Turkey Death-Toll Climbs - Authorities are scaling down rescue efforts in the Turkish quake zone this morning. The official death toll currently stands at over 12,000 but another 30,000 people are missing. Rescue teams from around the world have now left and those remaining are preparing to establish emergency field hospitals. Redcross says there is urgency to get the tent hospitals operational. The danger of disease spreading is being compounded by heat, broken sewage pipes, contaminated water supplies and decomposing bodies.

Lawyers Perform Poorly: Peters - Lawyer turned politician, Winston Peters is rejecting the suggestion that lawyers make good MPs. Senior Cabinet Minister Sir Doug Graham wants MPs’ salaries to be increased to lure more lawyers into becoming Members of Parliament. But Mr Peters says what New Zealanders really want is MPs who will stand up for New Zealand. The lawyer MPs he has worked alongside, he says, have performed poorly in that regard.

Handicapped Man May Return To Prison - An intellectually handicapped man may be heading to prison again after running away from a Levin institution. 39 year old David Stevens was sentenced to care at the Kimberley institution last week after he pleaded guilty in the Hamilton District Court to punching a policeman. Under current laws the man who has a mental age of five and is incontinent cannot be detained at the centre. Jail is the only other option. Mr Stevens has already spent time at Waikeria Prison. He was sent there on remand last month with a bundle of nappies.

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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>>