Dismay At Moratorium on Irradiated Food - Alliance health spokesperson Phillida Bunkle says it’s a major step backwards. Health Minister Wyatt Creech has signed up to a deal in Canberra which will allow the manufacture and importing of some irradiated products, ending a ten year moratorium. Ms Bunkle says New Zealanders are now stuck with the decision because it is a bilateral agreement and can only be changed if the Australians agree to it. She doubts whether consumers will benefit.

Revelations of Corrections Department Plane Charter - Overcrowding in North Island prisons means the department will fly 30 convicts to Christchurch tomorrow. They will be housed in the second unit to be completed in the Paparoa Remand Centre. Canterbury Prison spokesperson says it is a fairly routine event.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>