National Radio Midday Report

GM Cow Trials – Manufacturing E – Small Business Tax Changes – Botswana Crash – Foot And Mouth – Tax Cuts – Tetanus – Sentence Reduced – Taranaki Dioxin – Smoking In Clubs – Dingo Cull – Council Building – Dairy Merger – Sargeson House

- GM COW TRIALS: The High Court in Wellington has ruled in favour of a group of people appealing against the ERMA decision to allow field trial experiments where human genes are inserted into cows.

- MANUFACTURING E: An Auckland science student has become first person to be convicted of manufacturing Ecstasy in New Zealand.

- SMALL BUSINESS TAX CHANGES: Proposals to simplify the tax system for hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been released by the Government today.

- BOTSWANA CRASH: The names of three New Zealanders killed in a Botswana plane crash have been released.

- FOOT AND MOUTH: British PM Tony Blair is expected to announce later today that the foot and mouth epidemic is now over, effectively giving the go ahead for general elections.

- TAX CUTS: President George W. Bush and the US congress have clinched a deal to carry out his election pledge of sweeping tax cuts and curbs on Government growth, but not quite as much of either as he had hoped.

- TETANUS: NZ has had its first case in 15 years of a young child being infected with tetanus.

- SENTENCE REDUCED: The Court of Appeal has ruled that a mentally ill woman who was convicted of killing her 8-month-old son got too harsh a sentence. The woman, diagnosed with Munchousen-by-proxy syndrome, had her 7-year manslaughter sentence reduced by half.

- TARANAKI DIOXIN: A survey is underway in Taranaki to test for dioxin contamination at alleged chemical dump sites. Dow Agro-Sciences, accused of dumping chemicals releasing toxins, would not comment today.

- SMOKING IN CLUBS: The NSW Supreme Court decision awarding more than half a million dollars to a barmaid whose throat cancer was linked to passive smoking in the club she worked at has put pressure on all Australian states to outlaw smoking in clubs and hotels.

- DINGO CULL: Conservationists are protesting at the Queensland Government’s decision to cull dingoes on Fraser Island following the fatal dingo attack on a 9-year-old boy on the island.

- COUNCIL BUILDING: The Palmerston North Mayor says the council has given the hotel developer until next week to come up with money it has promised to pay for the council’s central city building.

- DAIRY MERGER: A dairy industry leader is denying that squabbling over the appointment of a CEO could wreck the mega-merger plans.

- SARGESON HOUSE: The planned road widening of the road for bus lanes on Auckland’s north shore could cut into the property where Frank Sargeson wrote, which as been turned into a literary museum.

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