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Hi everyone, welcome back after a little break.
Sport
Caroline Powell became the first NZ woman to win the Burghley Horse Trials in England 20 days ago.
The Black Ferns won a fourth women's rugby World Cup on the same day, beating England 13-10.
The Tall Blacks did well in the world basketball champs but were knocked out by Russia 78-56.
So in rugby's NPC or ITM cup, the big games over the past few weeks were. Auckland beat Wellington 21-15, Taranaki beat Canterbury 31-20. And this week Southland defended the Ranfurly Shield against Auckland 9-6, BOP beat Otago 40-30, Canterbury beat Wellington 37-30, Hawke's Bay beat Taranaki 32-24 & Waikato beat Tasman 33-15.
Table: Southland 34, Canterbury 31, Auckland/Taranaki 28, Wellington 27, Waikato/BOP 26, Northland* 21, Counties Manukau* 20, Hawke's Bay 16, North Harbour* 13, Tasman 11, Otago 10, Manawatu* 7 (*8 games compared to 9).
The All Blacks had another outing in Sydney where the Wallabies were leading 22-9 with 13 mins to go in the game. The All Blacks however took their chances, won the game 23-22 & got their 10th straight win.
The NZ Warriors ended their season with a 28-16 loss to the Gold Coast Titans, with headlines like "Warriors wilt" however I saw the first 10mins of the game and that was enough. The Warriors were doing great until two completely unfair calls from the ref, basically handed the Titans their first points. I'd guarantee that the Warriors simply had had enough of trying to beat both the Australian teams and the refs at the same time. The game was the last in NZ for Brent Tate who is heading back to Australia for next season.
The Junior Warriors season continues. They have come from behind to beat the Bulldogs and book a place in the "NYC" grand final.
Greg Henderson didn't win the Tour of GB but did win the yellow jersey in stage two, and he finished third overall.
Sixty three year old Graeme Kendall became the first person to sail solo non-stop through the Northwest Passage - a route considered to be the Everest of sailing.
NZ News
Well the aftershocks continue to rock Christchurch, they've had hundreds of them. Even last night there were four over night which continues to fray the nerves of the residents. I heard yesterday that it takes an average adult about five years to "get over" an earthquake like that. The authorities have done well handling the crisis with former Prime Minister Helen Clark saying that other countries should look to NZ as a model for civil defence emergencies - especially when the earthquake is compared to Haiti where a similar sized shallow earthquake occurred a similar distance from a large city. The death of 100,000 people in Haiti was put down to a higher population living in a place with no building standards. By ten days ago, most firms were back open for business.
Earthquake numbers:
350: $ per week wage subsidy scheme announced by the government for earthquake-hit workers
500: prison inmates moved out of Christchurch for safety
700: aftershocks & counting (that was a week ago)
100,000: homes damaged or destroyed
11m: $ donated to the earthquake recovery fund
4b: $ is the now expected final bill for the earthquake
The weather has been shocking for the past few weeks, floods, slips, hail, thunder & lightning all over the country. Southland had it's worst snow ever & the Southland stadium roof collapsed. Early last week a news story noted how 12,000 people all around the North Island were still without power.
One of our top Defence officials is under investigation & has resigned, after it was revealed he had lied for quite a number of things on his CV including that he was an Olympian and a Royal Marine. The Britain, Steven Wilce holds one of the highest levels of security clearance and had been in his job for about five years.
Everyone laughed when John Key claimed he could pick up the phone to talk to President Barack Obama, but now a senior member of Obama's team has praised the Prime Minister saying he is a key player on the international stage and has developed real chemistry with the US President.
The Act party has had quite a few problems over the past few weeks. Mostly surrounding their Law & Order MP David Garrett, who admitted stealing a dead baby's identity to obtain a false passport. He resigned a week ago.
Day light savings started early this morning. Don't forget if you are calling people in NZ!
Former finance minister Michael Cullen is going to take over from former Prime minister Jim Bolger as chairman of NZ Post.
The cost of GST will rise to 15% this week - so everything in the country (probably) will start costing more, but most of us will actually end up with more money in our pockets. Seventy two percent of taxpayers will pay a top tax rate of 17.5% or less.
1: st equal with Australia, NZers are the top in a survey ranking the willingness of citizens to donate time and money to charity
54: % support for National in the latest poll - up 5%, Labour down 3 to 32, Act down from 2.7% to 1.1%, Greens 8%
74: whales were stranded in Spirits Bay Northland, 14 survived the night to be trucked to a more sheltered beach to be refloated
4,287: house sales in August - down on July's 4,411 showing that fewer houses are selling and prices are staying flat
35,000: $ worth of fishing gear forfeited after a BOP man was convicted for illegally selling fish
60,000: $ pledged by the Prime Minister for a new ambulance centre at Fox on the West Coast where nine people lost their lives in a plane crash recently
1.3m: $ awarded to NZ company Shweeb Holdings by Google to develop it's pioneering pedal-powered monorail into the future of city transport
3.2m: $ from the government for developing a bike trail between Greymouth and Ross on the West Coast
13.9m: $ from the govt for five more bike trails - Hokianga, Hauraki Plains, Pathway of Fire (Rotorua), the Old Ghost Road (West Coast) & the Roxburgh Gorge (Otago) - now a total of $45.6m approved
50m: $ in lamb losses from the storms in Southland will affect the price of lamb in stores
Finance NZ Dollar
(Changes from the last weekender)
GBP 0.4643 (-0.0026)
EUR 0.5446 (-0.0150)
USD 0.7345 (+0.0132)
AUD 0.7663 (-0.0211)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Morrie Stanley from Cambells Bay died recently. He was a former NZ Vietnam war hero & recently presented with a bravery award for saving the lives of some Australian soldiers.
More details here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10674202&ref=rss
Lunch and Learn
The company I work for sometimes holds "Lunch and Learn" seminars for employees during lunchtime. These deal with a variety of physical and mental health issues. If the seminar lasts beyond the normal lunch hour, we're supposed to get managerial approval to attend.
So, last week, this flyer came around:
LUNCH AND LEARN SEMINAR: WHO'S CONTROLLING YOUR LIFE? (Get your manager's permission before attending)
Looks like that question's been answered ..........
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
The
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