Queenstown Braces For Floods - Green Party Sabotage Internet Link - Are Act Fascists? - Turkish Quake - Gisborne Cancer Inquiry - Gender Pay Gap - Egyptair Crash - Missing Snowboarders Found - China US WTO Agreement - Toilet Racing

QUEENSTOWN BRACES FOR FLOODS: Flood waters lapping into the shopping streets of Queenstown. Major league sandbagging underway. Wanaka also flooding. And Clutha threatening. Retailers prepare for the worst. Up to another 150mm expected in the lakes catchments in next 18 hours.

GREEN PARTY SABOTAGE INTERNET LINK: National today lodged a complaint to police against a link to a eco-activist sabotage toolkit on the green-party website. The sabotage handbook has 133 pages on tools of the eco-spies trade. Nick Smith says Greens are not Green they are extreme. Greens are crying foul over sabotage of their web-site and say it might be the work of an over-enthusiastic wild-green member.

ARE ACT FASCISTS? Labour's Epsom candidate David Jacobs has compared ACT to the fascists of the 1930s. David Jacobs - who is Jewish - said ACT was like Hitler's Nazis (See politics wire for release and responses). Richard Prebble has written to Helen Clark demanding an apology. The Alliance thinks the Labour candidate has overstepped the mark. Jacobs this afternoon said that any member of ACT who feels personally insulted should consider themselves apologised to.

TURKISH QUAKE: Three days on the grief cannot be controlled. 18,000 people die in two Turkish Quakes in 12 weeks. It is now more than 24 hours since anyone has been pulled out alive after the second quake. Once the bodies are out the buildings are pulled down. A quarter of a million people are now living in tents. Banks are in the streets. Millions of people remain terrified that another massive earthquake is just around the corner.

GISBORNE CANCER INQUIRY: Cervical cancer investigation has found four out of five slides with high-grade abnormality were not reported by disgraced Gisborne pathologist Dr Bottrill. The HFA has set up a colposcopy clinic in Gisborne. Ministerial inquiry will visit Gisborne on Wednesday.

GENDER PAY GAP: The EEO trust says there is no sign of the gender earnings gap closing. When men negotiate hard they are seen as strident. When men do they are seen as go-ahead. NZ has lots of leading women now but women still earn 84 cents to every $1 earned by men. Women's earnings are lower in all age groups.

EGYPTAIR CRASH: Remark from pilot about death heard on the tape. FBI believes the co-pilot behaved oddly.

MISSING SNOWBOARDERS FOUND: The mystery of four missing snowboarders has been solved. The bodies have been found in a snowcave.

CHINA/US WTO AGREEMENT: admission agreement signed by US and China. Breakthrough has been welcomed everywhere.

TOILET RACING: Toilet racing is the latest pub craze and is proving popular, and a money-spinner for a Kiwi inventor.

© 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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