Nuclear Guinea Pigs – Ambulance Assault – Parental Leave – Telecom – Hitchhiking Escape – Italian Elections – National Party Presidency – Maternity Care Funding – Christchurch Marina

NUCLEAR GUINEA PIGS: The Minister of Defence says he has serious concerns about NZ service personnel being used as radioactivity guinea pigs in nuclear explosion experiments in Australia and the Pacific.

AMBULANCE ASSAULT: An Auckland Ambulance manager says an assault on four ambulance crew called to a heart attack in West Auckland meant that the victim could not be resuscitated. One of the ambulance crew was knocked out for three minutes in the assault.

PARENTAL LEAVE: National’s Jenny Shipley is worried that the parental tax credit may be scrapped to partly fund the Government’s planned parental leave scheme. She says such a move would hurt low income working families.

TELECOM: TUANZ says a deal between Telecom and Hutchison Whampoa is good news for telecommunications consumers. Telecom has also announced plans to merge the Xtra and MSN Internet portals. Ernie Newman says in spite of some concerns about the technology, 3G phones are the technology of the future.

HITCHHIKING ESCAPE: Police say an abduction of a hitchhiker between Hamilton and Auckland could have been a lot worse had the woman abductee not fought off her attacker.

ITALIAN ELECTIONS: Almost 60% of Italian Voters have cast votes in elections with three hours of voting left. Many voters have had to wait lon

NATIONAL PARTY PRESIDENCY: Michelle Boag has drawn attention to possible voting irregularities in the race to become the National Party President. Concerns seem to center around a woman who voted for Mr Slater at two conferences.

MATERNITY CARE FUNDING: The Government is seeking to standardise the way it bulk-funds maternity care.

CHRISTCHURCH MARINA: Lytellton boat owners are cautiously welcoming a recommendation from the Christchurch City Council that it fund a new marina.

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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