National Radio Midday Report

Community Services Card – Body Found – Gras Skirt – Antarctica Airlifts – Dash-8 – Qantas Collapse – Taiwan Weapon Sale – Sub Commander Court Marshalled – Anzac Memorial – Meridian – Youth Health

- COMMUNITY SERVICES CARD: The Green Party wants the Government to overturn a decision denying low paid workers access to the community services card.

- BODY FOUND: Divers have recovered the body of 4-year-old Christian Alfred Crawford from a creek where he went missing. The death is not being considered suspicious.

- GRASS SKIRT: The Crown has told the high court that jail is the only suitable punishment for Matthew Schofield for setting fire to a co-worker’s grass skirt at an office chirstmas party causing his death.

- ANTARCTICA AIRLIFTS: Confusion surrounds the condition of 12 people being rescued in two separate missions in Antarctica. A Canadian newspaper has reported that an American doctor suffering pancrietis is improving and doesn’t want to be rescued. 11 other people are due to be lifted from McMurdo Sound by a NZ Hercules.

- DASH-8: The Crown has opened its case against Gary Sutheran, the pilot charged with the manslaughter of four people on board the Dash-8 plane he was piloting when it crashed.

- QANTAS COLLAPSE: The Qantas Australia 767 sent from across the Tasman to relieve the backlog of passengers stranded by the collapse of Qantas NZ has begun work on the Auckland-Christchurch run.

- TAIWAN WEAPON SALE: Reports from Washington say President Bush plans to sell Taiwan new weapons, but not the state of the art Aegis naval radar system Taiwan wanted to buy.

- SUB COMMANDER COURT MARSHALLED: The commander of the US Navy nuclear Sub Greenville has been ordred to resign from the US Navy after a court marshal over the collision with a Japanese fishing boat.

- ANZAC MEMORIAL: PM Helen Clark is due about now in Canberra to dedicate an Anzac memorial in the Australian capital.

- MERIDIAN: Finance Minister Michael Cullen says he supports state owned power company Meridian Energy spending more than $100 million to buy an Australian power company as he says the Government wants SOEs to grow.

- YOUTH HEALTH: Young people have been asked to help design a youth development plan to help boost the health of New Zealanders age 12-25.

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