Cervical Smear Inquiry - The Government’s launched a ministerial inquiry into Gisbourne’s cervical cancer smear scandal. It comes after the Health Funding Authority revealed that discredited pathologist, Richard Botchrell, botched the smear readings of 119 women. 4900 smears have been retested so far. Another 20,000 smears still have to be read.

Quake Death-toll Rises - The death-toll in Taiwan’s worst earthquake this century is expected to rise through the night. While TV One News has been on air the death-toll has been revised to 802 dead,with thousands of others injured or trapped in the rubble.

United Nations Firms Control In Dili - United Nations is tonight reasserting its control in East Timor after the first peacekeepers arrived in Dili. I Jakarta President B.J. Habibie told parliament thatIndonesia should honour East Timor’s independence referendum result.

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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>>