,000. They've also been stripped of all points for this season and can't collect any points. It is deservedly the worst penalty in NRL history.
The Super14 continues and it seems that NZers just aren't very good at rugby this year. The Bulls jumped back to the top of the table thrashing the Lions 51-11, the Sharks beat the Blues 23-10, the Hurricanes won, but it was only against the Highlanders and it was only 31-33 - which is scarily close for a team that should be doing much better. The Crusaders were embarrassed by the Western Force of all teams losing 24-16, the Waratahs beat the Brumbies 19-12, the Reds beat the Stormers 16-13. The Chiefs had every chance to beat the Cheetahs but drew 25-25 after Stephen Donald and Callum Bruce missed all eight of their shots at goal.
The Wellington Phoenix have been granted a five year extension to continue playing the Australian A-League.
The ANZ Netball champs continue with the table looking like this: Vixens/Swifts 10, Magic 8, Thunderbirds/Mystics 6, Firebirds/Steel 4, Fever/Tactix 2, Pulse 0. So the kiwi teams aren't doing too bad!
NZ News
There was tragedy for the ANZAC day commemorations today after three Air Force officers flying to the Wellington services, died when their Iroquois crashed. John Key is cutting short his trip to Gallipoli to attend their funerals.
You might think that tar-sealing all of New Zealand's most major road would have been done long before now, but it was finally finished this week. While all but the last 21 kms of the 2,022km road has been completed for probably decades, those 21 kms at the top of the country have held out to remind visitors and NZers alike, what real roads are. Actually I think it was the locals who didn't want the road sealed, fearing even larger numbers of tourists heading to Cape Reinga. My wife & I went up there a couple of weeks ago and were very surprised to see most of it done with just a small stretch to finish - it's certain less dusty, and no corrugation!
The Air Force is considering buying Safe Air, an Air New Zealand subsidiary, to ensure it's Hercules are upgraded, after a Canadian company introduced delays of more than four years and the aircraft which have returned have bugs in the software. The delays caused Air New Zealand to announce that it would have to lay off the 100 staff from Safe Air.
116: m free diving record for kiwi William Trubridge winning the Vertical Blue competition at Dean's Blue Hole, Long Island (it took 4 minutes & 9 seconds)
15,000: people turned up in Auckland for the ANZAC day commemoration
1.4m: kiwis have made purchases over the internet in the past 12 months
15.9m: $ loss announced by the NZRU for 2009 - a record
615m: $ five year deal agreed to by Sanzar for Super rugby and Tri-Nations - a 35% increase
1.8b: $ "low quality" spending will be cut from Government departments and redirected to education, health and law & order
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4666 (+0.0050)
EUR 0.5361 (+0.0109)
USD 0.7174 (+0.0085)
AUD 0.7734 (+0.0059)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Sir Ian Axford
Sir Ian died at his home in Napier this week. In 1995 he was the New Zealander of the Year and a Royal Society fellow and he conducted ground-breaking research in planetary science, comets and solar physics.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10632525&ref=rss
Smuggler Prosecution
My boss is without peer when it comes to the rules and regulations that customs officials must follow. But when it comes to the law, well, that's a different story.
We were attending a court case in which we were prosecuting a smuggler. The judge asked the court, "Who is making these allegations?"
My boss stood up and proclaimed, "I am the alligator, your honour."
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
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